COMPUTER ETHICS

Computer Ethics

Table of Contents

Introduction3

History of Computer Ethics4

Discussion9

Hi-tech or an invasion of privacy?15

Computer Viruses17

Are Computer Hacker Break-ins Ethical?19

Computer Ethics Pioneer Makes A World Of Difference20

Conclusion23

References24

Computer Ethics

Introduction

Computer Ethics is the branch of philosophy that analysis the nature and social impact of computer technology as well as the standards of conduct which pertain to proper use computers. It involves social issues, such as access rights, working place monitoring, censorship and junk mail; professional issues such as professional responsibility and code of conduct; legal issues such as legal obligations, data protection, computer misuse and software piracy. (Anderson:2004:98)Within a relative short period of time, computer technology has created huge new possibilities and also the ethical and social implication on both business and individual's life. However, ethical framework and laws lag behind all the new innovations, to fill the vacuum, it needs timely effort to make laws, to corporate with company policy, personal policy and social conventions. Computer ethics is at its relatively young stages.

One of the major concerns for business currently is Computer Ethics (CE) or information ethics. (Burmeister:2006:pp54)Computer Ethics is a new division of ethics growing and changing at a startling rate as technology evolves. The term "Computer Ethics" can be interpreted from different perspectives. For instance, as explained by Luciano Floridi, Computer Ethics can be viewed as the efforts of professional philosophers to apply traditional ethical theories, for instance utilitatianism, Kantianism, or virtue ethics to issues regarding the use of computer technology. From a different perspective however, Computer Ethics can be viewed as very inclusive and broad, by including standards of business practices, code of conduct and public policy.

History of Computer Ethics

In 1940s, Norbert Weiner, MIT professor and a pioneer of computing, create “cybernetics”, an information feedback system and forecast that computers would create unemployment worse than Great Depression, but it was ignored for decades. (Burmeister:2001:107)

1950s-1960s The dawn of computer technology, which features large mainframe computer, the main issues are “can machines think?” personal privacy threats, centralization of power and big government. (Bynum:Rogerson:2001:74)

1950: Norbert Wiener published the book, “the Human Use of Human Beings”, which established him as the founder of computer ethics and laid out the foundation of computer ethics.

1966:  MIT's Joseph Weizenbaum writes a program called ELIZA that makes the computer act as a psychotherapist.

1966: First computer crime, a programmer used computer code to prevent his banking account from being flagged as overdrawn.  When late discovered, there was no law to charge this crime. (Edgar:2004:45)

1966: the adoption of Freedom of Information Act, which gave the individual and organizations the right to access data held by the federal government

1960s:  Donn Parker, an author on computer crimes, pointed by ACM, led the creation of ethics code in computer technology fields.

 

Famous quintessential author Issac Asimov, concern in his fiction stories, “are there decisions that computers should never make?” (Johnson:2004:41)1970s-1980s The young and exponential growth of computer technology, which features minicomputer, microcomputer, personal computer and the beginning of networking. (Landford:2001:10) The attention turned to software and the issues are surrounding it, such as property ...