Introduction to Cyber-ethics

Issues for ICT Professionals

School of Architecture, Computing, and Engineering
University of East London

5 March 2014

Dr Josephine Anne Stein

Principal Research Fellow in Innovation Studies emerita
Law and Social Sciences/LSS

E-mail: jastein9@gmail.com
Overview
 Ethical issues for ICT professionals
 Definitions and basic concepts
 Western moral tradition and evolution
 What is the relevance of ethics to ICTs?
 Cyber-ethics issues and dilemmas
 Practical approaches to applying ethics
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Ethical issues for ICT professionals

 Data protection and other legal matters

 Hacktivism
 Business computer ethics
 Surveillance at work
 Ethics in the Cloud
 Online privacy

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British Computer Society Code of Conduct

 Public interest
– Awareness of legal environment
– Avoid discrimination
 Duty to relevant authority
– Compliance and expert judgement
– Confidentiality and disclosure
– Manage task within time and budget
 Duty to the profession
 Professional competence and integrity
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Definitions: Ethics

 The study and philosophy of human conduct, with

emphasis on the determination of right and
wrong. The basic principles of right action
especially with reference to a particular profession
(New International Webster’s Dictionary 1996)

 a code of behaviour, especially of a particular

group, profession or individual. The moral fitness
of a decision, course of action, etc.
(Collins Dictionary 2002)

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Why ‘Cyber-ethics’?

 Computer ethics
– Customised or bespoke software (machines)

 Internet ethics
– Netiquette (www, email) (content)

 Cyber-ethics
– LAN  Internet  Cloud (environment)

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 Definitions: Morality
 the quality of being moral; that which renders an
action right or wrong; the practice of moral duties
apart from religion; virtue......ethics (Chambers
Dictionary 1998)
 a set of shared rules, principles and duties
applicable to all members of a group or society
which we follow in our day-to-day living.....They
help us to distinguish between right and wrong (E
Turner)

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Moral philosophy and applied ethics
 Moral Philosophy or “metaethics”: philosophical
reflection on the nature of moral judgement
– critical analysis, identifying moral principles
 Applied ethics: practical approaches to under-
standing real-world moral issues, making explicit
beliefs and values based on philosophical principles:
– individual rights and autonomy
– ownership
– authority and relativism
– objectivity, trust, privacy
– social distribution of responsibility, damage and risk

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 The nature of authority
 Expertise and subjectivity
– validated knowledge and credentialed expertise
– scientific method, experience, opinion
who is qualified concerning moral judgement?
 An authority or someone in authority?
– is doing the right thing about avoiding punishment?
– is authority conferred or earned?
– when and why does one reject authority?
 From power-based to rule-based to
value-based morality
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Ethics in the Old Testament

 Ten Commandments, abridged and paraphrased

(Exodus 20)
 Honour your father and mother

 Don’t commit murder or adultery

 Don’t steal or covet what isn’t yours

 Don’t lie

 Other Old Testament examples

 Don’t accept bribes (Exodus 23)
 Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him (Exodus 22)

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Christian ethics
 Incarnation: God as taking human form
 taking personal responsibility for one’s actions
 ....but external divine authority still available to judge, offer
absolution from sin or punishment of the guilty
 Teachings of Jesus Christ
 loving all, including the outsider, the rejected, the enemy;
faith, hope and charity, settings norms of humane behaviour
 defying local authoritarian power, leading to JC’s execution
 Resurrection
 vindication of JC’s embodied human/divine authority
 Rise of the Church and the Bible as authoritative
 closing the biblical canon in 405 AD, ‘Christendom’

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The rise of secular humanism
 Reformation and Protestantism (16th century)
 Martin Luther and the rebellion against corruption
 Henry VIII and the Church of England
 Enlightenment (18th century)
 rise of rationality and human-centred philosophy
 Modernism (early 20th century)
 triumph of “progress” in delivering prosperity now
instead of promises in “eternity” or afterlife, based
on universal scientific principles
 Postmodernism (mid-late 20th century)
 rejection of the “grand narrative” in favour of
“constructed identity”, anti-realism and pluralism
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 Systems of ethics:
From ancient Greece to the 21st Century
 Deontology: rules, rights and duties
– Divine command ethics
– Kantian ethics
 Contractualism
– Hobbes
– Social contract
 Consequentialism
– Utilitarianism
 Virtue ethics
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Deontology

 Rules, rights and duties

 Divine command ethics:
Claims made about obedience to God
– “Son of Sam” murders
– George W. Bush and the invasion of Iraq
– Acceptability in academia

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Categorical moral obligations:
Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804)
 Duties as fundamental
 Morality a matter of objective, dispassionate rationality
 Intent as the basis of moral judgement:
autonomy assumed
 Hypothetical (non-moral) imperatives:
 If you want to be healthier, stop overeating
 If you want to be happier, make more & better friends
 If you don’t want to be killed, hand over your money
 Categorical (moral) imperatives:
 “common sense” rules that apply to all (universality)
 does not distinguish means from ends
 absolute: exceptions as never justifiable
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Contractualism
 Mutual advantage based on rational agreement
– explicit, codified (formal contract)
– implicit, understood (paying for a restaurant meal)
– intuitive expectation of social behaviour (psychological
contract)

 Thomas Hobbes (1588 - 1679)

– limits of altruism and sympathy
– inequalities in power amongst people  need
for absolute ruler
– “social contract”, authority and governance

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Consequentialism and utilitarianism
 Consequentialism: the consequences of an action
alone determine its morality
the ends justify the means
 Utilitarianism: not the same as usefulness....a goal
– classical: “the ultimate good is something that most people
actually desire”
– modern: “satisfaction, rather than happiness”
– ethical hedonism: pleasure the only ultimate good
the greatest happiness of the greatest number
 In philosophy, pleasure, happiness and hedonism
are more sophisticated concepts than as everyday
terms, but....
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Virtue ethics

 Aristotle and purpose in life

– Excellence, flourishing as source of
happiness

 Augustine, Aquinas
– Specification of virtue in terms of health,
aesthetics, knowledge, authenticity,
integrity, justice, friendship, holiness

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Computer ethics
 Postwar period:
 the rise of ‘artificial intelligence’ and fears of social
domination by computers
 large-scale computation enabling greater lethality of military
weaponry
 large-scale data manipulation enabling the centralisation of
social control (especially government): privacy and dignity
 Microcomputers, networking and personal computers
 software and IPRs
 hacking
 Internet and bandwidth
 privacy and protection from malicious individuals
 dependency in the age of informational capitalism
 Cloud computing
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Conceptualising computers and ethics
 Software
 Hacking
 the Internet
 the Cloud

“Computer and information technology creates new

possibilities; it instruments human action in new ways.
The ethical issues that are thereby created are not out
of the realm of human under-standing, but they have
unique features with which we must come to grips.”
(Johnson)

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Computers and society: the case of software
 Software (Johnson)
– A series of mental processes that cannot be owned, an
internal structuring of a computer that forms a part of the
machine, or a standalone product with commercial value?
– Traditionalist view: adapt existing tools such as patents
and copyright? But can this approach capture the novel
features and their (sometimes unintended) applications?
 Social context: moral, cultural, political ideas
“the study of computer ethics turns out [to] be the study of
human beings and society -- our goals and values, our
norms of behavior, the way we organize ourselves and
assign rights and responsibilities”

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Are computer ethical issues unique?
 New entities: programmes, software, microchips,
Websites, video games (MMORPGs), the Cloud
 Scale of organised activity: data collection, calculation,
statistical analysis
 Scale of calculations: new types of knowledge in fields
such as meteorology, economics, military technology
 Inherent unreliability of computer systems: new ways
of thinking about risk, accountability and liability
 Power and pervasiveness: dependency on computers
for all aspects of modern living, sometimes life itself
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Practical applications of ICT ethics
 Personal choices: careers, ownership of consumer goods
 Protection of children and vulnerable people in our care
 Policy, regulation and law
– both public and corporate policies
– gender, race, disability, equality and dignity issues
– regulation of service provision and content
– intellectual property rights
– rights to privacy
 Conduct of democracy
 Codes of professional conduct
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Data Protection Act (1984)

 DPA requirements include

– Registration of personal data
– Description of purpose of use
– Person responsible for subject access requests

 Eight principles
Fairness, specification of purpose,
appropriateness, adequacy, accuracy,
timeliness, accessibility and security

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Data Protection Act (1998)
 Implementing European standards as per the
Legal protection of databases Directive (1996)
 Registration
 Enlargement of jurisdiction to cover more types
of data systems
– Manual data
– Videotapes, CDs, etc.
 Information Commissioner empowered to issue
fines from 6 April 2010
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Implications of the Data Protection Act
for ICT professionals
 Awareness of requirements for
registration; exemptions
 Treatment of personal data
 Use and disclosure of data
 Adequate but not excessive
 Accuracy and timeliness

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Data protection and the Internet (I)

 Exemptions for personal use of data

 DPA Section 55 at work

– Pornographic websites
– Sexually explicit e-mails

 Disclosure of data to third parties

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Data protection and the Internet (II)

 Web site cookies, application forms and

transparency
 Confidentiality and public services
 Use of personal data for secondary purposes
– Authorisation
– Public interest disclosure
– Informed consent

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Computer Misuse Act (1990)

 Unauthorised access to a computer

 Unauthorised modification of data
held on a computer
 Hacking
 Infecting computers with viruses
 Attempt to control international
computer crime
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File-sharing, IPRs… and Democracy
 Napster mp3 file sharing started in 1999 and was shut
down in 2001 by judicial order
 More than 60% of Internet traffic p2p sharing music,
movies, books and games (June 2010)
 Encryption and IP address migration
 Piratbyrån - The Pirate Bay: 25 million visitors/month
(2008) – only hosts bit-torrents and not files so cannot be
shut down – but  conspiracy case
 Market economy vs. capitalism (concentrated power)
 Democracy and Human Rights: Piratpartiet and privacy

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Digital Economy Act (2010)
 Copyright/anti-piracy
– Compels ISPs to report persistent offenders
– Powers to restrict or cut off Internet access granted to
the Secretary of State to instruct ISPs
– Ofcom enforces ISPs obligations
– Control of content:
 Video game classification
 Copyright material on websites
 The controversy continues
– Implementation wrt piracy delayed until 2015

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Professional responsibility v.
Legal responsibility

 Compliance with the law

 Contribution to the formulation of law
and professional practice
– Technological expertise
– Ethical/professional judgement
 Disclosure (whistleblowing)
 What if the law itself is ethically wrong?

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Business computer ethics
 Ethical behaviour as essential to maintaining trust
that is the basis for doing business:
– clients, customers and suppliers
– competitors, especially when collaborating
– employees, shareholders and stakeholders
empirical observation: “ethical behaviour works” (Langford)

 Computers pervasive in all aspects of business, and

businesses of all sizes are highly dependent upon them
 Computers allow very complex processes to take place
which are not transparent to consumers or regulators

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Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act
(2000)

 allows monitoring of email

by employers

 legalises interception of email

by the security services

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 Cloud computing and cyber-ethics
 Control and responsibility
– Users relinquish control over both
computation and data
– Dispersed responsibility for data and
computational integrity
– Disappearance of geographical and
functional boundaries
– Multi-purpose, multi-use
– Accountability?

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Online Privacy : Why is it
important?
 Personal autonomy, security and dignity
 Freedom of association
 Political freedom and democracy
 Intellectual property
 Commerce and employment
 Protection from cyber-crime

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 What does secrecy mean in a
virtual social environment?

 Privacy
 Anonymity
 Identity
 Security
 Confidentiality

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Privacy
Theories of privacy:
– Non-intrusion privacy: being free from
interruption and interference
– Seclusion privacy: personal privacy and
being alone
– Control/access privacy: having control over
information about oneself
– Limitation privacy: context-dependent
limits to access to one’s personal information

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Internet privacy
 Datagathering and cyberstalking
 Dataveillance
 Merging electronic records
 Personal data mining
 Search engines
 Social networking online
What is properly personal and private, and
what is in the public domain?
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Anonymity online

Liberation (Cyborg Manifesto)

– or deception?

‘On the Internet, nobody

knows you're a dog’

Trust and accountability

(e.g. misrepresentation and hacking)

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Identity in the virtual world

 Personal, social and legal identity

 Aliases

 Constructed identities

 Digital effigies

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Security: a highly emotive topic

 Technological security (PETs)

 Identity theft, impersonation and fraud
 Surveillance and “counter-terrorism”
 Psychological and sociological origins
(“existential insecurity”; “risk society”)

Security through cooperation

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Confidentiality and trust
 Friendship, kinship
 Caring professions
– Medical
– Social
– Educational
– Religious
 Employment
 Social contracts, social capital

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Evolution of virtual society

 Communities
– Personal / family / diaspora
– Occupational / professional
– Interest group

 Organisations and institutions

– e-government
– e-commerce
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The social regulation of the virtual world

 Regulating human behaviour

– Individual
– Institutional
– Social

 Social values of the Internet

– Development of expectations of identity in a
postmodern medium
– Confidence in secure transactions (financial, personal)
– Anarchy, communism (Linux, open source software, freeware)

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Secrecy and governance in the virtual
world
 Technological approaches are insufficient
 Formal and informal approaches to the
governance of the www
 Social norms differ according to national,
religious, ethnic and other distinctive
features of various societies – including
online societies
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Promoting an ethical approach and
the problem of moral philosophy
 Internet ethics is derived from Western moral
philosophy, thus based on Judeao-Christian and
European cultural heritage

 The foundations of different ethical frameworks

cannot be fully rationalised – and therefore,
conceptualisations of ethical standards and
approaches to governance (e.g. deontology,
utilitarianism, notions of human rights etc.) don’t lend
themselves to multicultural rationalisation

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Universal ethics
 Values? (worth, esteem, etc.)
– Is privacy an intrinsic social value or is it
instrumental ?

 Truly universal ethics are based on virtues:

– Honesty and trustworthiness
– Benevolence and generosity
– Excellence
– Courage
– Honour and respect
– Justice

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Virtual and virtuous ?
 Honesty and trustworthiness: Wikipedia
 Benevolence and generosity: on-
line petitions and appeals
 Excellence: peer-reviewed journals
 Courage: resistance to political oppression
 Honour and respect: netiquette
 Justice: ?
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Virtual secrecy?
 No technological solutions to social problems,
but no legal solutions either
 Tailoring secrecy to purpose
– Protection of legitimate confidentiality in
professional and business/financial world
– Protection of personal privacy and dignity
– Social scepticism wrt identity – education

Informal and informed cooperative social

promotion of on-line virtue
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Psychology of moral autonomy
(Lawrence Kohlberg)
 Preconventional level: self-benefit and the
avoidance of punishment
 Conventional level: family, group or social
norms uncritically accepted as standards of
morality
 Postconventional level: individual recognition
that right and wrong is not reducible to self-
interest or social convention
– autonomous individuals who think for themselves
and do not assumes that customs are always right
– seek to live by general, universal principles such as
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moral integrity, respect, and the “Golden Rule”JA Stein 51
Limits to rationalism
 Feminist critique: “ethics of care” (Carol Gilligan)
– context-dependent on maintaining personal relationships:
masculine ethics based on abstract rights and rules contrasted
with feminine context-oriented reasoning
 Persistence of religious morality in contemporary society
– empirical observation that religious experience (including
conversion) is attributed to God
– impossible to acquire religious belief through reasoning
– fundamentalism mainly in text-based religions: no moral
ambiguity -- also balanced ‘scripture, tradition and reason’
 Computer Power and Human Reason (Joseph Weizenbaum)
– Decision vs. choice
– Judgement, compassion and wisdom

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Moral Heuristics
 Is it honourable? Is there anyone from whom we would like
to hide the action?
 Is it honest? Does it violate any agreement, actual or implied,
or otherwise betray a trust?
 Does it avoid the possibility of conflict of interest? Are there
other considerations that might bias your judgement?
 Is it within your area of competence? Is it possible that your
best effort will not be adequate?
 Is it fair? Is it detrimental to the legitimate interests of others?
 Is it considerate? Will it violate confidentiality or privacy,
or otherwise harm anyone or anything?
 Is it conservative? Does it unnecessarily squander time
or otherwise valuable resources?
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Example: Ethical analysis of plagiarism

 Identify and list as many different forms of plagiarism

as possible
 Select four of the most egregious forms of plagiarism
 What are the main ethical issues?
 Identify the stakeholders
 What ethical principles apply?
 What formal guidelines apply?
 What are the long-term implications, including
prevention strategies?
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Plagiarism…..don’t…..
 When to reference
 “Lifting” material
– Padding
– Over-reliance on sources
 Other hazards:
– Self plagiarism
– Collusion
– Commercial (dis-)services
 UEL guidelines, policies and
strategies
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