400.2-5
U2.T1
Give an example where morality and technology could conflict at your place of employment. Be specific.
U2.T2
Does technology make understanding and applying ethics easier or harder? Explain
U3.T1
List and discuss reasons why software piracy is everywhere. Do you consider piracy equal to theft? Why or why not?
U3.T2
What are some ways software rights can be protected and include why it is necessary today? Explain with specifics.
U4.T1
Explain and comment on the Cyber Security Enhancement Act of 2001 (HR 3482). Discuss whether it is effective or not. Include specifics.
U4.T2
Define the differences or similarities to theft of services and theft of information. Include examples based on research or experiences.
U5.T1
Review and comment on the section titled “Misuse of the Electronic Mail”
“Misuse of The (Electronic) Mail
Electronic mail (e-mail) has rapidly established itself as one of the preferred methods of communication on college campuses and in businesses. It presents a great convenience but also many drawbacks. It seems that people are willing to put in e-mail messages things they would never say to someone directly, or even put in writing. Just as with long-distance weapons, one tends not to think of the “victim” as a real person when you are just staring at the screen of a machine, and so some very damaging things may be written. Also, one does not sign the message with a handwritten signature, and so can always deny being the one who sent it. It is also easy to “ masquerade” as someone else over the wires by stealing someone’s password or just by taking on a different “persona.”
One occasion of the latter is reported by Lindsy Van Gelder in “The Strange Case of the Electronic Lover,” a true story that appeared in Ms. magazine in 1985.[ 49 ] We are told about a person communicating online with many others; she said “she” was Joan Sue Green, a woman who had been badly disfigured in an automobile accident that killed her boyfriend and affected her ability to speak and walk. She, however, wrote very well and affectingly through e-mails, and made many friends. It was finally revealed that “Joan” was a prominent New York male psychiatrist who had been doing this as a “bizarre, all-consuming experiment to see what it felt like to be female.” All those who had corresponded with “Joan” felt “betrayed.” “Joan” had even pressured her correspondents to have “compusex” (typing out their hot fantasies), and had arranged for one of them to meet this “great guy”—the New York psychiatrist himself![ 50 ] They got rather involved before the deception was revealed.
Although the psychiatrist may have rationalized to himself that he was doing it all for the good of science, a “science” that undermines the trust and self-esteem of other people to achieve its ends must be judged immoral. It violates friendship.
We can see from the “electronic lover” that it is very easy to dissemble on the Net. One can play gender-role games in MUDs,[ 51 ] or pretend to be rich and famous, or poor but talented, or to be a spy (a kind of air-waves True Lies or Total Recall), or . . . the possibilities are endless. The problem is that many people can get hurt by such deceptions, like those who corresponded with “Joan.” The point is well-made in the New Yorker cartoon with a dog explaining to his canine friend that on the Net no one knows you’re a dog.
In the fall of 1993, the University of Wisconsin provided students at its Madison campus with e-mail accounts, encouraging them to use the accounts to interact with their instructors. A small group of students forged messages including a letter of resignation from the Director of Housing to the new Chancellor, and a message “from the Chancellor” saying he was going to “come out of the closet” on September 25.[ 52 ] This gives you a small taste of the kinds of message-tampering that can go on.
“Flaming” is sending someone a nasty e-mail. Often such a message is bracketed by <FLAME ON> . . <FLAME OFF>. An article, “My First Flame,” in the New Yorker in 1994 brought flaming to more general public attention. The author, John Seabrook, had recently been flamed by a colleague (a tech writer), or someone impersonating him on the Internet. In the article, Seabrook published the contents of the message—a painfully aggressive (and apparently undeserved) attack with no holds barred, full of offensive language. He said that “To flame, according to ‘Que’s Computer User’s Dictionary,’ is ‘to lose one’s self-control and write a message that uses derogatory, obscene, or inappropriate language’ ” (Seabrook, 1994, p. 70). The message he received certainly fit that description like a glove. Seabrook was shaken by the message, an upset that did not go away.
Seabrook wrote of his fascination on first going on Internet with the possibilities it offers. He thought that “I was going to be sheltered by the same customs and laws that shelter me when I’m talking on the telephone or listening to the radio or watching TV” (Seabrook, 1994, p. 71); but he quickly found out that is not the case. There are no FCC regulations governing what goes over the Net. He contacted CompuServe to ask whether subscribers were allowed to “talk” to each other like this, and received the answer that these mail messages “are private communications, [so] CompuServe is unable to regulate their content” (Seabrook, 1994, p. 72).
Seabrook said this was the only medium through which he would have received such a message, which elsewhere would be, “literally, unspeakable. The guy couldn’t have said this to me on the phone, because I would have hung up and not answered if the phone rang again, and he couldn’t have said it to my face, because I wouldn’t have let him finish” (Seabrook, 1994, p. 71). Face-to-face, such things would be much more difficult, if not impossible, to say. Seabrook’s size might have intimidated the speaker, as a possible audience or even the flamer’s own conscience might have as well. Even in a letter he might not have used the same language, and there is the matter of actually signing one’s own name in ink, and the time it takes actually to mail the letter, which allows reflection that might conclude that sending the letter was not prudent. None of those considerations deter the e-mail flamer. There is no audience but the intended target, he doesn’t have to face the victim, he can always claim that someone else sent it if pressed legally, and there is no time lag in which to think. As soon as the last character is typed in, the message can be sent to its destination at the speed of light.
As Seabrook pointed out, the normal laws do not seem to apply here, in what is characterized as cyberspace. The bad language does not constitute an FCC violation, and it is not clear whether a recipient of an attack can charge defamation of character or libel. Another problem is that many “flames” are not sent directly to the target, but rather are posted on a public “bulletin board” for all to read. The ease with which one can publish a thought (good or bad, friendly or destructive) to hundreds, thousands, or more readers is frightening.
A community with no laws quickly becomes an anarchy, which might be all right if everyone in the group was morally responsible and rationally competent. But if we live in a community (in this case, that of the Net) in which not everyone acts ethically and rationally, and there are no laws to constrain hurtful behavior, the community will self-destruct.
Should there be laws in cyberspace? If so, to what extent? If we operate on a libertarian principle that you should be free as long as you don’t harm others, then close attention must be paid to what counts as harm. The harm problem comes down to creating degrees of evil in the hierarchy of evils (the opposites of the fundamental goods). Thus, what causes death, pain, illness, frustration, ignorance, weakness, or enmity is evil, and should be avoided, and forbidden by law in cases where human choice brings these evils about. Such ethical deliberations lay the groundwork for whether we should have laws, and what those laws should be. We are in new territory where there are no existing laws to which we can appeal; we must appeal to ethical principles.
The issues connected with laws and the Internet will be examined further-in Chapter 10 .
[ 49 ]Lindsy Van Gelder, “The Strange Case of the Electronic Lover,” Ms., October 1985, p. 99.
[ 50 ]Van Gelder, pp. 103–4.
[ 51 ]A MUD is a “Multi-User Dungeon” (an outgrowth of the “Dungeons and Dragons” game); it is also used to stand for “Multi-User Domain” or, for those into virtual reality, “Multi-User Dimension.”
[ 52 ]Software Engineering Notes 19, no. 1 (January 1994), 7–8.”
U5.T2
Discuss the differences between hacking and phreaking. Is one more unethical than other? List specific examples.