Ethics, Law and Cybersecurity

CSCI 415 Ethics, Law and Cybersecurity

Chapter 10 Quiz 10

 

1. (a) Do we, as a society, have a special obligation to disabled persons to ensure that they have full Internet access? (b) Is the argument that by providing improved access and services for disabled persons, non-disabled users will benefit as well, a reasonable argument? Consider that it can be dangerous to reason along this line; for example, suppose that non-disabled persons did not benefit from software applications designed for the disabled. (c) Would that be a reason for not investing in software for disabled people? Defend your answer. Please elaborate (beyond a yes or no answer) and provide your “theoretical” rationale in support of your responses. (comprehension)

Yes, as a society we have a special obligation to disabled persons to ensure that they have full internet access. The Internet is a free and great source of communication, entertainment, and knowledge. Giving internet access to disabled persons will help them forget their weaknesses and learn something new which was impossible before to do. It will help them get connected to the people from the other part of the globe and the world itself. According to the director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Tim Berners-Lee –“The power of the web is in the universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.” W3C has established the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) which has mandated that accessibility features for disabled persons are built into the design of all Web interfaces for computer systems.

The feature on the web which supports disability will certainly help disable people to learn something new and it won’t harm a non-disabled person if it is there. Disability is not something that somebody wanted but it just happens to them. Also, we don’t know what might happen to us in the future. So we should always have a positive side for a disabled person because they are not disabled by choice.

2. Theismeyer described racist/hate Web sites in this chapter. (a) Should Web sites that promote racist speech be allowed to thrive on the Internet? (b) Has the proliferation of these sites increased the incidence of racism on a global scale? Or is the Internet, as some have suggested, a force that can help to reduce racism? Please elaborate (beyond a yes or no answer) and provide your “theoretical” rationale in support of your responses. (comprehension)

The Internet is like space. It is so vast and nobody has control over it. Though there are so many protocols and providers who are trying to maintain rule and regulation over effectively, it is a tough job. Racism is something people like us created to show their superiority among other human beings based on nationality, color, etc. Racism is never a good thing and it only promotes hate crime and other illegal kinds of stuff. People are living together maintaining peace and order with unity. But racism only divides people, makes them weak and calls more problems. On the internet, we can still find a large number of websites that still promote racism and those websites should be banned and federally charged as soon as possible. Hate crimes are the protagonist to the unification of society and it should be stopped as soon as possible.

We can see to maintain the dignity of the community, developed countries like Germany and France have censored race-related speech rather than censoring pornography. Freedom of speech so much prevails in the United States that people freely speak whatever they want either good speech or racist speech. Like everything has cons and perks, the internet also does. So we should use the internet to promote unity, not promote racism or division.

3. (a) What obligations does the United States have, as a democratic nation concerned with guaranteeing equal opportunities for all its citizens, to ensure that all its citizens have full access to the Internet? (b) Does the United States also have obligations to developing countries to ensure that they have global access to the Internet? If so, (c) What is the extent of those obligations? If not, (d) Why? For example, (e) Should engineers working in the United States and other developed countries design applications to ensure that people living in remote areas with low connectivity and poor bandwidth have reasonable Internet access? If so, (f) Who should pay for the development of these software applications? If not, (g) Why? Please elaborate (beyond a yes or no answer) and provide your “theoretical” rationale in support of your responses. (comprehension)

Equality, freedom, and liberty are the three key principles on which the United States was formed. The founding fathers gave everyone equal rights and opportunity when they decided to form a nation and had a constitution written down. Thus, being in a democratic country, everyone should have full access to the internet and everyone has the right to achieve information in the field of information technology.

The US is not obliged to help other nations in the field of the internet like they have full access to the internet or not. But helping is a good thing morally. Since human beings are born equal, developing countries are getting help from other developed nations to make the internet accessible by everyone. The extend of

these obligations are to “do no harm” and to do good to others only in cases where individuals or nations have legal contact in which they are required to come to the aid of others.

Yes, engineers from the United States and other developed nations are designing different types of applications to ensure people living in remote areas with low connectivity have reasonable Internet access by inventing inbuilt satellite enable devices to get access to the Internet like dish channels. Also, non-profit organization and government should provide funding for developing these types of software and hardware because they have to provide such essential means to their people