Cybersecurity Ethics

This course examines ethical issues relevant to ethics for cybersecurity professionals, including privacy, professional code of conduct, practical conflicts between engineering ethics and business practices, individual and corporate social responsibility, ethical hacking, information warfare, and cyberwarfare. Students will gain a broad understanding of central issues in cyberethics and the ways that fundamental ethical theories relate to these core issues.

Course Material

While taking this course I have taken numerous stances on different scenarios throughout the semester. Many of which have stuck out to me and have made me think despite doing my own research on it. The 4.4 Case Analysis describes a situation where a professional coder takes part in a job in creating a quiz for a website that’s job is to trick young girls. What makes this job questionable is that it was a quiz that recommends which drug a person should take. The quiz was designed to trick young girls and promote the company’s drug. Bill Sourour, the man who completed the job knew the requirements needed for the quiz but still went through with the job. He saw this as a job and he completed what he was paid to do. After creating the quiz, there was a news report stating that a young girl had killed herself by taking the drug he had made for the website. My stance on this position was that creating that code was morally problematic and Sourour should have not gone through with that job because it targeted vulnerable young girls. My stance still has not changed because it is a terrible thing to have happened. Bill Sourour was a big part of what had happened to the young girl who took her own life. Despite it just being a job, he knew exactly what was being promoted but he only saw it as a job and for the money. It really makes you think about how many professionals are out in the world that take jobs that are morally unethical.

The ethical tools were something that I have learned more throughout the course and how it can be relevant towards certain situations. The ethical tools make you really dig deep and think about how it influences the way people may think. One of the ethical tools I used in this course was ethics of care. Ethics of care deals with personal relationships, connections, and also interdependence. Ethics of care shows that we act on special obligations to show partiality to those we have connections and relationships with. Care is not a duty, but it is an emotional component. Ethics of care represents that caring relationships are a moral basis to treat those closest to you as important. In the reading “Mother of Invention”, we learn that Anwuli is treated differently after having a baby with someone who was already married and had 2 children. Those closest to Anwuli including her cousins and sister blocked her on social media. Anwuli was painted as a character that was not true. The actions from those who used to surround Anwuli should have treated her with respect to preserve the relationship. The ethics of care approach supports that those around Anwuli should have prioritized her needs instead of completely shutting her out. 

Another topic that I engaged in in this course would be unlocking the deontological tool for moral reasoning. In this assignment, we focus on Superman and how he refuses to bend the rules of morality. When we think of Superman, we think of someone who acts and looks perfect. In this scenario, The Elite is a powerful group of heroes who believe that the normal and traditional ideas are too weak. They support that extreme actions are needed to be able to make a better world. Superman believes that someone’s crimes do not completely remove their own value as a human being. Deontology focuses on people’s reasons for acting in considering whether a specific action is considered to be right or wrong. Superman decides his actions based on the moral rule instead of killing. The example given in this ethical tool’s reading was a man that does not want to commit a crime because he is scared to go to jail. The person did not want to commit a crime because of the consequences and not out of respect for others or responsibility. This ethical tool becomes valuable when it comes to making decisions and having thoughts on individuals. 

A takeaway I would like my future self to remember is that I should always act on what is right and not what is only right for me. I want my future self to know that my own actions can affect others especially in negative ways. This course has shown that just because something may benefit us, it may not overtake the bad in situations. The utilitarianism tool shows that moral theories are theories of morality that think what makes things right or wrong. The actions from someone are good exactly when the consequences increase the amount of good in the world. And the right action is the one that increases the amount of happiness and decreases the amount of suffering. This is what I would want to go by for my future self. We could call ourselves selfish for doing what might be best for us and forget everyone else, but that is not me. I like to do good in society in hopes that it could also benefit others around me.