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
Reflective Writing
I think one of the first topics or perspectives that I engaged in that left an impression would be the case analysis on professional ethics. Reading “The Code I’m Still Ashamed Of” by Bill Sourour made me really stop and think about how our actions can affect others and how we might not at first see the ethical implications of our decisions. With hindsight it’s easy to say that the decision Sourour made was wrong and shouldn’t have been made in the first place. That’s why he’s writing about it, but it’s a perfect example of how we should always be conscious of our decisions and actions on an ethical level. The takeaway from this story for me was that we should be conscious of our actions and what effect they could have on others. Something that we see as relevant might have devastating effects on someone else.
Another topic that I found interesting was the case analysis on privacy. We discussed the ethical methods of the implementation of Google Street View. Google was able to violate others’ privacy without consent and didn’t care that they were. Only after the fact did google make an effort to “correct” their mistakes allowing people to submit tickets to have their information removed. These actions by Google are very disturbing and show how far an Industry or company will go to do whatever they want without the fear of repercussions. Nobody will go to jail for violating millions of people’s privacy. Google will just pay out some money and keep doing what they are doing pushing the limits of what they can get away with. The takeaway from this example is how society reacted to the Google Street View. In many countries and eventually in the USA people saw how Google was violating privacy, except that it was too late it had already been done and the main objections didn’t come until after the damage was done. I think going into the future it will be interesting to see how society changes. Do we stand up against things like this or do they become so commonplace that companies just get away with it and the ethical standards of society change around technological advancements?
For my last reflection I think the most helpful thing I’ve learned in this course is just looking at things ethically. I particularly liked Kant’s categorical imperative and how we shouldn’t make exceptions for ourselves and treat others the way we want to be treated. We should always respect others and consider them before we act in a way that could negatively affect someone else. While this seems like a very simple concept I don’t see much of this happening in society today, we seem to be disconnected from thoughts of respect and everyone acts entitled and superior. I think the best example from Kant is the concept that even if something someone did had a positive result, if they did it for the wrong reasons it’s still unethical. I think these types of decisions dominate our society today, we only care about others or act according to our own best interests and sometimes it might benefit someone else. Now that I have a better understanding of how to view ethical decisions I hope it affects my decision making and life into the future.