PHIL 355E – Cybersecurity Ethics
About the Course
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.
Samples of my course work:
End-of-Course Reflection
Throughout this course, I gained some new perspectives on several topics and ethical theories and how they are applied to our lives and technology. The first topic that gained my attention and opened my mind was related to privacy through the topic involving Google’s Street View launching in the United States and other parts of the world. The case which was reviewed asked whether or not Google could have introduced Street View into areas in a more ethical manner. As I reviewed the case and began thinking of the details through the lens of ethical theories, I realized I had not considered how ethics can influence the way technology evolves. Part of this evolution is the way in which creators bring the technology into the wider use of everyday people. In many cases, this can make our lives easier or influence them in ways we had never considered before. In the case of Google Street View, allowed some professionals to do their jobs faster and more eco-friendly, such as community development professionals. However, it also managed to offend other cultures and populations with the privacy infringements of having their homes and streets photographed for the world to view as they wished. I hope to begin to consider the ethical consequences in my contribution to the world of technology.
One ethical theory stood out to me during this course: ethics of care. I had not really understood this theory prior to the course, let alone how it applied to the public or employers. This theory finds its morality within a balance between logic and emotion. Through caring for those around us, we can pursue justice. This extends into interdependent relationships beyond personal ones, such as between governments and their citizens, or employers and their employees. Recognizing these types of relationships and how they can be nurtured through emotion to do what is best for the other means both parties can flourish. As we create and improve technology, we should understand that the end users are the group we have an interdependent relationship with, and we should all strive to do what is best for all.
The last topic which really struck me was how Professional Ethics extends further than simply behaving ethically in the workplace. The case this idea was reviewed through involved a programmer who wrote a quiz for a client of his employer to specifications which were questionable at best. This quiz only led users to be directed to the client’s product with few exceptions, which later was discovered to be a contributing factor in users’ deaths. The programmer did not question the instructions at first, and later still remained silent after discovering the number of users who had died. The question posed was if the programmer behaving immorally by writing the code. In this case, the programmer had a greater ethical responsibility to the users of the product than he had to either his employer or the client. As a technology professional, we have to strive from being caught up in the work and remember the impact of what we do will have on real people. We have the ability to stand up for immoral actions, such as stealing user data or writing unethical codes. I personally want to strive to remember this throughout my career.