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
End of Course Reflection
Throughout this course, I have acquired knowledge about various topics and different ethical perspectives. The three perspectives I engaged the most in would have to be Ethics of Care, Virtue Ethics, and Consequentialism. At this end of course reflection, I will be discussing how each of these topics has deepened or changed my thinking and how I can use this information in the future.
The idea of Ethics of Care is useful when thinking about the care of users, employees, and the public. At the beginning of the course, I viewed Care of Ethics as caring for one another; however, it is a bit more than that. Care of Ethics is about the different interdependences of mutual relationships. I enjoyed how deep my thinking had gotten throughout my work when I was using this specific tool. Ethics of Care will be essential in my future as it assists me in caring for future clients, co-workers, employers, and bosses. I will be able to implement my Ethics of Care in my own work, by taking pride and performing my best, and by taking care when dealing with co-workers, my boss, and my clients. All these relationships take on a form of care on different levels and by having that interdependent mutual relationship with my clients, I can be a better employee, coworker, and overall person.
Virtue Ethics is used for one’s decision-making based on their personal choices and character. It takes a deeper look into the morality of an individual’s actions of doing the right thing, in the right situation, for the right reasons. My actions and ways of thinking have changed personally throughout this semester because of this specific ethic. I have adopted a virtuous mind set and began to consider my thoughts and habits for overall good. I have formed the habit of training my brain into analyzing my actions and the situations that I am in and acting accordingly in the sense of moralism. The takeaway from Virtue Ethics would be that I can assess my personal decisions and character to do right for myself and others in both my professional and personal life.
Consequentialism focuses more on the effects of the actions people execute. If their action is right then the outcome is good, and if their actions are wrong, the results are going to be bad. The thinking of Consequentialism lends itself to a sense of accountability with each said action. A type of Consequentialism is Utilitarianism, which has the view of an action being the best outcome for most people. For example, in the future, I may have to make a decision that would ultimately affect my department, or my company, and not just benefit myself. This form of ethics has shaped my thoughts as I read the articles and shifted my thinking towards the outcome of actions. Consequentialism helped me realize that the justification of one’s actions is through the result of the said actions. It is a form of being accountable for the choices we make.
During the duration of this semester, I have learned several types of ethics, but the three that stuck with me the most are Ethics of Care, Virtue Ethics, and Consequentialism. These ethics have molded and deepened my thought process, decision-making, and my actions. In the future, I hope to have improved my skills involving these ethics, and I will apply new ways of thinking to better perform as a human and worker.
Case Analysis on User Data
Throughout the article, Palmer spoke about GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and its importance in the EU. Palmer went in-depth about the benefits, rules, and purpose of GDPR. GDPR helps European users keep their online information safe by not allowing companies to save their data and use it for their gain unless the user agreed to those terms. GDPR is an ethically just regulator for Europeans as they know their information is safer with these rules in place. The United States should adopt something like Europe’s Privacy Laws as it will help internet users and hold companies accountable. In this Case Analysis, I will argue that ethics of care shows us that the United States should follow Europe’s lead because it is ethical in keeping users’ data safe.
The researchers in the case study did not take enough precautions to ensure that the participants’ data was safe. They did use some information protection tactics like the terms of use statement, IRB approval, and the removal of student names and ID numbers. However, Zimmer talks about multiple times in the T3 case study that their information was breached. This breach occurred through the source of the dataset, the insufficient privacy protections, privacy violations, unauthorized secondary use, overstoring and improper access to personal information, and errors in personal information. Ultimately the T3 case study was proved unethical.
T3 should have stuck with the ethics of care. At the beginning of the documentation, they had the right idea by collecting data from college students and the ways they interact on Facebook. Further along in the case study, their ethics went in the opposite direction as Zimmer mentioned in the article through unethically storing their data and using their information for means other than the project. By Facebook exercising GDPR, T3 would have a greater chance of protecting their participant’s data in the study and using the data collected for future case studies. The ethics of care is to benefit the users, and just because something is open-source information, does not mean others are entitled to use it. Therefore, we need GDPR in the United States.
Buchanan’s central concept of big data analyses is ethical for who has access to the data, what methodology will be used, and who will use it. Buchanan states that individuals in research shall be treated in an ethical manner by respecting and protecting said participants. Ethics of care and Buchanan both have the same ideology of data being accessible to researchers, law enforcement, and others to help identify those that are vulnerable to online extremism, since they both want to care for the public.
Essentially this paper is about the ethical speculation in big data science. It is not about the intent that these companies have when they are analyzing data, it is about the care of ethics and what will be right for the users, employees, and the public. Implementing something similar to Europe’s Privacy Laws, individuals will not have to worry as much about their data being pulled out of the internet without the user’s consent to be researched for something they might not be involved in. Companies are selfish and do not care about the well-being of the user; they just want their information because information is the new world currency and they will stop at nothing to get it unless we have U.S. laws in place to cease them, like GDPR.
In the end, the comments from Zimmer, Buchanan, and the fundamentals of ethics of care make it apparent as to why the United States should adopt something like Europe’s Privacy Laws. The only downside I see as to why that will not happen is corporate greed, but it is unethical and goes against highly respected people in the ethics world and the ethics of care belief. One day a company will obtain personal data unethically from the wrong user, and their operation will crumble to the ground because they did not incorporate those privacy laws sooner when they should have.
Case Analysis on Information Warfare
Madrigal presents information and data from researchers that show Facebook had a vital role in the 2016 election. Facebook used marketing tactics and tools to push the democratic agenda. They realized younger voters made up a good percentage of the democratic turnout so they would release ads appealing to the campaign and put out stickers for users to show that they had voted. This was a tactic that would attract young voters to vote; thus, drawing more democratic votes for the 2016 election. In this Case Analysis, I will argue that Confucianism shows us that Facebook did engage in information warfare because they appealed to the left side of politics; and furthermore, they were responsible for the election outcome because of their marketing tactics.
Prier states that social media is one of the largest ways to spread propaganda, misinformation, and diminish trust between the public and government. Facebook committed these acts through target ads and marketing strategies to show you the feed that relates most to your political views. Facebook claimed they would never influence politics, but they were pumping out politics on their platform whether they knew it or not. No company should put out anything relating to politics.
The ethics of Confucianism is best used based on one’s job and positions they occupy. Confucianism looks at the overall path each one takes and stays true to that original path. When you detour from your original path, you lose sight of your intended goal. The original job of Facebook was to provide a neutral and unbiased platform for people to connect. They also needed to regulate the information and keep safe what their users are posting. They differed from their path when they started putting out these voting stickers and using political campaigns specifically targeting their democratic users. They did not follow their own said guidelines and they broke their own set of ethics; even though they claimed in an interview they would not dabble in the world of politics. Prier would agree that what they did was an engagement of informational warfare, and they did affect the outcome of the 2016 election.
Scott gives examples in the article of three U.S. networks that overran the U.S. political system. It does not matter what political agenda they were pushing to their users, but rather their immoral actions need to be addressed and there needs to be repercussions for those companies and Facebook. We must learn from companies’ past mistakes moving forward and figure out a better way to navigate social media and politics in a moral way.
Confucianism in this article is like the previous one, where the choices these companies make can differ them from their original path and mission statement. Facebook was originally founded as a social media platform for people to connect and share snippets of their life and activities with friends. However, it has turned into a company with an agenda to capture people’s personal information and use it to target them through algorithms and marketing campaigns that show them certain ads and articles based on their interests and lifestyle. This is an invasion of privacy and will lead to a skewing of information when people are constantly getting fed only one side of the story. By Facebook releasing political content on their platforms, it veers them off their position and the originally intended job they are supposed to do, which is to regulate content.
Overall, what Facebook did regarding the political output on their platform was the involvement in information warfare because they did not follow their role, just like in Confucianism. Facebook is responsible for influencing the outcome of the 2016 Presidential election by putting out targeted ads towards those that identify with the Democratic party.