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Deondre Wise

Law and Ethics/PHIL 355E

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Posted by dwise002 on December 3, 2019

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End of Course Reflection

End of Course Reflection

This was my favorite class of the year and the class that I learned the most from. The topics were current, and I was able to use the knowledge learned in each module in my other cyber classes. The three topics that stuck out to me were Privacy, Professional Ethics, and Cyberconflict. Below I will discuss why these three topics were important to me and made the most impact throughout the course as well as how I can take away the information learned and apply it to my life.

Privacy is a huge concern right now in the world of cyber and social media. So much of our personal information is online from the use of social media, ordering food, online banking, and online shopping. In our Privacy Case Analysis, we discussed the issues with Google Street View and the privacy concerns. When GSV was launched there were a lot of protests because people did not want their images on the internet for people to see. Google eventually started to blur out faces and license plates and expand across to other countries. My stance on this topic is still the same and that Google should have had waited to roll out GSV after implementing more privacy protocols and receiving more feedback from consumers. After completing other modules and see how any information online can be used by malicious actors my stance is dependent. I don’t know why Google thought it would be a good idea to not blur out faces and license plates from the beginning. I used Deontology as my ethical tool for this module and Deontology thought me that respect is absolute and deserved by everyone and that it is never right to fail to respect others for the greater good. Deontology is the closest ethical tool that I live by already. Learning more about it has made me want to respect others even more and realize that respect is done in many different ways not just to the way you speak to others, it’s also about your actions.

Professional ethics was my second topic and I decided to use this topic because this case was the most interesting to me. It’s a very relatable case that anyone could relate to when having a job and not knowing if what you are asked to do is morally right. In this case, Bill Sourour worked full-time coding for a marketing company located in Canada where he was tasked to create a website targeting teenage girls. He was reluctant to do the task but did so anyway and later on a young girl who was taking these drugs killed herself. He felt so bad after that he quit his job. My position was that the code was morally problematic and that Sourour should have done something differently. I stand in this position and I do realize that he was not to blame entirely of course but maybe if he asked more questions and was more upfront with his concerns the website would have never been created. What I take away from this case is that you should speak up when something is not aligning with your moral views especially in a workplace environment where your work affects others. I will think about this case when faced with decisions in my life and hopefully doing that will prevent me from having regrets as Bill had.

The last topic that I engaged with the most throughout this course was cyberconflict. Being a cybersecurity major I learned a lot from this module, I also have an interest in politics which this module also discusses. This module discussed how when President Obama’s term was over, he warned incoming President Trump that North Korea was the most urgent problem. What I took away most from this module was the example given by Michael Boylan. If country X executes a cyber-attack against country Y two responses could occur. Country Y responds in the same format and engages in a counter cyber-attack, or country Y can respond with a conventional man-on-man counterattack against country X. Just by reading this example you can see what the entire module was focusing on. There is no clear answer to this question, but it leaves room for thought. What I took away from this module was that cyber warfare and cyber conflict are going to keep increasing. We are living in a cyber society and cyber wars are going to be more frequent than traditional wars. This module influenced what I want to do with my major in the future because as of right now I’m not too sure of exactly what I want to do. But with cyber conflict on the rise do know that I want to defend others maybe even the country from cyber-attacks.

Privacy Case Analysis

Privacy Case Analysis

PHIL 355E

Old Dominion University

Deondre Wise

In the “Googlization of Everything” by Siva Vaidhyanathan he documents the response from the launch of Google Street View, a program that captures 360-degree photographs at the ground level of many streets and intersections across the world. Google accomplishes this by sending out vehicles called “Google mobiles” that have cameras on the roofs that capture images as they drive on the road. In every country, GSV launched there were some backlash and immediate push back, with claims that this service was too invasive and did not respect privacy concerns. When launched in Canada Google had to start blurring out faces and license plates to abide by their privacy laws, Google also started integrating the blurring process into their past and future photographs everywhere. Canadian privacy advocates still did not want to accept GSV because they claimed that people have other recognizable features other than their face that were not blurred out; however, this did sway their government into stopping GSV. When launched in Europe Germany the protest was so high that people put stickers on their houses saying they were opting out of GSV and to not take pictures of them and the local government in Greece even banned GSV from streets where the residents were not notified. When GSV finally reach Japan. Osamu Higuchi wrote an open letter to Google staff explaining the aspects of life in Japan. He stated that “The residential roads of Japan’s urban areas are part of people’s living space, and it is impolite to photograph other people’s living spaces,”. By this notion driving down the streets in Japanese residential areas you are already trespassing. In this Case Analysis, I will argue that Deontology shows us that Google should have had waited to roll out GSV after implementing more privacy protocols and receiving more feedback from consumers.

In the writings of Grimmelmann, titled “Privacy as Product Safety”, he compares Facebook to a hammer, stating that they both are tools that can be dangerous while being used but that should not stop us from using these dangerous tools for positive results. All social media platforms along the lines of Facebook can be used morally wrong by invading someone’s privacy, stalking, cyberbullying, and a route a hacker can take to find a way into your private networks. The negatives can go on and on but so can the positive aspects. Facebook connects families from all over the world, allowing you to still keep in touch without having to call someone daily. There have even been times where twins separated at birth have found each other many years later all because of Facebook. This example can also be applied to Google Street View. Yes, a criminal could be using GSV to case a home for invasion but there is the same chance that they would case the house on their own if they were so inclined to do so. GSV was being used positively by people in America as soon as it was released. When Siva Vaidhyanathan started investing in the launch of GSV he reached out to the public through Twitter and Facebook social media platforms, as well as his blog. He says most of the feedback was very positive. People are using GSV to look at the amount of parking in an area they have not been before, getting a better look at homes on the market, and find places they have forgotten the name of but know the location. David a community designer uses GSV to get a better and more detailed look at the environment and surrounding area to plan construction. He previously could only look at aerial photos but when using GSV he says the streets and sidewalks show you the character of a location that you cannot get from normal photographs.

One of the biggest courses of action Google could have done better is to inform the public of what it was doing and warning them when they were going to be in the area taking the pictures. Deontology is an ethical theory that says respect is absolute and deserved by everyone and that it is never right to fail to respect others for the greater good. Google may have eventually won over other governments and their people enough to implement GSV but the way they did it was not the most respectful. Grimmelmann also talks about product safety law and how they pay attention to the quality of warnings. Google could have respected people’s privacy enough to give them time ranges when the Google mobiles would be driving by so people could avoid if necessary. This could have prevented many protests like the situation in Canada and the almost violent situation in Cambridgeshire where residents in a neighborhood blocked the Google mobile from proceeding down the street and got the police involved. If Google was thinking from a deontology point of view from the start, then they would have created a way to not show and human images at all. Technology now and at that time was advanced enough to wipe away any images of people whole preserving the background image.

Luciano Floridi describes two of the most popular privacy theories, the reductionist interpretation, and the ownership-based interpretation. Reductionist interpretation says that privacy rest on undesirable consequences and ownership-based interpretation says that privacy needs to be respected because everyone has rights to bodily security and property. Ownership-based interpretation is based around these “natural rights” which is the value of privacy itself. Ownership-based interpretation goes directly hand to hand with deontology making sure everyone is respected because that is the morally right thing to do. There are three main problems with ownership-based interpretation: passive informational privacy may be undermined, privacy in public contexts, and usage of information. The second problem is where Google fits in. One may say that the way Google was doing GSV when they first launched with no facial and license plate blurring was ok because they are driving down public roads and that is not a breach of someone’s privacy. Ownership-based interpretation and the other previously named privacy theory were both made before the digital age we are in now and because of that, the theories had to be updated the reflect the privacy concerns we have now as technology is a part of our daily live evermore. Florida says that the second problem of ownership-based interpretation is solved as violations of informational privacy is now compared to kidnapping instead of trespassing. Henceforth the argument about public spaces is not relevant because kidnapping can be done in private or public spaces and is still the same crime. Considering violations of informational privacy as trespassing left a lot of room for error, making it very hard to accuse someone of violations of informational privacy almost everywhere besides your home and place of business. This may not make sense and seem very harsh but as technology adapts so do the consequences of misuse, these tools of technology are very powerful and can be used positively or negatively. Google had the right idea just the wrong type of execution, thinking that people would not care about their images being publicly available on the internet, especially during that time. Now with so many social media apps the younger generation is always front and center and does not have the same reservations as past. If Google launched GSV now the protest would be there just in smaller numbers and less pushback. Everything you do shows some part of you, Florida mentioned how companies like Facebook and Google can show people who you are. Your search history shows whom you associate with, your beliefs, and even medical problems as I’m sure you have Googled your symptoms from time to time. This translates to the places you go and having evidence of that can be very unfortunate if found by the wrong person. Some people are just evil and there is no other way to say it, everyday people are targeted based on where they are from or the color of their skin. In a worst-case scenario a person targeted a set group of people could find out places they like to go using GSV and potentially cause them harm, this is why violations of informational privacy need to be compared to kidnapping and not trespassing.

To sum up everything that has been stated so far, Google Street View is a useful tool for everyday use and business owners to take a closer and better look at areas of interest without being there in person. When GSV was launched there were a lot of protests because people did not want their images on the internet for people to see. Google eventually started to blur out faces and license plates and expand across to other countries still promoting protest along the way. GSV needed to be thought out more with privacy concerns in mind. Deontology is the ethical theory that says respect is absolute and deserved by everyone and this includes privacy. When Google was launching GSV a deontology point of view should have been taken into consideration. GSV should have been launched initially with facial and license plate blurring to help ensure privacy concerns. Google was being selfish thinking that GSV did not contribute violations of informational privacy. This is why violations of informational privacy are now compared to kidnapping instead of trespassing. At the end of the day, GSV should have had privacy concerns as a central way of thinking during the creation and launch process and more public testing should have been done especially in other countries where tradition and public spaces are defined differently.

Cyberconflict Case Analysis

Cyberconflict Case Analysis

PHIL 355E

Old Dominion University

Deondre Wise

When President Barack Obama was still leading the Country, he had the Pentagon increase their cyber efforts to sabotage North Korea’s missile launches from afar. Soon after several rockets exploded or went off course during their testing. Some advocates think that this attack worked and will increase their defenses against North Korea while others are not fully on board and contribute manufacturing errors to the cause of the rockets failing. When President Obama’s term was over, he warned incoming President Trump that North Korea was the most urgent problem. Similar to Obama Trump had many options he could take against North Korea, but no choice was the clear answer. One of Trump’s administration officials said that they are looking at pre-emptive military strike options but that is a challenge with North Korea’s mountainous terrain, deep tunnels, and bunkers. In this Case Analysis, I will argue that contractarianism shows us that the cyberwar Trump inherited was just because it is the role of a President to keep his country safe and eliminate all threats.

Cyberwarfare or cyberwar is the use of computer technology for digital attacks by a nation-state or organization to attack, disrupt, and damage another nation or organization’s cyber network for strategic or military purposes. These attacks could include malware, man-in-the-middle, and or denial-of-service attacks. The article titled “Can There be a Just Cyber War?” by Michael Boylan, starts by explaining how cyber warfare is different than cyber sabotage. The actions of cyber sabotage are more minor and do not result in war between opposing parties, an example of cyber sabotage includes stealing data. The actions and results of actual cyber warfare are much more calculated and targeted for a specific reason. An example of cyber warfare would be a foreign country shutting down a U.S naval ship to sneak past into guarded waters. This action would be an act of war according to the traditional paradigm because it’s not only an aggressive action but done so to advance through U.S. waters to gain a tactical advantage against the U.S. and force a counterattack which would then lead to an all-out war against the opposing countries. Cyberwarfare differs from a normal all-out war because it’s more complicated than going in guns blazing. In Cyberwarfare, killing is not the primary adjective and it is not always easy to pinpoint where the cyber-attack is coming from. In a traditional war, it is usually not difficult to find out who exactly your enemy is on the battlefield, most likely because you are physical in their territory or the enemy is in yours. When a war is going on through cables and networks there are no territory lines to cross, and without an international protocol in place to track all traffic on the internet attacks can easily be made to look like it comes from a different location than the source. Boylan concludes his article and gives an example of a very interesting scenario of attack and response in cyberwarfare. If country X executes a cyber-attack against country Y two responses could occur. Country Y responds in the same format and engages in a counter cyber-attack, or country Y can respond with a conventional man-on-man counterattack against country X. With this example another question arises and that is how severe does an initial cyber-attack have to be to warrant a conventional response. There is no clear answer to this question, but it is something that everyone should ponder for a moment. The cyberwar that Trump inherited is just because in this day and age cyberwar is going to become the new norm replacing conventional man vs. man wars, and from a contractarianism point of view there is a social contract among all individuals and in this social contract, Trump being the President at the time had the job of protecting everyone in the country. Contractarianism claims that the legitimate authority of the government must derive from the consent of the governed. The American people chose Trump as our President and he has the right to handle this cyberwar in any way he sees fit. Cyberwarfare has the capacity to inflict as much physical damage as a traditional war but if trump puts enough effort and money into cyberwar efforts we will have enough resources to respond to a cyber-attack with a counter cyber-attack instead of resulting in a physical war.

In the article titled, “An Analysis for a Just Cyber-Warfare” by Mariarosaria Taddeo. He states that “[Cyber] Warfare is [the warfare grounded on certain] uses of ICTs within an offensive or defensive military strategy endorsed by a state and aiming at the immediate disruption or control of the enemy’s resources, and which is waged within the informational environment, with agents and targets ranging both on the physical and non-physical domains and whose level of violence may vary upon circumstances” for the purpose of this article. ICTs stand for information and communication technologies and include any product that will store, retrieve, manipulate, transmit or receive information electronically in a digital form. Cyberwarfare relies on the military using ICTs. Taddeo highlights two aspects of cyber warfare, informational nature, and transversality. The informational nature of cyber warfare and has contributed to the information revolution. The information revolution of cyber warfare is the shift in power off non-physical elements bringing them to the forefront like the other traditional physical forms of war. The second aspect of cyberwar Taddeo mentions is transversality. Transversality is a math term used to describe how spaces can intersect, he uses this term to describe cyber warfare because many people think that because cyber warfare is happening online that it cannot results in loss of human life similar to traditional wars, but this is not true. Cyberwarfare should be seen with the same potential for destruction as a traditional war. Taddeo ends this article by discussing the three principles for a just cyberwar, the first being any entity the endangers or disrupts the well-being of the infosphere loses its basic rights and becomes a licit target. This will give a state the right to endorse cyber warfare against a hostile enemy and becomes even more justified if engaging in a cyberwar prevents a traditional war that would result in major loss of life and property. The second principle states that damage to non-physical entities needs to be considered as well as the damage to the physical ones. As previously stated above cyber warfare can have the same destructive elements as traditional warfare and this principle is stating that you should assess the amount of good vs the amount of harm that could result from cyber warfare. The last principle states that the distinction between combatants and non-combatants needs to be inherited from traditional warfare. Cyberwarfare is fought through non-physical means that can still affect physical things like people. In the same way, we want to limit civilian casualties in a traditional war we need to do the same in cyber warfare. The three principles listed above support that the cyberwar Trump inherited is just. In the first principle, North Korea would be the licit target because if they finish perfecting their rockets that would put a lot of the world in danger and disrupt the infosphere. Using the second principle as an example Trump stopping North Korean rockets with a cyber-attack would prevent a lot of mass destruction from occurring. The final principle similar to the second would not only be stopping mass destruction of buildings and land but also saving a lot of civilian lives.

Taking into account all of the information above provided by the articles, the cyberwar Trump inherited was just in many ways. Trump’s cyberwar is supported by the three principles Taddeo described: any entity the endangers or disrupts the well-being of the infosphere loses its basic rights and becomes a licit target, damage to non-physical entities needs to be considered as well as the damage to the physical ones, and the distinction between combatants and non-combatants needs to be inherited from traditional warfare. Cyberwars are going to become more frequent than conventional wars and we need to put more focus into the research and development of initial attacks and counter cyber-attacks. One of the aspects of cyber warfare Taddeo mentions is transversality. He uses this term to describe cyber warfare it cannot result in the same amount of destruction as traditional wars both physical and non-physical. This is why Trump had to think about every option possible in his cyber war before making a decision that could impact American citizens.

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