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

Firstly, I want to bring up the position brought by Floribi. Floribi brought up the idea of a ownership-based interpretation of privacy as it relates to information in the cyber domain. This position on privacy states that we as users on the internet own our information, and companies who use this information without our consent are stealing from individuals. This position has deepened the way I think about privacy, and how we as humans have an innate right to privacy. Individuals have the right and control over their information like they would normally with physical property. The takeaway that I get from this position is that we as individuals need to stand our ground when rights to privacy are being violated. I hope that in the future I will remember this stance and act upon it if necessary.

 

Secondly, a topic that was brought up by Buchanan was the issue of Big Data Research being unfriendly to individuals’ privacy. This topic states that Big Data Research gathers information unfairly to individual privacy, and in some cases, information is gathered without the consent of the individual. This is gathered from multiple sources like social media platforms. This causes me to question some of the privacy protections that we as a world have in place to protect individual privacy. This topic has changed my initial perspective on privacy on the internet. I initially thought that we were more secure on the internet on places like social media than we really were. In the near future we need to find a way to establish more broad privacy protections for the average internet user. In the future I hope that I/we don’t ignore privacy concerns, and as individuals keep this in mind when utilizing the internet. 

 

Lastly, I want to talk about the ideas of Open Source Warfare introduced to me by Scott. Open Source Warfare is a method of warfare that is centered around a decentralized approach to cyber conflict. This type of warfare is successful if small groups work together collaboratively with advanced technologies to challenge much stronger adversaries. This type of warfare has changed the way we look at warfare because of the impact that non-state actors have on cyber conflicts. Never in the past have we seen non-state actors have the same kind of significance as they do now in warfare. The impact that non-state actors can have on nations can be very large. This can range from political manipulation to cyber war efforts. Open Source Warfare is very complex and hard to contribute as non-state actors use non-attribution. This way of warfare has vastly changed the way I think about warfare and more specifically cyberwarfare. I gained insight on what the possibilities of the future are involving cyberwarfare. My takeaway from this type of warfare is the trend of adaptability in the cyber domain. This has shown me that cyberwarfare is the future, and as technologies evolve further in the cyber domain, we will see how Open Source Warfare plays into future wars. 

Child Pages:

Case Analysis 1: The impact Facebook had on the 2016 election – jcagle002 (odu.edu)

Case Analysis 2: GDPR and the Importance of Individual Privacy – jcagle002 (odu.edu)