Cybersecurity Ethics
Reflective Writing Assignment
The first topic that I engaged with during this class was Privacy. Privacy is very important when it comes to being on the internet. I have always thought and still think that websites and social media should work harder to protect our privacy. I know that it is a hard job to keep people’s privacy on the internet because there are so many hackers that can access people’s information no matter what you do to protect it. When looking back at the case analysis that we did on privacy I talked about how these websites should be communicating with us when our privacy has been compromised so that we know what is going on. As someone that goes on social media websites I choose what I want to put on there and what I would never put on there, so I would want these websites to protect my privacy. As a takeaway from this topic I will always be cautious of what websites and social media sites I go on and I will always think about what I put on these websites and social media sites.
The second topic that I engaged with during this class was Professional Ethics. Professional Ethics is very important because everyone should have professional ethics when it comes to working at a job. I learned that professional ethics has a lot of different parts to it and that all of the parts are important. I also learned that in order to have professional ethics in a job you have to commit yourself to the professional ethics code that is involved with that job, organization, and or business. I also learned that engineers are held to a much higher standard of professional ethics than everyone else. When having professional ethics you should always be honest and loyal to your employer. As a takeaway from this topic I will always make sure that I have or keep my professional ethics especially since I am going into cybersecurity. I know that cybersecurity is going to involve professional ethics.
The third topic that I engaged with during this class was Whistleblowing. Whistleblowing can be a major issue for the government and for any business especially if someone has had a lot of access to important information or data. If this information or data can hurt the government and or business and the person leaks this information or data to the public then there can be a lot of harm done to the government and or business. The person that is doing the whistleblowing also has to think about the consequences of them leaking this information or data to the public because there will always be some kind of consequences for doing it. I also think that for someone to be a whistleblower you must have a really good reason for doing it or you must really feel a certain way about what the government and or business is doing. As a takeaway from this topic I will always think about what is right or wrong in a situation and do my best to deal with it and not ever think about being a whistleblower.
Case Analysis
Case Analysis On Privacy
My argument about a more ethical way to implement Google Street View is that it deals with communication mostly. You should be notifying the people of what you are doing instead of just violating their privacy and trying to just make people be okay with it. Privacy is very important for everyone to have and to feel safe. Within this it all starts with communication taking place to implement this google street view better. As we can see that it can be a very helpful tool for certain things like scoping out houses in areas that you could possibly want to move or just to know where you are going to eat maybe like stated in the article. It’s almost how we use navigational tools nowadays to help us with where we are going or what we are going to do in a place we don’t know. In this Case Analysis I will argue that the Contractarian Tool shows us that google street view should have communicated better and reached out instead of just showing up out of nowhere.
One word that stood out to me in the article that dealt with Floridi was consequentialism. “Consequentialism, as its name suggests, is simply the view that normative properties depend only on consequences.” That is the definition of this word, and I think that it plays a role in my argument that I am presenting here. It deals with decision making and whether it is best or not to do something which then could have consequences in the actions that you may make. For an example with the Google Street View, it should have been implemented better with more communication for the areas they were doing this in. There could have been consequences for them just pushing it in there, maybe a riot or something bad, you never know what could have happened. Also as stated in the article “ownership-based interpretation argues that informational privacy needs to be respected because of each person’s rights to bodily security and property.” That right there is a great point that was stated, people should have the right to have their own privacy even with their property. Some people did not want Google Street View to put their property online somewhere where so many people can now see. Another theory that stood out in the article was the reductionist interpretation. “The reductionist interpretation argues that the value of privacy rests on a variety of undesirable consequences that may be caused by its breach, either personally, such as distress, or socially, such as unfairness.
Privacy is a utility, also in the sense of providing an essential condition of possibility of good human interactions.” With your privacy being breached the way it was breached by this google street view this could cause a lot of undesirable consequences as was stated in the article. Another key word that pops up a lot and stands out to me that could make a good argument is anonymity. There were great opportunities of privacy invented through anonymity a long time ago and it seems that we are missing that nowadays. The way the contractarian tool comes into play is that they were not being straightforward with the DGD, finding out when you have it or not. It all is wrapped around communication, they should have been more forward and more informative with going about telling someone about what they have and what they’re going to do to deal with it.
There could also have been a mutual agreement that they could have come to with the people implementing this, making sure it was okay with them and maybe they would be fine with that as long as they know which is the key. People did not really just not want the google street view implemented because they felt like they were being attacked just as DGD people felt they were different and had a reason to argue for their side that could also deal with privacy. The tool and Floridi play a big role in arguing about there being more communication when implementing such a violation to privacy.
When talking about the article dealing with Grimmelmann, there was a little example that stood out to me which was google buzz. There were some flaws with this dealing with privacy such as there with Google Street View. It seems google messes up a lot with doing certain things and you never really have privacy once you have been on google. With google buzz as stated in the article it was a defective product-one that was very dangerous to privacy as a whole. But it all could have been fixed with communication by maybe letting users know it is not that safe or stable to use. Instead of just letting something bad happen right away or for it to get that far where now they are getting so called “heat” on them. But mostly throughout this article it deals mostly with talking about facebook throughout it and privacy that comes with it. I think with them implementing the Google Street View they had a “Privacy Fail” as stated in the article.
“It is true that using Facebook can be hazardous to your privacy, but a hammer can be hazardous to your thumb. People need tools, and sometimes they need dangerous tools. Hammers are physically dangerous; Facebook is socially dangerous. We should not ban hammers, and we should not ban Facebook.” I think those are two strong points that were provided right there from the article. It is very true that Google Street View can be hazardous to privacy but the thing is with this they should have given more communication letting the people know this. There were multiple countries and even so in certain states were worried about their privacy so much because of the way they went about everything. When they were approaching with their google trucks and scoping stuff out without saying much to anyone is not right in my opinion. There needs to be a point of communication between whatever you are doing at peoples homes or something that is owned and not yours. With the article talking about privacy so much even with products you can see how it intertwined with the Google Street View and how it could have been implemented better. With the tool coming into play, this could help with talking about how society deals with privacy. Society might not think that it is fair or the best way that they are implementing this Google Street View that the way they were. With your privacy being invaded and put on a web where many people can see is not okay with everyone but eventually we all had to be okay with it. The contractarian tool can also deal with talking about political power which can take a play into the Google Street View. Political power can play a role with how they were randomly just pulling up and doing these things without any communication with people in the area. This article and the tool give strong points on why communication is so important when doing this and also talking about product privacy and how it can affect people.
To summarize all of this information that was presented here, communication would have been the best way to go about presenting the Google Street View. But we could also look at it in another alternative view. They might have the right to do this and maybe not have to worry about communication with people and countries as they are implementing this. They could just think it is automatically going to be okay with people’s privacy basically being invaded in certain ways in which they have the right to their own opinion. Either way people can argue in many different ways that this could have been implemented better or someone could have said that it was implemented in the right way. Everyone has their own opinion, but it comes down to who has the stronger argument for their opinion. Overall communication took a role in all of this information being presented here.
Case Analysis on Professional Ethics
My argument in this case analysis on Professional Ethics is that it was morally wrong to write the code for the pharmaceutical quiz. In the article “The code I’m still ashamed of” by Bill Sourour it talks about how he wrote a code for a pharmaceutical company that was targeting teenage girls to take a certain medication. These teenage girls would take a survey/quiz to see what type of drug they would be recommended to take. While Sourour was doing this he never thought about any of it being wrong until a colleague of his emailed him a link to a news report of a teenage girl that had taken the medication and she had killed herself. After that he realized the side effects of that medication. In this case analysis I will argue that the ethics of care tool shows us that the code was morally problematic because it targeted teenage girls to take a certain medication, and that Sourour should have done things differently because the medication had bad side effects to it that caused some teenage girls to kill themselves.
In this case analysis there are three different types of code of ethics. The first code of ethics is the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). This code of ethics consists of twenty four imperatives that are formulated into statements for personal responsibility. It also identifies the elements in such a commitment and it contains many of the issues that a professional is likely to encounter. This code of ethics and its guidelines are to serve as a basis for ethical decision making within the professional workplace. There are four main parts to this code of ethics, but then each part has so many smaller parts to it. The four main parts are: General Moral Imperatives, More Specific Professional Responsibilities, Organizational Leadership Imperatives, and Compliance with the Code.
The next code of ethics is the IEEE. This code consists of the importance of the technologies affecting the quality of life around the world. This article on this code tells you what the members to this code agree upon and commit themselves to. They commit themselves to ten different ethical and professional code of conducts. Some of the things that they hold themselves to are: the health, welfare, and safety of the public, to avoid conflicts, to be realistic and honest, to reject bribery, to improve individuals and societies understanding of the emerging technologies, to accept criticism on work, to treat people fairly, to avoid injuring people and their belongings, and to help colleagues and co-workers develop professionally and support with the code of ethics. If they want to change anything in the code of ethics they have to go through a certain process that is described at the end of the code of ethics.
The last code of ethics is the code of ethics for Engineers. This code of ethics consists of holding Engineers to a higher standards of honesty and integrity than most people. This code also tells how engineers have a direct and vital role in the quality of life for all people. It also tells how engineers and their services require honesty, fairness, impartiality, and equity. There are three major parts to this code of ethics. They are: Fundamental Canons, Rules of Practice, and Professional Obligations. They also need to be dedicated to the protection of the public’s safety, health, and welfare. Engineers have a really hard job and then they are held to these high standards of the code of ethics.
When looking at the ethics of care tool it focuses on the justice and impartiality of morality. It also focuses on your care of personal relationships, your relationships with employees, and with the public. When we use this tool, we could think about how moral institutions and moral policies could meet our obligations to others and not be unfair or unjust. This tool can be used for these codes of ethics because you still need to care about what you are doing within your job, the people that you work with, and the people that you will affect when you do your job.
In the article “Confidentiality: A Comparison across the Professions of Medicine, Engineering and Accounting” by Mary Beth Armstrong talks about professions and organizations sharing expertise. It also talks about professionals and secrets and how they are in the public’s interest. There have been arguments defending professionals and their confidentiality. There are positive benefits when it comes to professionals keeping their confidentiality with society. This means that they can be trusted. According to Sissela Bok there are four premises to the justification of confidentiality. The four premises consist of utility to people and society, autonomy of personal information, pledge of silence, and respect for relationships for human beings. Next, Beauchamp and Childress state that “it is necessary to consider both the probability and the magnitude of harm and to balance both against the rule of confidentiality.” They do not see any moral obligation to break confidentiality. They also never give any guidance to the readers for them to be able to assess the probability of the harmful risk or magnitude. Armstrong also talks about the term “whistleblowing” as being a form of breaking confidentiality in an organization or corporation. She also states that you will lose trust and have no ethics when you do something like “whistleblowing”.
When looking at the ethics of care tool it focuses on the justice and impartiality of morality. It also focuses on your care of personal relationships, your relationships with employees, and with the public. When looking at this article you could use this tool to help you care about keeping the confidentiality of your organization, co-workers, and your customers. When working with any organization you should always care and have morality for what you do, who you work with, and who you help.
This article also talks about the confidentiality in the medical profession and how it dates back to the fourth century B.C. Thomas Percival published his Code of Medical Ethics in 1803, which ended up being the basis for the American Medical Association’s code that was created in 1847. The most dramatic revision to the American Medical Association code was made in 1957. The new revision stated that a physician could not reveal the confidence of his patient not unless it was required by law or it became necessary to protect the welfare of the patient or the community. Then there was another revision done in 1980 that stated a physician must respect the rights of their patient, colleagues, and their co-workers. The physician should also safeguard the patient’s confidence within the law. There are exceptions to this especially when it involves the patient having a communicable disease, gun shot, and or knife wounds. During some of these revisions there were several cases that involved doctors, patients, and a victim. After several of these cases, California enacted a statute requiring therapists to use reasonable care in order to protect the victim that the patient identified from a dangerous patient by telling the victim or reporting it to police if the victim is unknown. This happened in 1985.
To summarize all of this information presented here, the code was morally problematic because it targeted teenage girls to take a certain medication, and that Sourour should have done things differently because the medication had bad side effects to it that caused some teenage girls to kill themselves. This could also be looked at in an alternative view. Some people might see this as being a good thing because the medication could have helped a lot of teenage girls with whatever was wrong with them and some teenage girls may have never had any of the side effects from the medication. This shows that we can all have different opinions on the same thing. Some people may have stronger arguments than others on this topic. Overall we need to focus that Sourour should have cared more about the teenage girls that were being targeted by this survey/quiz than his job and getting all of these girls to take a medication that they might have not needed.
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