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COMP3056: Professional Ethics in Computing 2020-21 CW01. Workshop – Introduction to Professional Ethics Introductory examples from the textbook (Brinkman & Sanders)

Scenario 1: Alice and Josh, two first-year undergraduate students, are good friends. Josh tells Alice that his account in the University’s network has been disabled and he needs to complete a paper for his English class. He asks Alice to give him her password so that he can log onto her account and write the paper. Because Alice considers Josh to be a close friend, she provides him with her password. Josh logs onto Alice’s account, and completes his paper for English. He did not look at the content of any of Alice’s files, nor did he delete or modify anything. He simply wrote his paper and logged off the system. Reflection Questions 1. (POSITION) Did anyone in Scenario 1 do anything wrong? Use your intuition to define “wrong” as you deem appropriate for the context of the case. Explain your reasoning. 2. (POSITION) Explain how you interpreted the word “wrong” in question 1. Did you consider any other interpretation? 3. (CONTEXT) How, if at all, would various university policies affect your answer to question 1? For example, would it make a difference if the university policy explicitly forbade revealing password to another party or signing onto the system as someone other than yourself? 4. (POSITION) If Alice’s decision to provide Josh with her password was definitively against university policy, would that necessarily mean that sharing password is wrong? 5. (CONTEXT) The case did not specify why Josh’s account was disabled. Did that hinder your ability to answer question 1? If so, what sort of facts might have affected your answer? 6. (CONTEXT) The case specifies that Alice and Josh are both first year students. Would it make any difference to your answer if they were final year students? Explain why or why not. 7. (CONTEXT) The case does not specify Alice’s or Josh’s major subjects, age, or experience with computers. Would information of any of those attributes affect your answer to the first question?

Scenario 2: This scenario is like the previous one with one potentially significant difference. In this case Josh and Alice are software engineering majors. Josh is a computer science student in his final year. Alice has graduated from computer science and is working for a software development company, Alpha Software, as a software engineer. Josh asks Alice to use her company account instead. As before, Josh simply wrote his paper and logged off the system. Reflection Questions 1. (POSITION) Did anyone in Scenario 2 do anything wrong? Again, use your intuition to define “wrong” as you deem appropriate for the context of the case. Explain your reasoning. 2. (CONTEXT) Suppose Josh has accepted a job at Beta Software. A competitor of Alpha software. He is not currently employed by Beta Software but will begin working for them 30 days after graduation. Would that information affect your answer to the previous question? Explain. 3. (CONTEXT) Suppose the terms of Alice’s employment required her to protect the confidentiality of corporate information and that Alice was well aware of that requirement. Would that affect any of your previous answers? Explain. 4. (CONTEXT) Suppose the terms of Alice’s employment required her to protect the confidentiality of corporate information, but she did not read this information in the various documents she has signed and paid little attention in the orientation lectures when she started the job. Hence, she was not actually aware of the requirement to protect the confidentiality of corporate information. Would this affect your previous analysis of the case? Explain. 5. (CONTEXT) Suppose Alice has denied Josh’s request. Did anyone in the scenario do anything wrong in your view? Explain.

Scenario 3: Now consider a variation of scenarios 1 and 2. Josh completed his paper and emailed it to his professor before logging off Alice’s account. Alice’s company monitors email traffic and detected that an email with an attachment of a file in Alice’s directory had been sent to a server outside the company’s network. Alice’s boss, Laura, confronted Alice, who readily admitted her transgression of company policy. Laura viewed Alice’s action as a cavalier disregard for company security and fired her. Alice was given 2 weeks’ pay and escorted off the premises Reflection Questions 1. (POSITION) Did anyone in Scenario 3 do anything wrong? As before, use your own interpretation of the appropriate meaning of “wrong”. Explain your reasoning.

2. (CONTEXT) Suppose Alpha Software never told Alice that her e-mail would be monitored. Would that affect your answer to the previous question? Explain. 3. (CONTEXT) Suppose Carol has once been guilty of doing something similar. She was also caught, but simply received a reprimand? Would that affect your answer to Question 1? 4. (CONTEXT) Suppose we agree, for the time being, that Carol was justified in firing Alice. We know something that Carol cannot know, namely that Josh did not view any Alpha Software files and did not alter anything belonging to Alpha Software in any way. If, through some mysterious process Carol could know what we know, would she still be justified in firing Alice? Explain....