Tutorial 1 Answers - introduction to cyber ethics PDF

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Evaluating ethical issues based on scenarios...

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Scenario: Verizon and the Recording Industry In January 2003, a United States district court in the District of Columbia ruled that Verizon (an Internet service provider or ISP) must comply with a subpoena by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)—an organization that represents the interests of the recording industry. The RIAA, in an effort to stop the unauthorized sharing of music online, requested from Verizon the names of two of its subscribers who allegedly made available more than 600 copy-righted music files on the Internet. Although many ISPs, such as Comcast, and many universities complied with similar subpoenas issued on behalf of the RIAA, Verizon refused to release the names of any of its subscribers. Verizon argued that doing so would violate the privacy rights of its subscribers and would violate specific articles of the U.S. Constitution. So, Verizon appealed the district court’s decision. On December 19, 2003, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia overturned the lower court’s decision, ruling in favour of Verizon. Scenario: A Cyberstalking Incident In October 1999, twenty-year-old Amy Boyer was murdered by a young man who had stalked her via the Internet. The stalker, Liam Youens, was able to carry out most of the stalking activities that eventually led to Boyer’s death by using a variety of tools and resources generally available to any Internet user. Via standard online search facilities, for example, Youens was able to gather personal information about Boyer. And after paying a small fee to Docusearch.com, an online information company, Youens was able to find out where Boyer lived, where she worked, and so forth. Youens was also able to use another kind of online tool, available to Internet users, to construct two Web sites, both dedicated to his intended victim. On one site, he posted personal information about Boyeras well as a photograph of her; on the other Web site, Youens described, inexplicit detail, his plans to murder Boyer.

Question1: Describe and critically evaluate some ethical issues that arise in the scenario involving Verizon and the RIAA. Was the RIAA simply protecting its intellectual property interests, or did it go too far in the Verizon case? Explain Answer: There are several important ethical issues have been raised such as concerns involving privacy and surveillance, anonymity and civil liberties, access and equity, property and ownership, and so forth. For example, consider the impact that the RIAA’s actions have for a user’s expectation of privacy and anonymity while navigating the Internet. Describe and critically evaluate the following ethical issues. 

Do ISPs such as Comsat and Verizon have an obligation to protect the identity of users who subscribe to their services?

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RIAA monitored the amount of “traffic” of unauthorized music files that was routed through the computer systems of users’ systems. Should an internet user’s activities be allowed to be monitored by organizations in the private sector, such as the RIAA? Should users be able to freely exchange MP3 files that contain copyrighted music? Will allowing this practice deprive recording artists, as well as the corporations that represent them, of substantial earnings and possibly even their livelihoods? Does the unauthorized exchanged of copyrighted music files over the internet violate the rights of recording artists? Or is the recording industry attempting to unfairly restrict the opportunity for users to exchange and share information over the internet?

Question2: Assess Don Gotterbarn’s arguments for the claim that computer ethics is, at bottom, a field of applied ethics whose primary concern should be moral-responsibility issues for computer professionals. Do you agree with his position? Why? How might Gotterbarn’s view of the field of computer ethics turn out to be the correct one? Explain. Answer: Gotterbarn’s arguments are well constructed, and Gotterbarn makes a plausible case for why computer ethics should be conceived of as field of professional ethics. In defense of Gotterbarn’s position, we must concede that an understanding of professional-responsibility issues is critical to an adequate understanding and analysis of computer ethics issues. In the period of computing preceding the World Wide Web, Gotterbarn’s argument for why the field of computer ethics should be conceived of as an area of professional ethics (whose primary concern was for computer professionals) was plausible. At that time, many (if not most) of the ethical issues involving computers directly affected the computing profession. Since then, however, two important factors have influenced the field. First, a new (and broader) wave of computer-related ethical issues emerged when the Internet became accessible to ordinary people. Second, most people who currently use computers, either for work or for recreational purposes, are not computer professionals. So, it would seem that we need a much broader conception of the field than the one proposed by Gotterbarn. However, we also saw that Gotterbarn’s view may ultimately turn out to be correct as more and more traditional computer-ethics issues, such as those involving privacy, property, speech, and so forth, become folded into “ordinary ethics.” Question3: Recall the key elements of the “comprehensive strategy” for approaching cyberethics that we examined in Section 1.6. Identify a contemporary controversial issue or practice involving cybertechnology and then apply the first two steps of the comprehensive model to it. Answer: If we apply the first two-steps of the methodology described in Sec. 1.6 (entitled “A Comprehensive Strategy for Approaching Cyberethics Issues”), we must first identify what the ethical issues are in this case. Here, issues involving the personal privacy of Internet users would seem to be apparent; so we have identified at least one ethical issue. Next, we need to see whether there are any “policy vacuums” associated with this particular issue.

There would indeed seem to be a policy vacuum in the sense that neither ISPs nor ordinary users have a clear understanding of a law or a policy for determining whether personal information about a user’s online activities can be given to a non-law-enforcement organization merely because some organization suspects one or more subscribers to an ISP of having violated copyright laws. Consider that the RIAA is not a law enforcement agency. So, a policy vacuum regarding cybertechnology once again emerges, and this vacuum or void needs to be filled with a clear and explicit policy.

Essay/Presentation Questions Question1: Think of a controversial practice involving cybertechnology that has not yet has not identified as an ethical issue, but which might eventually be recognized as one that has moral implications. Apply Brey’s disclosive method to see whether you can isolate any embedded values or biases affecting that practice. Are you also able to identify any morally opaque or morally nontransparent features affecting that practice? Explain. Answer: As we saw in above scenario, a relatively recent practice that has generated considerable controversy involved the way that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) pursued individuals it suspected of exchanging copyrighted music files on the Internet. For example, we saw that the RIAA monitored the amount of “traffic” of unauthorized music files that was routed through the computer systems of users’ systems. In order for the RIAA to get the information it needed about the users who operated these computer systems, the Recording Industry requested that ISPs provide to them the names of individuals that corresponded to certain IP addresses. Were the ISPs obligated, either legally or morally, to provide the RIAA with the actual names of individuals, which are normally protected under the anonymity of IP addresses? On the one hand, ISPs are required to comply with law enforcement authorities in cases where criminal activities are suspected of taking place in their online forums. On the other hand, having P2P software installed on one’s computer system is not in itself illegal. And even if having unauthorized copyrighted music on one’s computer system is illegal, one could still question whether the means used by the RIAA to track down suspected violators falls within the parameters of what is morally (and even legally) acceptable behavior. Apply Brey’s Disclosive Method described in Sections 1.5.2 and 1.5.3 Question2: We identified three main perspectives from which cyberethics issues can be examined. Can you think of any additional perspectives from which cyberethics issues might also be analyzed? In addition to the Washingtonienne, Verizon, and Boyer scenarios that we examined, can you think of other cases involving cyberethics issues that would benefit from being analyzed from all three perspectives considered in Chapter 1? Explain. Answer: Theoretically, one could envision cyberethics issues being examined from an indefinite number of perspectives. For example, we could conceivably analyze these issues from the vantage point of political science, economics, history, and so forth. However, the three

perspectives that we have laid out in Chapter 1 are fairly exhaustive in their scope. Consider that the professional-ethics perspective addresses many of the concerns faced by software and hardware engineers, computer science professionals, and information-technology and library-science professionals in their roles as professionals. The descriptive-ethics approach, which is empirically-based, addresses concerns that are of interest to sociologists, anthropologists, and psychologists (and thus indirectly addresses the interests of related groups such as political scientists, economists, historians, and so forth). And the philosophical-ethics approach examines cyberethics issues from a perspective that is both normative (as opposed to descriptive) and conceptual/analytical (as opposed to empirical). We saw that the Amy Boyer case was interesting because it could be analyzed from all three perspectives. While not all cyberethics issues are analyzable from each of the three perspectives, many are capable of being analyzed from two vantage points. For example, the Napster case can be examined from the perspectives of descriptive ethics (i.e., its sociological impact) and philosophical ethics (i.e., normative questions having to do with fairness and moral obligation). Question3: We briefly considered the question as to whether at least some cyberethics issues are new or unique ethical issues. Can you think of any ethical issues affecting cybertechnology that would not have been possible if computers and cybertechnology has never been developed and implemented? If no cyberethics are unique in a nontrivial sense, how can the field of cyberethics be justified as a distinct field of applied ethics? Explain. Answer: Some computer scientists have suggested that because: (a) Cybertechnology is relatively new; (b) Cybertechnology raises ethical issues; it follows that (c) Cybertechnology has raised new ethical issues. They point out, for example, that recent technologies such as data encryption raise certain kinds of social and ethical concerns that did not exist prior to the introduction of that technology. Some computer scientists and philosophers have also argued that because computer technology has had a global impact with respect to ethical issues, a new global (or universal) theory of ethics is needed. In other words, Western ethical theories such as utilitarianism are no longer adequate to deal with ethical issues that are global in scope. Other philosophers have taken a slightly different tack to show why a new ethical framework is needed. Philosophers Hans Jonas (2006) and Luciano Floridi (1999) have argued, independently of one another, that modern technology has introduced new “objects of moral consideration.” For example, recent work in the fields of artificial intelligence has contributed to the creation of software robots (“softbots”); and developments at the intersection of cybertechnology and biotechnology has made possible the creation of certain kinds of objects, entities, or “creatures” that appear to be human-like. As a result, some philosophers argue that we need to expand our sphere of moral consideration to include such objects and entities; and in the process, we will also likely need a new ethical framework. In our analysis of question of whether any computer ethics issues are unique (in Chapter 1), however, we saw that our existing ethical framework is fairly robust. We also that if we make certain adjustments to the standard, three-step method used in applied ethics, then we can avoid having to construct a new ethical framework For example, if we include the

recommendations suggested by James Moor and Philip Brey, we can proceed with our existing set of ethical theories. Following Brey, we would first need to identify and disclose any embedded values in technology (i.e., either transparent or non-transparent moral values); and following Moor, we need to identify and resolve any policy vacuums and conceptual muddles that arise, before we can apply the traditional ethical theories....