, 2005-03-21
The recent security breach that exposed an individual's application status at top business schools raises moral and ethical questions about cyberspace.
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Computer Ethics, From the Grandstands -- Inappropriate Repsonses to Inappropriate URLs
2005-03-25
alerter
alerter
Computer Ethics, From the Grandstands
2005-03-27
Not Anonymous. My IP is in the logs and traceable to me.
Not Anonymous. My IP is in the logs and traceable to me.
A agree with the commentors note about walking through an unlocked door without any notice of restricted access upon it.
Much of whats morally and etically wrong is backed by law. There is nothing illegal about being immorral or unethical in itself. The punishment from society comes back from the broken law, that when you break a door down to get in is internationally agreed to be wrong.
In the real world the concept of trespass is obvious as you learn what is and isn't a public area as you grow up. On a public medium such as the Internet its upto the discloser of information to beware of who they are disclosing too before disclosing it. How can you information trespass on a public medium where no clear boundaries have been presented to you and then enforced technologically.
If you simply use your computer within the envelope of what is considered normal computer activity how can you the user be to blame for any voilations in unauthorised access.
There is also another level not covered by the article of low understanding by the general public of exactly how computer systems work. To then be able to make an intelligent decision on what is and isn't a wrongful act. If the public read an article by someone else that explains in the same easy way you type google into your URL address box if you type this instead you get information about your application exactly which part of that is the public meant to consider morally wrong.
If the public was never presented with any access control mechanisms in the first place, then they can not be held up on any charge of circumventing them. Which leaves the technically naive no moral question to answer.
Any organisation wanting to keep information private should do so away from the Internet. Any organisation making information available on the Internet should do so at "their own risk" and have no legal claim to unauthorised access if it can be proved that it was technologically possible to secure it properly at the time the unauthorised access occured. The spirit of this statement should cover the public from neglogent / lazy websites but the website from the malicious / agressive hacker.
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Link to this comment: http://www.securityfocus.com/comments/columns/309/31181#31181