Computer ethics

Computer ethics is the study of moral and immoral uses of computer technology and the application of that knowledge. The study of computer ethics is decades old, however, it has grown exponentially in modern times because of the increased use of computers and related technology. Computer ethics includes a variety of issues, such as online piracy, hacking, online privacy, and electronic surveillance.

Origins

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor Norbert Wiener is widely regarded as the founder of computer ethics. Wiener was a prominent engineer famous for his work in cybernetics, the science of making one part of a machine communicate with another part. Though he never called his work computer ethics, his book The Human Use of Human Beings (1950) introduced a variety of concepts that would become essential to computer ethics. Wiener believed that the spread of computer technology would begin a "second industrial revolution," altering every aspect of civilized life.

The study of computer ethics grew slowly during the 1950s and 1960s. As computer technology became widely available, the field began to attract more attention. Deborah Johnson published Computer Ethics, the first textbook in the field, in 1985. She also published and edited a variety of essays on the topic. Johnson asserted that as computer ethics grew, others would use it as a springboard for writings that would influence all types of ethics. She cited the writings of famous ethical philosophers Immanuel Kant and Jeremy Bentham, whose writings were originally a response to the invention of the printing press, as evidence.

Intellectual Property

Today, computers have become involved in most aspects of people's daily lives. Many people even carry portable computers with them in the form of laptops, smartphones, or tablets. Consequentially, the field of computer ethics has grown to cover a variety of legal and social issues. Several of these issues, such as piracy, involve intellectual property laws.

Intellectual property is the ownership of something that isn't a physical object. It is divided into two schools: industrial property and copyright. Industrial property deals with items such as trademarks , which identity a company or product, and patents, which protect inventions. Copyright deals primarily with artistic works, such as music, films, writings, artwork, and computer code. Computers have made selling and distributing intellectual property easy. Additionally, theft of intellectual property has become extremely widespread because of computers.

Computer piracy is the act of downloading copyrighted materials without the permission of the copyright holder. With modern technology, pirating media takes minimal amounts of effort and costs next to nothing. Experts estimate that more than 46 percent of Americans have pirated copyrighted content, with more than 70 percent of these people being between the ages of eighteen and twenty-nine. Though downloading copyrighted content without the permission of or without compensating the copyright holder is morally wrong, experts assert that legally cracking down on the problem has done little to stop it. Despite increased prosecution, the number of people who pirate copyrighted media has continued to rise. Instead, experts advise corporations to provide less expensive and more convenient alternatives to piracy. Evidence has shown that people are significantly less likely to pirate content when presented with convenient, legal alternatives.

Privacy

Most people keep a large amount of personal information on their computers. They communicate through e-mail and other messaging services, use credit cards to make online purchases, and leave records of websites routinely visited. When using their own hardware, most computer users expect that their data will remain private. However, this is not always the case.

Hackers, computer experts who specialize in accessing private or forbidden data, have the potential to steal passwords or sensitive information. According to computer ethicists, viewing private information without permission is considered unethical. Experts continue to debate whether it is ethical for Internet service providers and government agencies to copy and store this data without the knowledge and consent of users. Some argue that this surveillance is needed because surveillance helps authorities find and apprehend criminals. Others assert that the government should only be able to acquire and search an individual's data with a warrant.

An ethical examination of a computer user's expectation of privacy becomes significantly more complicated when the individual is using a computer at a workplace. On one hand, a work computer is not considered an employee's property. Additionally, the employer is paying employees to spend their time working. For example, employees playing games on their computers or browsing the Internet might be in violation of their work contracts. Checking what an employees does on an employer-owned computer should be acceptable, however, the information collected in these circumstances could have the potential to lead to greater abuses.

If employees use personal e-mail accounts on work computers, monitoring software could allow the employer to intercept e-mails, read them, modify them, and even acquire usernames and passwords to employees' personal accounts. Many workplaces are not required to alert employees that their computers are monitored. Some computer ethicists argue that this practice violates the privacy of users. They argue that if an individual wrote a letter with a company-owned pen on company-owned paper—as long as it was done during a break or lunch—the company would not be entitled to open the letter, read it, make a copy of it, or decide if it should be sent. These ethicists assert that the same rules should apply to digital communications. Others argue that any data on an employer-owned machine should be considered the property of the employer, and the employer should have the right to access it. They also assert that employees should completely refrain from entering any personal data on work computers to avoid privacy concerns.

Many other cases involving online privacy have developed as computers have become more advanced and more ubiquitous. Often these issues are complicated by a lack of government regulation or legal guidelines, allowing the ethical debate to come to the forefront. One prominent example is the ongoing controversy regarding the collection of user information by search engines, such as Google. Search engine companies can collect detailed information about what users search for, and then use or sell this information to create customized advertisements or for other means. Other ethical questions of privacy and censorship in the early twenty-first century include the potential for social media companies to exert power over public opinion by selective display of news and other content, which could in turn impact politics; the line between illegal hacking and whistleblowing activity, as in the cases of WikiLeaks; and the use of the deep web (or dark Internet) as both a tool for criminal activity and social justice.

Still other issues of computer ethics continue to arise or encounter new complications. Many ethical debates center on the pervasiveness of the Internet in everyday life and its potential to profoundly impact aspects of life even beyond actually using a computer. These include the implications of big data in areas such medical research and concerns over Internet access as a socioeconomic problem and possibly a human right.

Bibliography

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