When we consider the word ethical we generally think of the aspects of right and wrong, good and bad, acceptable behavior or unacceptable behavior. Webster’s dictionary defines ethics as” 1 plural but singular or plural in construction: the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation
2 a: a set of moral principles or values b: a theory or system of moral values <the present-day materialistic ethic> c plural but singular or plural in construction: the principles of conduct governing an individual or a group <professional ethics> d: a guiding philosophy” (Webster’s)
It seems everyone has some form of ethics. Even hackers have a code of ethics. Steven Mizrach in his article, Is there a Hacker Ethic for 90s Hackers? Goes into great depth about how hacker ethics have changed over the years and I would suggest reading it if one has time to. Steven Mizrach says”
Many writers, such as Steven Levy, bemoan the fact that modern-day hackers (the computer underground) are not worthy of the name because they do not live up to the principles of the original Hacker Ethic, and as unethical individuals, should simply be called "computer terrorists" or "juvenile delinquents." I sought to examine whether 90s new hackers knew of the old Hacker Ethic, if they had added anything to it, and the reasons why they felt they acted differently from their predecessors. I broadened my text analysis to look at what they saw as ethical violations and reasons why some might repudiate the Hacker Ethic or the idea of having an ethic.”(Mizrach)[2]
Just as the hackers ethics have changed over the years so have the end users ethics. It seems as though it was easier to distinguish right from wrong in years gone by compared to today. Ethics have somehow seemed to get into some gray areas in a black and white world. I believe this can be attributed to how people in this electronic age see things. After observing conversations in online chat rooms I noticed that many users did not see the conversation as “real”. They seem to perceive communication in these chat rooms as being unreal in nature. This concept of things online being” unreal” has perhaps attributed to many security dilemmas that are issues today. This frame of mind may be present even though the end user dos not perceive it when they engage in illegal activities on the internet such as downloading and sharing copywrited materials. This same mindset may also be present when they take no measure to secure themselves. Face to face interviews that I have performed with various groups of people of all sexes’ ages and ethnic backgrounds have also yielded the same results with the majority of the users having this mindset. While civil laws clearly define a code of ethics end users along with hackers consistently violate these laws and both may contribute equally to the dilemma of security issues of the day. In ancient days the term pirate was clearly defined and piracy was a “real” issue. As I am now typing this I am logging onto Kazza peer-to–peer network to see how many pirates are presently using it. I find that 2.332.237 users are online sharing 1,631,622,700 files a total of 40,337,408 gigabytes of information and data. As I search for specific file types such as pirated software, music and movies I find literally thousands of entries. Note that this is one of many peer-to-peer networks available to obtain this data and information. This also only represents the users online at this time, in an hour a whole new group of users may appear. This will cycle daily and hourly continually from what I have observed never coming to an end. In ancient days pirates were not a majority of the population as they are today.
Gurpreet Dhillon considers utilitarianism as a philosophical analysis of this problem in his book New Millennium; New Technology; Same Old Right and Wrong Information Security Management: Global Challenges in the New Millennium and even after his analysis he still concludes in chapter three that piracy is still wrong by saying,” The prospect of something for nothing is attractive to humans. The arguments sometimes made to justify piracy, such as those outlined in the first part of our utilitarian analysis above, have a certain initial credibility. However, on further reflection, it is clear that from a philosophical viewpoint, software piracy is wrong.”(Dhillon)[3]
This utilitarian way of thinking may have permeated our society to such a degree that many do not see piracy as wrong anymore. Humans motivated by greed seem to have given birth to a gray colored ethic that allows them to steal with no dissonance to their conscious at all. This may be because unconsciously they don’t perceive this type of theft as being “real”. Invasion of privacy on employees by corporations and hacking have also seemed to thrive on this utilitarian way of thinking and perceiving online transmissions as “unreal”.
NEXT: Political Implications