Ethics and Computing

We all know the internet is full of bad things and bad people that were created in some awful dark corner of the planet. This being a school blog, I wont bring those up here. But its odd that this class has introduced me to a completely new kind of low and pathetic. By low and pathetic I of course mean patent trolls. From what I have learned so far, patent trolls are a premium example of how to get rich by doing nothing. I hate the idea of a patent troll, someone who buys the right to others work and gets money from what they did while doing nothing themselves. It seems to go against how I was raised. Being from a small farm town I have a more blue color view of the world than some I guess. But that is why i was very happy to find this article which could be an answer to the trolls.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation or EFF has proposed a way to stop or at least slow down the trolls. By forcing them to submit code with there patents and if the patent is granted then it should just be limited to the invention claimed. At the very least making patents have code attached would force trolls to do a little more work. But at its best, this idea could stop trolls from just suing everyone. As described in the article directly from EFF, if you make them attach a solution to the patent, they cant sue anyone under the sun for coming up with a similar solution that is created in a different way. EFF does a better job than describing this than I do so I hope you read there article also.

Does anyone see a positive of a patent troll? Or how they are useful to society? Or do you see flaws in the EFF’s proposal?

Recently an article that appeared in CNN caught my attention about drones. They are unmanned killing machines armed with missiles, controlled from thousands of miles away, as they stalk and then destroy supposed terrorist targets in places like Pakistan, Yemen, and Afghanistan. Last Thursday the Senate Intelligence Committee received a classified document, which gives legal justifications for the administration’s use of drones. According to CBS news, controversial drones are the weapons of choice in a semi-secret war that was dragged into the spotlight this past week, during confirmation hearings for John Brennan as CIA Director. He says: “The people that were standing up here today, I think they really have a misunderstanding of what we do as a government,” said Brennan of protesters. “We only take such actions as a last resort to save lives when there is no alternative taking an action that will mitigate such a threat.”
The question is, is this legal? The government claims that the drones are only used to save lives or stop terrorist actions even though statistics show that 98 percent of those killed by drones have not been high-level targets.
Most of the drones that so far the military has been using for reconnaissance are small planes that are equipped with small special-purpose cameras.
The police of North Dakota are using the drones in demonstrations in hostile situations. It now seems that the drones are already spreading throughout our own country. Now you can order online a drone kit for a couple of hundred dollars. At least eleven states have pending legislation or restrictions that would allow the drones.

I think there is clearly a privacy issue. Everyone has the right to privacy in their home and that includes the backyard. The fence that divides the yard of your home from the rest of the world is an imaginary vertical fence that cannot be violated by any drone. With the use of drones carrying cameras, anyone can film you being in your backyard and immediately put it on the Internet. It would not surprise me that some paparazzi are already using this technology to get their news.
I am not against the police and the task of maintaining order, but I have always been a person who likes to be in accordance with the law. However, in this case, I think they are taking the issue of security so far away that it violates our basic right to privacy. Everyone has the right to have a private space, and this should not be violated.

Over the weekend I was able to enjoy the film ‘Side Effects.’ At the heart of the plot there is an example of Ethical Egoism at work and I am interested in what input the class has towards this subject since it was difficult to come up with specific scenarios with this Moral Theory at work.

*** SPOILER ***  – If you have not seen this film, I only touch on a few specific plot points.

Pharmaceutical companies approach Psychiatrists in order to encourage participation in trials of a new behavior-altering drug.  There is monetary compensation involved in this deal.  In turn, these doctors propose to candidate patients that they will receive free medication for agreeing to the test study.   In the end, the companies are getting cheap, effective trials, the mental health patients are getting free medication, and the doctors are getting paid.  This is a perfect example of all parties involved acting purely out of self-interested and providing happiness for everyone.

Is this system moral? Kantianism vs. Ethical Egoism.

In the early stages of visiting Kantianism we are presented with a category of morality based on us cooperating with each other by not using each other as means to an end.  In this example of actions between users, everyone involved is ‘using’ each other in some manner.  By definition, any rule involved in these specific actions would be immoral.  The companies should perform more proper trials on their drugs before FDA approval.  The psychiatrists should diagnose patients with no bias.  The patients should be wary of experimental medicine and not make decisions on drugs based solely on monetary gain/loss.

When delving into Ethical Egoism, an entire different point of view is uncovered.  Everyone involved, by using each other as a means to an end, are gaining the most happiness through their mutual interest.  Again, by definition, this is a moral action because everyone’s self-interest is maximized.  Are there additional negatives surrounding this issue, however?  If there are complications that arise from treatment, who is the one at fault?  The companies should not put people at risk through untested medications.  The doctors should not fuel decisions based on anything but expertise on their practice.  People should not put themselves at risk by taking experimental pills.  Hypothetically all three parties could point the finger at each other.

I saw this article talking about how “a group of 13 industry associations – including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Marketing Association, the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association and the Entertainment Software Association of Canada” are petitioning for the ability to have unrestricted access to your computer and adjoining resources to prevent piracy. This quote, from the site, explains what is being requested.

This provision would effectively legalize spyware in Canada on behalf of these industry groups. The potential scope of coverage is breathtaking: a software program secretly installed by an entertainment software company designed to detect or investigate alleged copyright infringement would be covered by this exception. This exception could potentially cover programs designed to block access to certain websites (preventing the contravention of a law as would have been the case with SOPA), attempts to access wireless networks without authorization, or even keylogger programs tracking unsuspecting users (detection and investigation). Ensuring compliance with the law is important, but envisioning private enforcement through spyware without the involvement of courts, lawful authorities, and due process should be a non-starter.

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce and other business groups want to ensure that the anti-spam law does not block their ability to secretly install spyware on personal computers for a wide range of purposes. In doing so, these groups are proposing to turn the law upside down by shifting from protecting consumers to protecting businesses. The comment period on the draft regulations may have closed, but it is not too late to tell Industry Minister Christian Paradis or your local Member of Parliament to reject demands that would gut the anti-spam bill and legalize spyware for private enforcement purposes.

The problem stems from the fact that these companies products are not a physical object that can only exist at one place at one time, but instead exist digitally and can be replicated. In this instance the involved companies and organizations are more than willing to sacrifice the right to privacy afforded to their customers in favor of allowing invasive monitoring software to “ensure” that their software is not being pirated.

Prior to this (as mentioned in the article) Sony caused a scandal by including in their compact discs a root kit to protect their intellectual property (digitalized music in this case). One problem was that their root kit created vulnerabilities in the customers machine making it susceptible to malware. The other problem was it violated the rights of customers and resulted in a number of law suits against Sony, and ultimately a discontinuation and removal of the root kit.

Other organizations such as the RIAA and MPAA have used a different tactic best described by Grand Moff Tarkin, “[f]ear will keep them in line.” This fear has been recently realized in the case of Aaron Swartz case, but has been going on for a while by bullying and extorting people with egregious lawsuits demanding huge sums of money to force an out of court settlement.

This doesn’t even address the issue of how much revenue is truly lost due to piracy? In this case it seems that the customer is best off voting with their dollars (or lack there of, OSS) and political processes when the opportunity permits.

To wrap it up, here is a humorous image illustrating the differences between pirated movies and purchasing the DVD.

This post will encompass a few things, primarily Anonymous and their Operation Last Resort, but also a distinction I would like to make between hacking and DDOS-ing.

First, what is the difference between hacking and DDOS-ing? Hacking is when a hacker, whether for good or bad intent, finds a vulnerability in a website’s code and then exploits it to do any number of things, including injecting malicious code into the site, stealing information (credit card numbers, phone numbers, email addresses), or taking control of the site to shut it down semi-permanently. A DDOS attack is where a large number of computers, usually making up a botnet, are all sent to the same site at the same time, and the site is overwhelmed by the web traffic that no one can get access to the site. This is currently considered illegal, but if you want more information on how Anonymous is challenging that illegality, read this article.

Now that this distinction has been made, Anonymous hacked the website of the US Sentencing Commission and used it to distribute encrypted government files that have been obtained over months of hacking.  However, the hacker collective stated that they wouldn’t release the encryption keys if the government made sweeping legislation on sentencing reform. This hack is symbolic because the US Sentencing Commission is the organization that sentenced Aaron Swartz to a possible 50 year prison term. Anonymous is blaming his suicide on the fact that he was facing such a long prison term, and is taking this blame out directly on the government. They are urging for a “return to proportionality of punishment with respect to actual harm caused” in addition to a change in minimum sentencing standards. If the Department of Justice is unable to comply with these demands, what kinds of files could Anonymous be leaking?

Obviously, the government says this action is illegal, but what about whether it is morally right or wrong? The utilitarian views are too difficult to calculate since there are so many unknowns about what kind of files have been hacked, and who they might apply to. Kantianism would say that this act is morally wrong because the maxim would be that it is good to hack everyone else, which is obviously not true.

I personally like their form of vigilante justice but that’s just me, what do you guys think?

An article came out today from a site called Mondaq that publishes news on laws – especially corporate ones. The article describes new, harsher, upgraded penalties for stealing trade secrets. The most notable of which are monetary. For an individual, fines were raised from $500,000 to $5,000,000, or fifteen years imprisonment! Corporate fines were raised from a $10,000,000 cap to up to three times the company-whose-trade-secrets-were-stolen’s worth. There was also an additional amendment that changes the former law from applying only to products a company sells, to now where even ideas and services are protected.

In my opinion, this law is another display of where the government’s real interests come from. I think that this is just another display of the fact that messing with people’s money is more heinous than violent crimes to our politicians. For instance, according to this site, the average sentence for a rape that went to trial (the higher side of the spectrum) was just under 25 years. The average of someone who plead out (the low side) was about 11 1/2 years. This is for rape – a traumatic, life altering experience that really doesn’t need a description from me to put it into perspective. But for stealing a trade secret, a person can sit in jail for 15 years and/or take a $5,000,000 fine. I find this beyond outrageous and utterly disgusting. How can someone, let alone the United States government, value money more than people’s lives? It is my unyielding position that violent crimes should face the harshest penalties possible because there is an actual victim who has to face years of life-altering consequences. Money is worthless and can always be replaced. I can see harsher penalties for companies that pull stuff like Enron did, or that cause another company to go completely bankrupt, but what that comes down to is that someone is going to have to go through the temporary displeasure of having to relocate and find a new job, or, the more miserable case of having to rebuild your life savings from scratch. I think that neither case is comparable to having to live the rest of your life without a parent because they were mugged and killed, or all the psychological issues that stem from being raped. Anyhow, maybe I’ve digressed a bit from the topic. Do you guys think that the punishments for stealing trade secrets should be raised? Any other thoughts on the issue?