Blog Entry #4 - Ethical Dilemma

Ethical Dilemma 6

How would you proceed?

Since I am sure that the software will only be used to obtain e-mail addresses for people who are most especially in a third world countries, then I can say that there is no wrong thing in doing that which would be breaking the UK law. Its only gathering of e-mail addresses in which I am sure of it that there will be a privacy for the e-mail address information because it will just be used for the spam advertising to send those commercial ventures.

Do you consider that this is a legal/ethical undertaking?

I consider it to be not ethical because of the fact that they would just gather those e-mail addresses in order to spam their advertisements without permission by the e-mail users. It is as well as a legal thing because they don’t do anything for the users to break their own privacy in the e-mail information.

In that case that you are not entirely happy with the possible ethical aspects of this venture (but you are satisfied that you will not be breaking UK law), would you still be willing to participate if the level of remuneration is sufficient?

Yes. Because in other way it is a legal thing to do because we are not breaking the rules of UK and if the level of remuneration is sufficient for me to or participate in the venture then I would do so.

At what point would personal remuneration override any ethical reservations that you may have?

If I really need the money then I would grab the opportunity but as to my ethical reservation is concerned then I must follow what is right and talk to them what they are doing is not ethical thing.

Let us suppose that you do become involved in this undertaking but that you subsequently find that the software that you helped to develop is not only being used to locate e-mail addresses that are normally based outside the UK, but in addition e-mail addresses within the UK, and these are being sold on to companies who specialize in spam advertising?

If this kind of situation takes place then I would break away myself from the project, because of the reason that I can’t get myself involved in a heinous act that would bring to the authorities and even cost my schooling as well.

Does this compromise your legal position?

I think it would barely compromise my legal position for the reason that I don’t want to violate any laws within the UK or outside the UK. Thus, my parting from the project team is reasonable. 

Ethical Dilemma 7

How do you perceive the ramifications of computer-based technologies and the current pace of change impacting on older people?

The current change impact on older people towards these computer technologies is that they can hardly adjust to it and it is also hard to teach them because of their growing age and some of them really find difficulties in having poor eyesight as well as in their hearing. In their part, they need to be assisted by younger once in order to for them to adopt the new technology trends.

To what extent are they becoming increasingly isolated?

For me, the aspects make them isolated are the facts that some of the older people are poor literally as well as in their eyesight and hearing, some of them don’t understand easily the instructions given to them if we teach them. Because of these reasons, I can say that they are becoming increasingly isolated. But there are some older people really have interests in learning the computer based technologies and these old people are merely in middle class state of living.

Is direct personal contact being gradually eroded?

No. Because even though a person with a high skilled skills in using computer based technologies are also having personal contact and it is not gradually eroded nowadays. Technologies are just made to be helpful for everyone who was at far destinations as a way for making communication.

 

Perhaps discuss these issues with older person that you know, such as a family member. Identify the issues.

Unfortunately, we haven’t discussed these issues with the older people, but we, as a group, we discussed what they might say about these issues and we identified some issues that they probably might tell to us. The common issues that we have shared are the things that old people do long time ago when they are at their time such as, sending snail mails for long distanced communication and etc.  

Have these people gained as a consequence of the proliferation of and reliance we place upon computer- based technologies and the pace of change that has ensued?

We thought that not all of the old people have kept up with the fast approaching computer-based technologies. Though there were also who have caught up with the technology but did not merely embraced it.  

Blog Entry #3 - Ethical Dilemma

Ethical Dilemma 4

In the case of Alice who was writing a textbook which she wishes to include in her book the material from various sources-particularly a few key diagrams that have previously been published in other book, publishers would really require significant fees to be paid to them if material from one of their book is reproduced elsewhere.

In this example, Alice should always obtain written permission from the appropriate rights holder for the reproduction of any proprietary. Now the author of the book which she wants to refer her diagram is dead. Specific companies are tracked down by her. This company currently own the rights to the books from which she wishes to reproduce diagrams from these works.

The reproduction right is perhaps the most important right granted by the Copyright Act. Under this right, no one other than the copyright owner may make any reproductions or copies of the work. The company has the right to ask significant amounts of money to be paid in relation to the reproduction of material from an old book- particularly when they know that this will not be passed on the author, or their estate. But it is very unreasonable. If we would try to think about it deeper, she have doesn’t need to pay for a huge amount to the company if it doesn’t have any approval from the author or the state to publish the same copy of material. In our own opinion, it is unethical to ask for a significant amount to a girl who actually will use the diagram of the said old books. Besides, if the Alice would pay, the author would have to benefits from what she had paid since the author of it is dead. The only person who would have the money will be the publisher.

For the figure number 2, first we have to define plagiarism. Plagiarism is using someone else's work without giving proper credit - a failure to cite adequately. Alice should pay the person who created the original work, and ask for permission to reuse the diagram. In what Alice done, it is called Paraphrase plagiarism which means changing some of the words and grammar but leaving most of the original text the same as of the diagram she uses.

The same story for software, this consideration should also apply for this product. One should not easily take another’s code for them to use the software. It is clearly that it is not permissible to do that. If you could not afford for it, don’t use it. If you want it, you buy it. But clearly, in present, a lot of illegal copies are being shared to people for free. This is unfair and should be stopped.

Ethical Dilemma 5


In our own opinion, if we are one of the personnel or employee in a company that develops websites and also had our company obtained a contract for the law enforcement agency that deals with any violence to act in line with so called “honeypot”, we would consider the following decisions: 

For all we know, Honeypots turn the tables for Hackers and computer security experts. While in the classical field of computer security, a computer should be as secure as possible, in the realm of Honeypots the security holes are opened on purpose. In other words Honeypots welcome Hacker and other threats. The purpose of a Honeypot is to detect and learn from attacks and use that information to improve security. A network administrator obtains first-hand information about the current threats on his network. Undiscovered security holes can be protected gained by the information from a Honeypot. For some our customers, they had some private information to be kept and not to shown in public and if we are bundled a contract with the law enforcement agency, We would rather choose not to view all of

the contents of the project we made for our clients since we also protect their privacy and if we find out that there are violence against the project, we will report immediately to the law enforcement to enable them to observe.

We felt encroached to our company for some reason that there was law enforcer that monitors our work. It also awkward that it is observed every time we did a work but in the other hand we are glad that there some kind of thing like that so that some who will commit violent actions can be stop or lowered since it is a monitored project. For us, the internet has a very wide to reach, wider than the real world we know that even law enforcer cannot monitored it all. We can say that if the law enforcer wants to monitored all of the chat rooms and any other website content, they will require a very large information in the web so that it can be all monitored and also a high budget system.