Lecture 9 : The Legal and Ethical Issues in Somputer Security

A law is a rule of conduct or action prescribed or formally recognized as binding or enforced by a controlling authority. Categories of law include
• Civil law
• Criminal law
• Tort law
• Private law
• Public law
Ethics is a set of moral principles or values or principles of conduct governing an individual or group.
The key difference between laws and ethics is that laws carry sanctions of a governing authority and ethics do not. Ethics in turn are based on cultural mores: the fixed moral attitudes or customs of a particular group.
Law Ethics
 Formal, documented
 Interpreted by courts
 Established by legislature representing everyone
 Applicable to everyone
 Priority determined by courts if two laws conflict
 Enforceable by police and courts
 Described by unwritten principles
 Interpreted by individuals
 Presented by philosophers, religions, professional group
 Personal choice
 Priority determined by individual if two principles conflict

Different cultures may have different ethics. Ethical differences may include:
• The consideration of ethics in the use of computers
• Nationalities behavior conflicts with the ethics of another national group
There is an understanding towards software license infringement, but individuals felt that their use of software is not piracy, or the society permitted piracy in some way.
Lack of disincentives and punitive measures explains this unobliviousness of the intellectual property laws.
Unilateral studies condemned viruses, hacking and other illicit activities as an unacceptable behavior.
Low degree of tolerance for illicit system may be a function of the easy association between common crimes.
Individuals may have the possibility of misusing corporate resources.
Differences in computer ethics are not exclusively international, but are found among individuals within the same social circle.
IT personnels have the responsibilities of deterring unethical acts and to use policy, education, training, and technology to protect information systems.
Three general categories of unethical and illegal behavior are:
• Ignorance
• Accident
• Intent
The current best method for preventing an illegal/unethical activity is deterrence.
Copyrights are designed to protect the expression of ideas, which applies to creative and original work. Patent applies to the result of science, technology and engineering which protects new and useful device or process for carrying out an idea.
The owner of originality must keep trade secrets by any means. However, its protection can be simply broken through reverse engineering.
Open source software can be affected by copyright protection through:
• Controlling the right to copy the software
• Controlling the right to distribute the software
• Subject to fair use
• Ease of filing
• Sue if copy sold
• Ownership of copyright
Information is treated as an object which is considered:
• Not depletable
• Can be replicated
• Minimal margin cost
• Value is timely
• Often intangibly transferred
Legal issues related to information include:
• Information commerce
Problem – how to ensure software developer/publisher receives just compensation for software usage?
Solution – copy protection, freeware, controlled distribution.
• Electronic publishing
Problem – assurance that publisher receives fair compensation for work
Solution – cryptographic-based technical solutions
• Electronic commerce
Problem – how to prove conditions of delivery
Solution - Digital signatures and other cryptographic protocols
Rights of employees and employers include
• Ownership of a patent
• Ownership of a copyright
• Work for hire
• Licenses
• Trade secret protection
• Employment contracts
We should all know that computer crimes are hard to prosecute due to:
 low computer literacy (lack of understanding)
 no physical clues (lack of physical evidence)
 intangible forms of assets
 considered as juvenile crime
 Lack of political impact
To examine ethical issues, we must
1. Understand the situation. Determine the issues involved.
2. Know several theories of ethical reasoning
3. List the ethical principles involved
4. Determine which principles outweigh others.