ICT AND ETHICS
While ethics can be define as the major branch of philosophy encompassing the proper conduct and good living. It is significantly broader than the common conception of ethics as the analyzing of right and wrong. A central aspect of ethics is the good life or simply satisfied which is held by many philosophers to be more important than moral conduct.
But when ICT and ethics are combine together…..Wow, there are so many things happen… either ethical or unethical…. There are so many act to be question…..Plagiarism among student is the most famous ethical issue…..Student tend to copy and just paste it on new Microsoft word like all the work has been done by them. They only change the font and the size. Besides that, addiction context in this modern world today are not coming from abusing drug only but also internet. For an example, I’ve two friends are crazy at downloading…whenever they have free time, they will go online and start downloading video….their craziness almost affect me... can you imagine that they ‘ll online until morning…Really amazing right?? They may enter book of record for person who’s online and downloading for a long time… hahaha…. Software use in laptop is really big ethical issues. We didn’t buy any license software as price for it is really high…People tend to use pirates ones because cheap…Frankly, I’m also using the pirates ones because I don’t have enough money to buy it… hahaha…
These ethical issues will not come to an end until we find the solution for it….So, be wisely in doing all things…..”SO THINK aBOUT IT AND HAPPY DOING DEEDS” (“,)
Introduction
Ethics and Information Technology is a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to advancing the dialogue between moral philosophy and the field of information and communication technology (ICT). Our aims are to foster and promote reflection and analysis which is intended to make a constructive contribution to answering the ethical, social and political questions associated with the adoption, use, and development of ICT. Within the scope of that are also conceptual analysis and discussion of ethical ICT issues which arise in the context of technology assessment, cultural studies, public policy analysis and public administration, cognitive science, social and anthropological studies in technology, mass-communication, and legal studies.
Ethics are :
- Moral codes are the rules that establish the boundaries of generally accepted behavior.
- Morality refers to social conventions about right and wrong human conduct.
- Ethics are beliefs regarding right and wrong behavior.
- Virtues are habits that incline us to do what is acceptable.
- Vices are habits that incline us to do what is unacceptable.
- Value System is the complex scheme of moral values that we choose to live by.
Ethical Use of Information Technology :
- Today’s workers are subject to the monitoring of their e-mail and Internet access while at work, as employers and employees struggle to balance the need of the employer to manage important company assets and employees’ work time versus the employees’ desire for privacy and selfdirection.
- Millions of people have used Napster software to download music at no charge and in apparent violation of copyright laws.
- Robert Hanssen, a career F.B.I. agent, was convicted of providing data from classified
databases to Russia. - DoubleClick, an advertising network that tracks users as they move around the Internet, was sued after it revealed plans to match a mass mailing marketing list with its anonymous database of Internet users, thus revealing the Web users’ identities.
- Students around the world have been caught downloading material from the Internet and
plagiarizing content for their term papers. - Hackers engaged in acts of cyberterrorism defaced hundreds of Web sites and left hate
messages after a collision between a United States spy plane and a Chinese jet fighter.
Spamming
Addiction to ICT often leads to an irresponsible use of the technology which would have corollary effect on those around them. One of the most significant ethical issues that arose from addiction to ICT is the phenomenon of spamming.
What is spam actually? From the oxford dictionary, spamming comes from the root word ‘spam’ which means irrelevant or appropriate messages sent on the internet to a large number of newsgroups or users. Spam also brings the meaning of send the same message indiscriminately to large numbers of users on the Internet.
Meanwhile from the ICT perspective, spam is flooding the Internet with many copies of the same message, in an attempt to force the message on people who would not otherwise choose to receive it. Most spam is commercial advertising, often for dubious products, get-rich-quick schemes, or quasi-legal services. Spam costs the sender very little to send most of the costs are paid for by the recipient or the carriers rather than by the sender.
Commercial spamming happens when companies capitalizing on the low cost and benefits provided by ICT spam email accounts with advertisements.
Some people doesn’t realize that they are actually have been spammed.
Email spam typically cost users money out-of-pocket to receive. Many people, anyone with measured phone service, read or receive their mail while the meter is running, so to speak. Spam costs them additional money.
One particularly nasty variant of email spam is sending spam to mailing lists (public or private email discussion forums.) Because many mailing lists limit activity to their subscribers, spammers will use automated tools to subscribe to as many mailing lists as possible, so that they can grab the lists of addresses, or use the mailing list as a direct target for their attacks.
posted by- atikah n izzaty =)
Hackers
Okay! back to the topic. Hackers... What can i say about this? So many things. But before i further into the details, I'll explain the meaning of hack, hacking and hackers briefly.
White hats - debug or fix security problems.
Hacker (hobbyist) - The hobbyist home computing community, focusing on hardware in the late 1970s (e.g. the Homebrew Computer Club) and on software (computer games, software cracking, the demo scene) in the 1980s/1990s.

KEVIN MITNICK
Kevin Mitnick gained notoriety in the 1980s as a hacker who allegedly broke into the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) when he was 17 years old. Mitnick's reputation seemed to grow with every retelling of his exploits, eventually leading to the rumor that Mitnick had made the FBI's Most Wanted list. In reality, Mitnick was arrested several times for hacking into secure systems, usually to gain access to powerful computer software.
At the age of 16, Jonathan James became the first juvenile hacker to get sent to prison. He committed computer intrusions on some very high-profile victims, including NASA and a Defense Threat Reduction Agency server. Online, Jonathan used the nickname (called a handle) "c0mrade." Originally sentenced to house arrest, James was sent to prison when he violated parole.Hacking is an example of unethical behavior. They intrude into people's privacy and sometimes they steal other people's identity. Do you like to receive pages of bills of your credit card. But all the expenses is made by someone else. Some may say hacking is exploring the IT and an effort to improve and expand technology. But, how many hackers do follow the rules? Most of them miss from tracks and violate the ethics. Ethic is important.
We ROCK,
Sohifatul & Nazarina
=)
CyBeRsTalKing...???? prEvenT & PrecauTion..!!!
1) do not share any personal information such as your real name , in chatrooms.
2) do not pose a user profile.
3) be extremely cautious about meeting anyone you have contact online
4) It a situation that you hve encountered online makes you
uncomfortable, scared, then call police A.S.A.P. Make sure you save all
communication received.
PRECAUTION- ( Personal Firewall..)
- protect your computer from unauthorized access from outsider
( UPS- Uninterruptible power supply)
- a battery- powered devices that provides power to your computer for a limited time when it detects an outage or critical voltage drop.
( Know and have Authentication)
- requires using tokens which are handheld electronic devices that
generated a log on code. eg: smart card
*** for all computer users
- check your computer frequently for viruses that can propagate via email messages.
- check your email daily and respond promptly to the message you have been sent
***be saved from unethical user***
How to prevent Unethical Behaviour??
1) Use the delete key
- Using the delete key is the simplest solution especially if you only receive a low number of unwanted emails.
2) Use filter option
-If you are aware, many email packages offer the ability to filter incoming mail. So based on the rules you supply , you may be able to detect spam once it is downloaded. In addition, spam messages can then be deleted automatically or stored in a separate folder so you can check it to ensure that they are really spam before deleting them.
3) Use separate email accounts
- You can use different address for forms you fill out on the Internet. Once maintaining a set of email addresses, this will enable you to monitor how spammers are getting hold of your addresses.
4) Don't pass spam emails to your friends
- Before suggesting a friend or relative for a particular service ask them first, if they are really interested, let them subscribe it themselves. Besides that, if your sending an email to a group of people, put their email addresses in the BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) field to keep them confidential.
5) Report it
- You can contact the spammer's ISP (Internet Service Provider) and alert them to the fact that one of their users is spamming from their domain. Bear in mind that the majority of unsolicited mail has forged return address information, so the To:, From:, and Reply-To: addresses are not the actual source of the message. To trace the real culprit you need to extract the information needed from the "message header" of the mail. In Outlook 2000 do the following:
- Highlight the suspect email message
- Go to View > Options
- At the bottom of the Options window, you will see "Internet Headers"
- Highlight the text in the Internet Header window (by clicking in the window, then pressing Ctrl-A or Right Click then select all)
- When you have highlighted all the text in the window, Right Mouse Click and select Copy
- Close that window (Internet headers) then click on the icon to forward the email message
- In the forwarded message window Right Mouse Click. This time, select Paste. This will copy the message header information to the forwarded message
- Look at the first line of the header that says Received from or Return path and you should see an email address in the form of Mailbox@domain.com. Address your email to postmaster@domain.com, briefly (and politely) explain that you are getting unsolicited emails from one of their users and they should take it from there.
Corporate Fraud
So, to avoid the risk from long firm fraud, make sure that any sudden large orders from relatively short-term relationship are to be carefull to deal with and questioned. It is also prudent to investigate companies with whom you are building relationships, especially as their demands increase. You could also find out about the individuals heading these companies and find out if they have been connected with any dissolved companies in the past. By finding out as much as you can about the business and applying the right amount of common sense, you are preparing your company to protect itself against fraud.
Hackers
Hackers are always looking for a way to get into computers of other persons. It can be something as simple as phising confidential infromation ( like credit card or bank account numbers) to complex hacking routines that use your computer as a repository for illegal content (like music or movies with copyright)
However, there is no magical software to prevent hackers; and it will never exist. It doesnt matter how much money or resources you invest in designing the perfect system, someone will find the way to crack it. We can try to prevent hackers by;
1) OS Updates
- You must assure yourself that all your software is up to date. Especially your operating system and your web browser. Why? Because they are the two things that hackers will try to attack first if they want to get into your computer
2) Firewalling
- Internet firewall hacker protection has become so necessary that Microsoft now ships it for free as part of their Windows XP operating system.
3) Anti Spyware/ Adware
- Companies from around the world decided to create programs that could pick up data from your computer in order to acquire information for their database. It may not be as dangerous as a virus, but it is an intrusion to your privacy. Wipe them out with this piece of software.. ;)
...ConClusi0n...
As a conclusion, we can say this unethical behaviour is something that we cannot avoid.
Even if we did not do it, but it might be done by other person. For your information, peer pressure is the tremendous force. " Why should you be one to do the right thing when everyone else is getting away with using copied software and music files???"
This question si being used by peers to influence you. So that, you should be careful and think twice as well as the effect to yourself.
This is the reason why the ethical principles exist. Computer ethics uses basic ethical principles to help you to make the right decision in your daily lifecomputer use. This ethicals principles help you to think through your option. Therefore;
***BEWARE OF UNETHICAL BEHAVIOUR***
=) MIRA & LEYA