AUTHOR

Lukasz Knasiecki
Assistent Professor
Institute of Cultural Studies
Adam Mickiewicz University,
Poznan,
Poland

ABSTRACT

The main purpose of the dissertation is to present the outlook assuming that digital civilization brings historically unprecedental threats to the present (traditional) analog civilization. Using an example of widely understood definition of culture I am going to prove that computing revolution – the fundament of digital civilization – has already started to destroy its own children. We also cannot be sure about the future existence of analogue artifacts. Anyway, after taking account of some economical factors it seems that there is no real reason to guarantee an equal access (or even any access) to the artifacts of analogue civilization for all the members of the digital civilization.

The first part of the present work is going to present the problem of discontinuity existing in the digital civilization caused by its own development. Main thesis of this part are:

• The quick development of digital technologies is creating products which are not compatible to its predecessors.
• The living (functioning) period of digital product is very short.
• This leads to the phenomenon of culture discontinuity – the great part of civilization artifacts disappears.

In the second part of the dissertation I am going to prove that the economical factor is able to decide about the separation of all the generations from the analog civilizations artifacts. The thesis of this part are:

• The production of electronic equipment (including data carrier) used by analog culture – at the mass dimension – will be given up.
• In the mass-media only these products of the past civilization whose conversion is recognized as cost-effective, will be available.
• This leads to the phenomenon of cultural discontinuity in another dimension.

The digital civilization with geometrically increasing impetus brings down the traditional analog civilization. All products of the new technology – first of all the new media – are based on the digital technology. The problem seems to be saving (conversing) the products of analog civilizations in the new (finite) world. Another tendency caused by the quick development of digital technologies seems to be more dangerous – ignoring the products (software) created by new equipment (hardware) by people in the older periods of the evolution of this technology.

THE VANISHING BITS

The main reason of this situation should be associated with the impermanence of magnetic carrier, permanent change of its types and data formats. Who would be able to read now – after hardly 20 years – the data from 8″ diskette or better – from magnetic tape? Even if the magnetic area could be read after all those years and we would delve from the archives the hardware fitting to it – there still remains the problem of interpretation the data format saved at the carrier, different for subsequent types of computers and their operation systems.

REGAINED BITS?

Let’s say that we have already read the proper sequence of zeros and ones – now we posses the file identical to the original, saved it in the new system, at the contemporary carrier. Unfortunately, it still remains an assembly of useless zeros and ones – following versions of programs and operation systems are not compatible with the data saved by the older programs (CorelDraw 9.0 – 1999 does not read the data saved by CorelDraw 2.0 – 1990!). Therefore the “children” do not want to accept the creatures of their own “parents”, the millions of bytes disappear unrecoverable with no trace.

THE LOST CODE

There would be nothing terrible in the lost of those data – a large number of important texts and data has been already converted without losing its quality – despite the fact, that among the trillions lost bits there are millions inconversionable programs, the code of which may be run only at the specific type of computer with specific type of operating system. So now, at the very beginning of the digital era, a computer programmer cannot watch the effect of his work done just few years before.

SAD FUTURE

Certainly, one may say, my predictions may be exaggerated. It is still possible to find old, dusted ZX-Spectrum and with a bit of luck load, and run River Raid. But we have to notice the fact, that all phenomena of discontinuity described by me have taken the place for less than last 20 years. The period, due to geometrical acceleration of the development of digital technologies, will get shorter and shorter, leaving millions of human artifacts in non-existence. However, let’s imagine that the only existing works of art are those of the XX century – though the most modern, they include in themselves thousands years of the painting tradition. Still, what would be the world like without the possibility of knowing their predecessors – and this is namely what the digital civilization offers. Such a process of eliminating history, incompatible with human nature does not bode well for the coming millenium.

AUTHOR

Chula G. King
The University of West Florida

ABSTRACT

The Internet is having a profound impact on the growing availability of substantive information. Nowhere is this more evident than in academic institutions where the use of electronic resources is becoming increasingly vital for education and training. Much of the information that is needed by students for completion of assignments and research papers is proprietary. The information is available from online services that provide numerous databases containing journal articles, statistics and other information. More and more colleges and universities subscribe to these online services and make them available to their students via the Internet. When students access online services that utilize privacy invasion techniques such as cookies, web bugs and port scans, their expectation of privacy may be unknowingly compromised. This can have legal consequences for colleges and universities making the online services available to students. In addition, it can have ethical ramifications for professors who require Internet based assignments, and by doing so place their students in privacy compromising environments.

In the United States, the legal consequences relate to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). Enacted in 1974, FERPA seeks to ensure the confidentiality of student records and personally identifying information by preventing their disclosure to unauthorized persons without express written consent. Educational institutions that fail to abide by the provisions of FERPA are denied federal funding.

The ethical ramifications revolve around the trust relationship that must be established between the professor and student. That trust relationship requires the professor to not only respect the student per se, but also ensure confidentiality of student information. When that confidentiality may be compromised, the professor has a responsibility to inform the student of the potential compromise. To do this, the professor must be knowledgeable of the environment to which his or her students are exposed.

This study and examines the degree to which personally identifiable information may be unknowingly released when students use the Internet to complete class assignments and conduct research. The data source consists of 31 online services that provide access to numerous journal articles and other information. With each service, online click through behavior is mimicked to determine the students’ exposure to privacy invasion techniques, including cookies, web bugs and port scans.

Cookies are small text files that are placed on a visitor’s hard drive by a web page server. They act as a type of identification card that enables a company to recognize repeat visitors to its web site. Cookies allow companies to store not only the information provided by a URL submission, but also any additional information that a user may provide during a visit. In addition, they allow companies to track the click through behavior of visitors to their web site.

Web bugs are either visible or invisible graphics that are placed on a web page by a company that is not affiliated with the web site. The company that supplies the graphic also places its cookie on the computer of the visitor to the web site. This allows the non-affiliated company to capture information about visitors to the web site containing web bug.

A port scan is a series of messages sent by one computer to another computer. Port scans are often used by hackers attempting to break into a computer to learn which computer network services, each associated with a “well known” port number, the computer provides. More recently, port scans are being used by online companies and service providers to gather information about visitors to their web sites.

Online services that use or allow others to use any of these techniques produce an environment in which personally identifiable information such as e-mail address and name may be captured as students search for journal articles, et cetera. If the student uses a university dial- in account, he or she could be associated with the specific university. That information may be coupled with specific articles that are accessed to produce a detailed profile of the student.

The analysis reveals that 22 of the online services examined deposit cookies on the computers of visitors to their sites. Two employ web bugs and five utilize port scans. Seventeen of the sites allow or require the submission of personally identifiable information. However, only nine of the sites include privacy policies that disclose what information is collected and how it is used.

AUTHOR

Shalini Kesar & Simon Rogerson
Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility
De Montfort University
The Gateway,
Leicester,
England

ABSTRACT

Organisations widely apply information technology in order to conduct their businesses more efficiently and effectively. Indeed the logical malleability of computers assures enormous application of information technology in the future. It has been pointed out in the literature that as organisations become dependent on information technology the incidence of computer misuse increases. Based on the US Office of Technology Assessments report (1994), two broad types of computer related misuse could occur: non-intentional and intentional. Non-intentional acts arise due to environmental damages, human error, or because of analysis and design faults. Intentional acts on the other hand can be classified under three categories: violation of safeguards by trusted personnel, system intruders, malicious software, viruses and worms. Natural or physical disasters including fires, floods, earthquakes, power failure and bomb attacks can be categorised as environmental damages. Most of these result in the destruction of not only the main computer systems but also backup systems, causing damage of up to hundreds and thousands of dollars. Whereas human errors could result from confusing instructions or procedures, inadequate internal controls, incorrect data entry, lack of familiarity with the system or inappropriate system application. Inadequate involvement of users, lack of adequate time and resources or incorrect use of methodological tools could all lead to analysis and design faults. In contrast, intentional acts occur when employees within the organisation engage in acts that are unauthorised and prohibited. In such a situation, violations of safeguards by trusted personnel occur. This is reflected in a report from the US that showed that nearly 81 per cent of computer crime is committed by current employees (Brown 1991). The second type of intentional acts occurs when individuals engage in illegal or unauthorised and disruptive behaviour such as hacking (sometimes known as cracking-(Computing, 1997). Intentional acts could also occur when malicious software, viruses and worms are released into computer systems by either or both insiders or outsiders (Kluth 1990; Bicknell 2000; Computing 2000). Logic bombs and Trojan horses are examples of such intrusions. In this paper, the term ‘computer misuse’ is used broadly to embraces incidences such as computer fraud, computer crime, sabotage, emblezzement, software piracy and invasion of privacy. It refers to the occurrence of any adverse event as a consequence of use of IT. The cause of such events could range from sheer negligence, incompetence, and ignorance. Indeed evidence from various sources suggests that incidents of computer misuse are increasing in numbers and are causing significant concern among organisations. For example, the UK Audit Commission report indicated a 183 per cent increase in the total value of reported incidents of computer misuse. Moreover the reported cases of computer misuse only represent the ‘tip of the iceberg’. This is because many organisations often do not report cases of such illicit activities that result in computer misuse due to unnecessary media publicity. More often they do not want to be shown as vulnerable to crime, as it is difficult to detect could some of the reasons. Consequently researchers have argued that such activities are widespread, more serious, and hence require a deeper understanding of the underlying cause. In addition the explosion of the Internet also continues to pose concerns regarding the increasing occurrence of computer related misuse (for example, see Clarke 1999; Berghel 2000; Walsh 2000). For example, it was noted a survey conducted by Ernest and Young (Canada Global Information Security Survey where more than 300 Canadian businesses participated in the annual survey, which assesses current IT security systems around the system) indicated that Canadian businesses’ financial losses due to hacking exceed $1 million. More recently the ‘I love you’ virus caused an estimated of damage at £1.7 billion (Computing 2000; Bicknell 2000). Indeed the problem of computer misuse is not restricted to particular countries (for example, see Pawar and Goyal 1994; Computing 2000). Evidence from various sources suggests that incidents of computer misuse are increasing in numbers and are causing significant concern among organisations. This paper focuses on computer misuse committed by internal employees. It analyses the collapse of Barings Bank. In February 1995, Barings Brothers collapsed through the speculations of a 28 year old, Nicolas Leeson. Indeed many researchers and practitioners have expressed the reasons of the collapse of Barings that range from incompetence within the bank to conspiracy by Barings’ executive as alleged by Singapore investigators. Further the economic, political, social and technological factors that influenced Barings are explored. This will not only help in understanding the retrogression which contributed to Barings’ collapse but also explore the web of deception that Leeson spun to evade management and auditors. While trying to understand the underlying factors that permeated Barings before the collapse, this paper takes the support of the classification proposed by Backhouse and Dhillon (1995). They propounded a broad classification: personal factors, work situation, and opportunities.

REFERENCES

Backhouse J. and Dhillon. G (1995). “Managing computer crime: a research outlook.” Computers & Security 14: 645-651.

Berghel H. (2000). “Identity theft, social security numbers, and the web.” Communication of the ACM 43(2).

Bicknell D. (2000). Love bug prompts security shake-up. ComputerWeekly. London.

Brown R. K. (1991). Security overview and threat. National Computer Security Educators, Information Resource Management College, National Defence University, Tutorial Track, NCSC.

Clarke R. (1999). “Internet privacy concerns confirm the case for intervention.” Communication of the ACM 42(2).

Computing (1993). China executes hacker over £122,000 theft. London: 1.

Computing (1997). Hackers breach college systems. Computing. London: 10.

Computing (2000). Lovebug mayhem prompts industry to rethink security. The IT Newspaper. London.

Kluth D. J. (1990). “The computer virus threat: a survey of current criminal statues.” Hamline Law Review 13(Spring): 297-312.

Office of Technology Assessment (1994). Information security and privacy in network environments, US Government Publication.

Pawar M. S. and R. M. Goyal (1994). “computer crime in Bombay: efforts to alter this problem.” International Journal of Offenders Therapy and Comparative Criminology 38(3).

Walsh A. (2000). “Partner in crime.” The computer bulletin 2(5).

AUTHOR

Koichiro ITAI
Research Associate,
Department of Ethics,
Faculty of Letters,
Kyoto University Lecturer(part-time),
College of Medical Technology
Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine

ABSTRACT

Medical informatics is an interdisciplinary field based on computer science, epidemiology, evidence-based medicine(EBM) and other fields.

Recently, Bioinformatics has close contacts with Medical informatics. California!Gs Affymetrix and IncyteGenomics have developed so called DNA chip and microarray technology. In the near future, Personalized medicine or Taylor-made medicine accordong to the personal genetic data based on SNP(single nucleotide polymorphism) will be completed.

In order to establish Taylor-made medicine based on SNP, Electronic patient records(EPRs) including personal genetic data is quite important.

However, in using them on the network and to advance the sharing of medical information among medical staffs and plural institutions, we must pay attention to several important ethical issues. Especially, we have to consider the patient!Gs right to informed consent, and the right to privacy that were interpreted as the right to control the flow of information concerning or describing him/her. We need to lay down regulations on the sharing of medical information.

AUTHOR

Vanessa Hymas,
Business Development Manager,
Institute for the Management of Information Systems

ABSTRACT

DOWNLOAD PRESENTATION HERE

Introduce:
Self
Organisation
Reason for Research:

Large numbers entering IT courses
Do not go on to pursue careers in IT
Why is this an Issue?

Slide 2 – WHY IS THIS AN ISSUE?
Current projections show job demand in the ICT sector growing at approximately 1 million per year. The projected shortfall of skilled personnel in the sector is 1.7 million by the year 2003. Implications:

• Businesses unable to find skilled labour
• They will relocate to countries where the labour pool is available and affordable.

In the 1960’s women occupied roughly half of the jobs in IT, but these were largely the unskilled data entry positions. Today, although there are more women enrolling in university courses than men, they are not joining ICT programmes.

Despite their apparent reluctance to take up careers in IT, over 40% of on-line users today are women, and that number is expected to grow to 60% in the next two years.

The puzzle is why, in the Western countries, are women who are clearly capable of handling the academic material, choosing not to enter the sector?

Slide 3 – IMIS CONTRIBUTION

Important for everyone involved to contribute to addressing the issue.

IMIS is working closely with government, educationalists, industry and other associations to find ways of reversing this damaging trend.

As part of our contribution, we have commissioned research to identify where in the education process we can capture the imagination, and eventually the commitment, of young women to a career in IS/IT.

We sought to identify the career aspirations of women who have chosen to study IS in university.

We wanted to identify, in particular, where those reasons might differ from their male colleagues.

We surveyed students currently enrolled in the first and final year programmes at 9 universities around the U.K.

Students were asked by their tutors to complete a simple questionnaire in class. The surveys were then returned for analysis to our research consultant. A considerable amount of the data collected was qualitative, i.e. written questions rather than tick boxes, because we need, at this stage, to identify the issues in the students’ own words.

Slide 4 – GENDER REPRESENTATION

What the sample looked like:

Intake statistics from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (in the UK) show that the number of women entering Computer Studies courses as a percentage of total intake has been steadily increasing, from 21.8% in 1995, to 25.5% in 1999.

Our sample, covering a combined business and information systems programme could expect to have a slightly higher percentage of women as it is seen as less technical.

Slide 5 – COURSE CHOICE REASONS

15% of the first year sample claimed that this was not their first choice course. There was only a 1 percent difference between male and female students on this issue, and the courses they indicated they would have preferred were within the same disciplines of business and/or IT.

Of the vast majority who indicated that IS was their first choice these are just some of the comments we received in response to the question ‘Why’

[Point to slide]

It is interesting to note that the first two comments were made by male students, and the second two by female students.

Slide 6 – COURSE EXPERIENCE

31% of the students surveyed claim to have found the course more difficult than expected, which may indicate that their expectations were unrealistic but there was no significant gender variation on this result. The men were just as likely to have found the course difficult as the women.

Slide 7 – CHANGES IN CAREER AMBITIONS

Somewhere between First and Final year, a further 15% of students decide they do not want to remain working in Information Systems throughout their careers.

Again, there is no significant gender split – 69% of women intend to remain in IS, compared to 66% of the men in Final Year.

Of those who want to move out of IS, many will chose to focus either on business or technology, rather than pursuing the combined disciplines.

However a significant percentage (over 25%) don’t know what else they want to do, indicating a movement away from IS rather than towards something else.

There were some clues given in the comments to open questions:

• Some First Year students complained of a lack of motivation and commitment to the subject matter.
• Several of the Final year students were put off by the design of the academic programme itself.

Slide 8 – CAREER ASPIRATIONS

By the Final Year, as you would expect, many of the ‘undecideds’ from the First Year have made a career choice.

The percentage choosing to become Systems Analysts has not changed, but many more students appear to be moving towards:

• IT Support and Networking
• Graphics and Web Design
• Project Management
• Consultancy.

This may be as a result of growth in career opportunities or the idea that there is a lot of money to be made in these types of jobs.

Slide 9 – GENDER PREFERENCES

This chart shows the Final Year students’ career aspirations, by gender. Now we see some definite differences in the directions male and female students favour, with the men pursuing the more technical roles in internet/e-commerce, graphics and web design and IT support and networks.

Women, on the other hand, seem more likely to move into the types of roles that emphasise business and communication skills, such as systems analysis, project management and consultancy.

Slide 10 – PERCEIVED OBSTACLES We thought it would be interesting to identify what the students thought might prevent them from achieving their objectives.

Many of the students expressed a high degree of confidence, which was coded in the Non-Response category.

Of those who did express a concern, the most frequently mentioned, almost twice as often by male students as female, was the fear of failing the course.

Another concern was related to the structure of the IS course itself or to the perception that these courses are not yet accepted by industry.

Women were more likely than men to be concerned about the lack of experience and its affect on their career prospects, and they mentioned discrimination more frequently.

Interestingly, their discrimination concerns were as likely to be over age or race as they were about gender discrimination. Both Males and Females expressed concern about needing to meet the demands of family commitments around their careers.

Slide 11 – WHAT CAN WE DO?

The research has raised a number of issues and pointed the way to some action we can take.

We need to reach people at an earlier age – some studies have suggested as early as 9 to 12 years of age – if we want them to consider a career in IT.

Courses need to be more relevant with course developments being industry led.

Mentors and role models need to be available to develop and encourage young girls and women into the sector.

We need to understand that we are missing out on a tremendous source of talented workers who have so much to contribute to the development of the IT sector and our economies.

It is through cooperative initiatives, involving schools, industry, government and professional bodies that we will make the most impact.

Slide 12 – …… AND FINALLY

If you would like a copy of the research or wish to participate in any future activities please contact us by email or search our Internet site.

AUTHOR

Dr David Sanford Horner
University of Brighton,
UK.

ABSTRACT

Negroponte (1996) writes of an ‘ontological shift’ from being analogue to being digital. The meaning of such a claim has been elaborated with the popularisation of the ideas of ‘virtuality’ , ‘virtual worlds’, and ‘cyberspace’. Cyberspace has been defined as ‘an independent realm created by the interconnection of the world’s information systems’ (Woolley 1992, p.127). Being digital is being in cyberspace. What begins as a fictional narrative in William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1995) becomes the discourse of a future – if not of the present.

This paper investigates the computer-ethical issues that are posed by certain conceptions of virtuality and cyberspace. The strong claim of the ‘argument from virtuality’ is that we are confronted with the need to re-invent our moral frameworks. Information and communication technologies permit ‘virtual’ action , i.e. actions which are no longer characterised by the co-ordinates of physical time and space. Does the virtual or intangible nature of such actions change or affect their moral status? Is to suffer in cyberspace morally equivalent to suffering in physical space? Do we need a new moral language to cope with the implications of this new space?

Virtual communities and institutions, it is argued, are already with us constituting a physically disembodied social order. This virtual order exists in parallel with social structures in real space – but will, according to Langdon Winner (1990), eventually compete with a society of entities which occupy spatial locations. Traditional operative moral ideas, it is claimed, are bound up with corporeal identities and their specific spatial, geographical locales and forms of life. The fabric of human relationships and communities rests on real presences, real physical meetings and relationships. Virtual reality converts our primary bodily, corporeal experience into electronically mediated telepresence. Through electronic mediation we can keep the ‘other’ at a distance; play at assuming different identities. The growth of on-line culture may well diminish a sense of ‘real’ community, a sense of solidarity and attachment or indeed force the construction of different kinds of community ties (Heim 1993).

What’s the problem here for moral theory? Floridi (1998) argues, for example, that the victimless crime of the hacker and the ‘ludic’ or game like nature of virtuality challenges the premises of de-ontological ethical theories. Human action in cyberspace may not appear to have the same status as action in real space. Responsibility ceases to be relevant and tangible.

The very nature of virtual action seems to separate the idea of cause and effect. If the consequences of such actions have the properties of being immaterial, undetectable and untraceable does it then make sense to continue to apply consequentialist frameworks? As the consequences of action reach vanishing point so to does the idea of moral sanction. In networks, as Johnson (1997) points out, agents can communicate whilst masking their identity (using pseudonyms and adopting different personas) which disconnects actions from persons. In addition individuals may use others’ words, alter them, or adopt someone else’s identity. (But how is this different from everyday forms of lying?) The effects of distancing and anonymity combine to promote a kind of depersonalisation. The web of action and reaction, the fluidities of identity may again attenuate a sense of responsibility.

Do the conventional notions of a social contract survive in a virtual world? The discourse of rights, justice, authority, equality and even freedom, again according to Winner (1990), presupposes a physical, spatial context. Political morality is tied up with ideas about our being (physically embodied) persons who live in particular locations. How can we talk meaningfully about rights and duties in virtual space? Given the global, nonspatial nature of participation in virtual communities it is easier for individuals to opt out of contractual obligations. Floridi (1998), for example, argues that virtual actions give rise to something akin to a ‘state of nature’ where individuals are very far from having comparable technical competencies or technological facilities and where it is perfectly rational for the ‘strongest’ to opt out of the contract.

The approach in this paper will to question the claim that there is a radical distinction between so called ‘virtual’ actions and ‘physical’ actions. It will challenge the assumption that often underlies moral theory that ‘…doing an action must come down to the making of physical movements with parts of the body’ (Austin 1970, p.178). We need in other words to get behind more specifically what ‘doing an action’ might stand for. Our ideas of persons and of personal accountability are embedded in our language and have evolved from the real situations in which human beings have found themselves and largely continue to find themselves. Any decisions about how to describe and evaluate the status of virtual actions can only be made against this background of current meanings. It is this world which our language, and its everyday stock of concepts, has evolved to deal with – including ideas of praiseworthy and blameworthy actions. Virtuality leaves everything as it is.

REFERENCES

AUSTIN, J.L., 1970, A plea for excuses. In: J.L.Austin, Philosophical Papers, Oxford: Oxford University Press [2nd ed.] pp.175-204. FLORIDI, L., 1999, Information ethics: On the philosophical foundations of information ethics. Ethics and information technology 1 (1), pp.37 – 56

GIBSON, W. 1995, Neuromancer. London: Harper Collins.

HEIM, M. 1993, Metaphysics of virtual reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

JOHNSON, D.G. 1997, Ethics online. Communications of the ACM 40 (1)

NEGROPONTE, N., 1996, Being digital. London: Hodder and Stoughton.

WINNER, L., 1990, Living in electronic space. In: T. Casey and L. Embree, eds., Lifeworld and technology, Lonham MD: Center for Advanced Research on Phenomenology and University Press of America. Pp.1 -14.

WOOLLEY, B. 1993,Virtual worlds. London: Penguin. 15/12/00