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

AUTHOR
Mike Healy

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the establishment and enforcement of codes of conduct governing the use of Internet technology as a means of providing a basis of trust in the e‑business context. The discussion draws on the findings of a survey of 80 UK organisations, and considers the relationship between factors such as organisation size, type, use of IT, the length time with an Internet connection and the use of a code of conduct, as well as the specific areas of Internet technology covered by codes of conduct. The paper also investigates the extent of disciplinary cases associated with the misuse of Internet technology as well as the ownership and responsibility for implementing codes of conduct. The survey results suggest that the use of codes of conduct varies significantly from organisation to organisation, and that those who initiate such codes are not those primarily seen as being responsible for implementing them. The results also indicate that there is a growing number of employees being disciplined for misuse of facilities offered by Internet technology.

AUTHOR

Agnieszka Gwozdzinska, Jerzy Kaczmarek
Department of Applied Informatics,
Faculty of Electronics,
Telecommunications and Informatics,
Technical University of Gdansk,
ul. Narutowicza 11/12
80-952 Gdansk
POLAND

ABSTRACT

In this article problem of relation between effort of software production and its price will be presented. As effort will be meant time needed to produce it. Price of software will be considered as market value of product, which was set by its producer.

Some methods of effort estimation known in informatics, such as COCOMO, Function Points, COCOTS will be described. An argument, that price should be fairly and objectively related to effort, will be established.

On new, highly changeable software market obviousness of this statement is questioned. Recently there were some unfair practices discovered on those markets. Programmer writes a software product that is one thousand lines long, for example. He estimates it, with COCOMO, Function Points or other methodology, as two manmonth of work. What happens next? Businessman, who wants to make a profit, not a loss, might multiply value of programmer’s work by 200 and might try to sell the product with such a price. In this article it will be considered whether such practice is legal or does it break rules of free market. Impact of such practices on enterprise standing, computing branch outcomes or finally on national gross product will be discussed.

Ethical aspects of such software producer’s attitude will be also taken into consideration. There start some moral dilemma rather from business than from computing ground. Of course, when businessman promises anything untrue about product he sells, it is immoral and even illegal. When he sells overpriced software just to get some Value Added Tax returned from tax department, while really he did nor add anything to product but its price, that’s illegal. But we will not follow such thinking. In the article concentration will be rather on ethical than legal aspects. For example, what happens, when customer does not know, how much particular product may cost and producer takes unfair advantage of him. It will be discussed, whether taking advantage of immaturity of market, when competition mechanisms are not fully formed and there are no points of reference, is ethical.

In this article some market cases, when unfairness of software producers takes place, will be described.

In addition, a trial will be taken to say how it should be and what does it mean “fair price”. It will be proposed, how price of software products should be related to effort.

Some problems with effort estimation such as: how to evaluate effort needed to produce code with usage of automatic generators will be mentioned. But article will concentrate on problems with estimating systems dedicated for Internet. Such problems as estimation of value of graphic look and layout design of website, value of website addresses, value of links between sites and price of advertisement on WWW site will be considered.

In this article some unfair practices related to software pricing will be described. Firstly problem of designing certain solution for second and next time and influence of this fact on effort estimation and price will be considered. It will be supported with reference to PN-ISO 9000-3 standard which says:

Then some unfair practices related to website business such as unfair increasing statistic visitors counters in order to overpricing advertisement, pre-buying popular website addresses, stealing website’s ideas and designs will be described.

From business point of view different methods of setting a price will be introduced: cost plus surcharge, cost plus enterprise expenses, price to obtain certain revenue or profit, average of market price, price below competitors, method “how much market can bear” and “ceiling” method.

As an conclusion methods of estimating effort and of setting a price will be compared and the gap between them will be discussed.

The main purpose of this article will be to prove an argument, that there exists fir software pricing method based on effort estimation.

Issues mentioned are ethical dilemmas existent in business and social environment. Statements of the article may influence conflicts on customer – producer cooperation on software market.

AUTHOR
Andrés Guadamuz González

ABSTRACT

“ENJOY THE POWER OF TEAMWORK”

This is the motto of Eminence, one of the many groups of Internet hackers that provide small applications for breaking copyright protection in computer software. Groups similar to this one are made up of individuals who are highly skilled in programming, probably even employed throughout the computer industry, but who spend large amounts of time and resources circumventing software defences to be able to provide free software. This is just one of the many examples of a new ethic that is on the increase thanks to the rise of the Internet, and which I call the “New Sharing Ethic”, which is opposed to traditional ideas of strong protection of ideas and of the proprietary nature of information.

The rise of the Internet has proved to be the perfect ground for this new sharing philosophy to develop because one of the basic ideas that gave birth to the Internet was the free flow of information.

Some of the best examples of the new sharing ethic can be seen throughout the often demonised hacker community. Contrary to common belief, there is actually a philosophy and a set of ethics followed by hackers throughout the Internet. Hacker philosophy is established by the fact that the Internet is a free medium that cannot be regulated; it is a virtual anarchy. In this scheme of things, the general feeling is that the Internet has no laws, but hackers achieve a sense of community in which sharing of information becomes essential. In fact, the first rule of hacker ethics actually states that “information-sharing is a powerful positive good, and that it is an ethical duty of hackers to share their expertise by writing free software and facilitating access to information and to computing resources wherever possible”(1).

Hacker philosophy and ethics find their maximum expression in the Free Software Foundation (FSF). This is a project that advocates that all software should be free, and has actually made steps to prove that it is a possibility. This movement distributes free software and encourages programmers to use copyleft, which is a way in which software code is passed on, but anyone who redistributes the software, with or without changes, must pass along the freedom to further copy and change it. This places a burden to the person transferring the software; the burden is that the software must remain free. This is different from just placing software in the public domain because the person making use of the free code can subsequently copyright it.

This raises the question of whether or not this recent phenomenon of sharing is only a trend that can be seen in some extreme and anarchic Internet fringes. Mainstream users are also finding the benefits of the new ethics of sharing information, a myriad of people leave their computers on 24 hours a day to allow other Internet users to download anything from digital music to the latest movies from their hard drives using technologies like Napster or IRC chat servers, and yet these people are not earning a penny for their efforts. Many other users, including many academics, professionals and researches, provide help in specialised Usenet newsgroups in fields as varied as literature, law, astronomy, physics and biology. Knowledgeable users usually do not have any problems in providing help to less experienced newcomers. In message boards all across the Web, people are sharing ideas without and posting information knowing that they will not earn any copyright from their writings. It is also common to find pages where the information provided is made available to the public with the only requisite that the author is identified. Music groups, new writers and small software companies have no qualms about offering their creations for free over the Net, hoping that they will be noticed.

Perhaps the most successful example of the success of the sharing ethic is the open source code revolution spearheaded by the Linux operating system. Linux began as a hacker project by programmer Linus Torvald, who created a clone of the UNIX operating system and placed it on the Internet for free. The code has been subsequently improved many times, and being free, many companies are now distributing their own Linux version.

This new sharing ethic is the subject of the proposed paper, as the phenomenon raises some very interesting questions, which will be addressed directly. Is it ethical to share information that does not belong to you? What are the benefits of sharing information over the Internet? Are we witnessing the end of the ownership of ideas as we know it? Will this sharing ethic survive the increasing commercialisation of the Internet?

AUTHOR

Frances S. Grodzinsky
Computer Science Department
Sacred Heart University
Fairfield, Connecticut USA

Herman T. Tavani
Philosophy Department
Rivier College
Nashua, New Hampshire USA

ABSTRACT

During the last five years, the instances of cyberstalking-related crimes have proliferated. The 1999 US Attorney General’s Report to the Vice President [3] notes that although no formal statistics for cyberstalking-related crimes are yet available, some local law enforcement agencies have begun to see a rise in the number of reported cases of cyberstalking. That report cites three examples: (1) the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office, where approximately 20 percent of the roughly 600 cases handled by its Stalking and Threat Assessment Unit involved e-mail or other electronic communications; (2) the Sex Crimes Unit in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, which attributed about 20 percent of its cases to cyberstalking; and (3) the Computer Investigations and Technology Unit of the New York City Police Department which estimates that almost 40 percent of the caseload in the unit involves electronic threats and harassment. Virtually all of the reported cases of cyberstalking have occurred in the past three or four years. In addition, the report cites a study on sexual victimization of college women, conducted at the University of Cincinnati. In a national telephone survey of 4,446 randomly selected women attending two- and four-year institutions of higher education during the 1996-97 academic year, “581 women (13.1 percent) were stalked and reported a total of 696 stalking incidents. Of these, 166 (24.7 percent) involved e-mail. Thus, 25 percent of stalking incidents among college women could be classified as involving cyberstalking”[4].

Targets of cyberstalking get little help from either law enforcement agencies or civil courts because cyberstalking, as a form of criminal activity, is not yet taken seriously. Real life stalking laws are relatively new. In the US, for example, no laws against real life stalking, that is, stalking in physical space, were passed until 1990. “So in a country where targets of offline stalking are still told by the Police: ‘We are sorry, but we can’t do anything unless you get physically attacked,’ it is perhaps little wonder that stalking in virtual space gets even less respect”[2].

“Genuine computer crimes” have been defined as crimes that can be carried out only through the use of computer technology and only within the cyber realm. According to this definition, cyberstalking is not a genuine computer crime because criminal acts involving stalking need not involve computer technology, nor need they be restricted to cyberspace [1]. This, of course, does not imply that stalking activities in cyberspace are not serious crimes or that such criminal activities are any less serious than stalking activities that take place in physical space. Rather, it suggests that such crimes might be prosecuted under different legal statutes than those of cybercrime.

One might argue that any proposal to differentiate computer crimes into the categories of “genuine” vs. “non-genuine” computer crimes is too rigid a distinction, at least for practical purposes. This paper will investigate whether cyberstalking deserves special attention in ways other “non-genuine” computer crimes do not. Cyberstalking, an exploitative crime that typically targets women, is exacerbated both in terms of ease and scale by the Internet. This medium has also made possible certain forms of stalking-related behavior and activities that would not have been possible in the era of pre-computer technology.

We will illustrate some of the essential differences between offline and online stalking by focusing on such key issues as anonymity, distance, and “multiple harassment.” For example, a woman might not know that she is being stalked or not know the identity of who is stalking her — i.e., anonymous stalking is possible on the Internet. Does the possibility of anonymity in cyberspace encourage cyberstalking in those individuals who might think twice about stalking a person in physical space, given the confrontational aspect of the face-to-face act?

Also of importance to understanding significant differences between online- and offline-cyberstalking activities is an appreciation of the factor that distance vs. non-distance can play in the respective types of stalking. In cases involving “offline stalking,” the victim and aggressor are in the same geographic space. There, a woman may be able to get a court injunction against someone who physically stalks her. In the case of online stalking, however, there is no concept of distance. Also in cyberspace, there may not be any physical confrontation. Furthermore, offline stalking is generally a criminal act involving an individual against a victim. However, an online stalker can also engage others in the harassment of the targeted victim, because of the scope of electronic communication.

This study will assess some of the moral and legal issues associated with cyberstalking. We will examine the implications of issues such as privacy and free speech for cyberstalking. For example, we will consider how cyberstalking can violate the victim’s privacy and can protect that of the stalker; and how the stalker can be protected under free speech, especially if the postings are on Web sites that support violence against women. We will try to develop some answers to the following questions:

• Do we have any obligation to alert the potential victims of cyberstalking?
• What is the responsibility, if any, of those who read the cyberstalking postings to alert the person(s) being stalked?
• Is there a sense of “civil” online responsibility?
• Do, or should, ISP’s have any or should have any special responsibility in these matters?
• Should there be any liability attached?
• Which states in the US are taking steps to recognize the seriousness of cyberstalking and plan to introduce laws against it?
• Should we continue to have to wait until the stalking acts migrate to physical space before law enforcement agencies can legally move against a stalker?
• What happens if it is then too late?

We will use some cases to illustrate our points.

REFERENCES

1. Tavani, Herman T. “Defining the Boundaries of Computer Crime: Piracy, Break-Ins and Sabotage in Cyberspace,” Computers and Society, Vol. 30, No. 4, September 2000, pp. 3-9.
2. Hatcher, Colin Gabriel. CYBER STALKING. www.safetyed.org.
3. 1999 Report on cyberstalking: a new challenge for law enforcement and industry. www.cybercrime.gov.
4. Fisher, B. S., F. T. Cullen, J. Belknap, and M. G. Turner, “Being Pursued: Stalking Victimization in a National Study of College Women.” (From a forthcoming report on sexual violence against college women funded by the US Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice) referenced in [3].

AUTHOR

Anna Grabowska,
Distance Education Center,
TUG

Józef Wozniak,
Faculty of ETI,
TUG

ABSTRACT

About TeleCAD project
The main goal of the TeleCAD project (Leonardo da Vinci Programme, 1998-2001) is to develop educational environment in the field of virtual mobility for CAD systems’ users in order to improve the quality of initial vocational training and the transition of young people to working life in the information society .

The project development includes:

• dedicated platform in the Internet for project developers (for management purpose, exchanging ideas, developing the project contents, monitoring the results),
• training methodology for teleworkers working with CAD systems on a basis of experiences of partners involved in the project and results of research in this field,
• dedicated platform in the Internet for teleworkers (with the particular distinguish between managers and workers tasks),
• electronic-based teaching materials (CD-ROM),
• special guides for tutors and learners in English and in national languages,
• delivery of example courses for teleworkers working with CAD systems for different target groups.

TeleCAD Web Based Training Platform – a short characteristic
In the first stage TeleCAD platform in the Internet was developed in order to organise the co-operation between course developers, e.g. communication and file sharing. Building WBT environment (WBT@TUG) for the course delivery was the second stage. The proposed environment provides students management, support for tutors, communication environment and assessment tools. The main stress was put on the management of Internet based distance education. The course manager, who is usually responsible for many virtual classes, should have information about student and tutor activities. Students should know if tutor activities are relevant to student needs. This includes answering student questions promptly and in a satisfying degree, preparing FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) and TMAs (Tutor Marked Assignments) lists. Measuring student progress is a very important issue in distance education. There are a few ways to monitor it with a Web based environment. Students perform self-assessment tests and TMAs that give insight to their progress. System may monitor student activities on discussion lists, access to course material Web pages, FAQ lists and alike.

TeleCAD WBT environment quality aspects – monitoring and evaluation
According to Freeman [Freeman R.: Managing Open Systems, Kogan Page1997] ensuring quality of DE courses offered to learners and achieving a good economic result in any WBT system “monitoring actions should be limited to those functions where changes can be made in a short term. Evaluation should be limited to those functions where it will be possible make changes for some future offering of the course”. Central monitoring system can be divided into three levels:

1. Course/programme – how the course is doing compared to other courses or compared to an estabilished standard
2. Individual tutor – how tutor X is getting along with his or her group of students compared to other tutors or compared to an established standard
3. Individual learner – how learner Y is getting along – compared to other learners or compared to an estabilished standard

There are specific factors that might be centrally monitored at all three levels. For example at the 1st level percentage of students still on the course, number of assignments completed to date against target figure, average mark on each assignment compared to target, report/comments from learners and tutors should be monitored. Monitoring tutor engagement is perhaps the top priority assuming that tutor performance has a significant impact on progress of learners. That is why it so important to know a turnaround time for marking and commenting on assignments, their quality and quantity. At the third level monitoring individual learners number of assignments completed to a deadline seams to be crucial. In order to improve the quality of future courses monitoring must lead to actions. In a case of the course materials the certain issue can be modified, replaced or additional materials can be introduced. Assignments can be also replaced or postponed. Student can be allocated to another tutor or tutor can be additionally trained. In a case of monitoring individual learners alternative study approach can be offered or the learner schedule can be adjusted. The TeleCAD WBT environment introduces the integrated database system in order to collect student, tutor, evaluator opinions reported by questionnaires online.

Selected network security problems
The Internet technology is now widely used in the computer networks environment. The main reason for this is relatively high effectiveness of the TCP/IP protocol suite. With the development of the Internet we observe however, not only increase of the speed of the information exchange, but also new threats introduced into the TCP/IP based computer networks. These threats are mainly concerned with the loss of information privacy and security, and as a result, with the dependability of the network. We should realize that the information safety is today of utmost importance.

Some steps that should be taken in order to change intolerable situation comprise:

• definition and incorporation of security policy,
• automation of security procedures,
• usage of improved systems for users identification and authentication with the wider use of cryptography, and finally
• implementation of dedicated security systems called firewalls.

The main objective of such dedicated systems is to protect private Intranets against any unauthorized access or use of the internal resources of these networks (e.g. servers with especially important databases), to provide security against denial of service attacks, as well as to support user identification and authentication mechanisms that allow to control the network activity of internal users. To achieve these goals, firewalls incorporate quite complex and sophisticated mechanisms such as packet filtering, dynamic firewalling or proxy, that allow for the control of the whole traffic between public and protected networks.

TeleCAD WBT environment – security versus ethics
Internet based systems which are used for education purposes also face serious problems connected to either careless and improper usage or wrong protection of personal data of learners and tutors. The course management and monitoring subsystem which was developed essentially for DECTUG (Distance Education Centre at Technical University of Gdansk) serves the distance education institution manager and network administrator. It provides information about all system users (students, tutors, administrators, others). The manager has access not only to information about student progress, marks and statistics of activity. Moreover, the manager will have possibility to monitor tutor performance. It will be possible to detect a tutor that is not responding to messages, does not update FAQ lists or does not log into the system. The proposed solution allows to collect all data connected to logging to the system concerning server, bytes, user track, file name, remote host, time served, URL path, content type and user name. It can be stressed that collecting the information is not only the security aspect. The DECTUG is also responsible for ensuring the high quality of the course delivery procedure. On the other hand several issues concerning ethics should have been taken into account. One of them is a monitoring subsystem which is used also in the case of internal e-mail communication between students, tutors and others. One can say that monitoring students and tutors activities regarding general course involvement which is presented in statistics numbers is allowed, while looking into e-mail contents is forbidden. This issue seams to be essential as far as ethics in a virtual learning community is concerned.