AUTHOR

Wojciech Jerzy Bober (Poland)

ABSTRACT

1. Two opposite views

From the beginnings of computer ethics, transformation of institution by IT (information technology) serves as a proof of ongoing computer revolution. We owe this account to James H. Moor who has presented it in his widely-known 1985 paper (“What is computer ethics?”). However, this view is challenged by an earlier insight, made by Joseph Weizenbaum in his influential book of 1976 (“Computer Power and Human Reason”), stating that computers serve as a conservation tool rather than as a revolutionary tool: their main impact on institutions consists in preserving their habits and not transforming them.

On the first glance these views seems contradictory. But it is so only if we hold them as general propositions. Weizenbaum had in mind that computer technology reinforced bureaucracy which in other case would have to resign from extensive data collection whereas Moor’s view was particularly based on his example of presidential elections. In this example, computer technology made that an important principle was put into question. Of these researchers, the former put stress on new methods of doing something that had been being done before whereas the latter on transformation of principles. So these two views are hardly contradictory. However, the transforming effect of IT can be different in different institutions.

2. Three examples

In this section three examples of institution transformation are analysed. The question is: what makes that some transformation of an institution may be regarded hazardous from moral point of view? Conclusion is that transformation of an institution need not to involve any morally important question and that when moral hazard is reported it is due to undermining or abandoning of some important norm, rule or value that was inherent in institution in question.

It is widely recognized that introduction of computer technology had an impact on some concepts such as freedom, property, or privacy. Therefore, some institutions must have been transformed as a result of this conceptual change. For example, if software piracy is forbidden by law and respective institutions tend to eliminate it as a crime, we can conceive it as a kind of transformation. In this case, however, the impact of IT was mediate rather than immediate and so the moral reason for the transformation.

3. Creation of new institutions

The other side of transformation is creation of new institutions. In this section I analyse what new institutions did evolve as a result of computer technology. The most important examples arise from the introduction of computer networks. Examples of these new institutions are such as e-mail, e-business, or discussion groups. The question arises whether such new institutions may pose important moral hazard. This problem leads toward the question of uniqueness of moral problems caused by computers.

4. Transformation of institutions and the uniqueness debate

In computer ethics, the so-called ‘uniqueness debate’ served as the main forum for establishing the boundaries of the discipline. In his keynote to Ethicomp 95, Walter Maner proposed a set of features, that make computer technology different from any other technology, and a criterion for establishing the set of unique moral problems. The criterion consists in seeking an analogy with a situation without serious involvement of computer technology.

In this section, the Maner’s proposal is analysed. One must notice that transformation of institution is a different problem than establishing the boundary between unique and non-unique moral problems caused by computers and that Maner’s criterion cannot be simply applied in this context. However, his proposal to seek analogy may be applied for establishing if there are some special institutions that are essentially based on use of IT (that do not resemble any institutions working without that technology).

5. Other moral risks caused by transformation of institutions

IT may have still more deep and more profound impact on social life through institutional transformations. Some consequences may not be seen if single examples will be considered. When we take into account e.g. broad perspective proposed by philosopher Hans Jonas, we may see that cumulative effect of massive transformations can lead us toward quite different social structure. These transformations may put into question our very concept of society and idea of good life.

6. Conclusions

Two opposite views may be held: that computers transform some institutions and that computers conserve some institutions. The transformation thesis puts stress on change of rules of an institution whereas conservation thesis puts stress on techniques and methods applied in respective institutions.

Transformation of an institution need not to involve any morally important question. Walter Maner’s criterion (lack of analogy) can hardly serve as a criterion of institutional transformation in a morally important way (institutional transformations may be result of a unique moral problem, and not form such a problem itself). The analogy, however, may be important when we consider new institutions.

If there are some moral problems with institutional transformation it is due to violation of some important moral norm, rule or value.

Massive institutional transformations may pose quite new questions and cause quite new social problems.

AUTHOR

Alana Lowe-Petraske (UK)

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the implications of the recent stealthy introduction of Copy-protected recordings onto the international music market in terms of 1)the rhetoric of internet piracy, 2)the primacy of economic imperative over privacy and public domain concerns, and 3) the social and aesthetic aspects of compressed audio files for music use, the album format, and genre taxonomy. Finally, by way of an open-ended conclusion, the pragmatic motivation for the use of such technologies is inflected with the abstract relation of musical sound and noise over time.

The family of CD copy-protection technologies such as Cactus Data Protection Shield function by strategically adding extra data to the disc that is corrected by the error-corrective facility standard to audio CD players but is read and reproduced as non-music data by a PC, producing a ripped CD that is full of extraneous non-music noise. The CD format’s dual hallmarks of durability and compatibility over time, geography, brand and device have been eroded recklessly by these proprietary attempts. Further, as disclosed in the Patent application for the Cactus Product, this sort of technology only provides roughly equivalent audio quality and has the potential to damage stereo hardware.
The relative silence surrounding the release of this material onto the market (commercial as well as promotional)suggests not the pseudo-scientific approach to market-testing implied by the record companies. Rather, it suggests a misguided hope that music consumers, digital rights activists, civil libertarians, and Philips Electronics, the owner of the CD-logo, would simply fail to notice. In fact the vociferous response, ranging from disgruntled consumers to the format-safeguarder Philips has been deafening online, though virtually silent in the mainstream media.

In its ‘war on piracy’ (after Stallman, Barbrook), the Music Industry has conscripted the various notions of authorship and creativity to further its profit imperative and protect its right to trade in music recording copyrights(Marshall, Woodmansee). The history of the authorship/copyright relation can be aptly depicted as a conscription of copyright for the cause of redefining the author in the wake of economic shifts and the decline of aristocratic patronage. The codified criteria of originality (after Young) is no long-standing tradition and the characterisation of use as theft is persuasive rhetorical flourish. However, consumers do not feel they are stealing the just rewards due the artist, they feel instead that the corporate record industry sets such unreasonably high prices for CD recordings, only to sneak ‘corrupted’ recordings onto the market at the expense of consumer satisfaction, trust, and loyalty.

In the extreme case of the copy-protection stealth, economic imperative has ridden roughshod over issues of privacy and the public domain. As the less-centralised progeny of Napster such as KazAa and Gnutella effectively disperse the activity of compressed audio file sharing online, the inherent conflict between the ‘gift culture’ online and the economic realities of the corporate sphere comes into sharp relief. Any attempts to control ‘peer-to-peer’ exchange of music online would necessitate a ‘top-down’ management — the ‘digital panoptican’ (Rheingold). Even industry attempts to appease users who desire mp3 format music for ‘space-shifting’ for example, require online registration, an awkward encroachment onto the relative anonymity basic to Net users.

The paper will finally examine the aesthetic implications of this copy-protection technology in terms of access, use-practices, and the theoretical relation of musical sound and noise (Attali). Access is in itself an ethical issue and one with profound implications. Increased access in developed economies to cheap CD burners means many individuals who rip their own CDs may not be technologically educated or savvy at all — these individuals will not search for a ‘workaround’ indefinitely and will be discouraged from copying relatively easily. Their access-priviledge and position on the fortunate side of the ‘digital divide’ is tempered by the industry’s proprietary attempt. However, those with enough technological fluency and determination to ‘workaround’ the duplication barrier will clear the hurdle with relative ease, resulting in a scenario where those with sufficient technological skill and techo-cultural orientation will continue to have access to the use-freedoms inherent with digital audio files while the rest will be bound to 1) the album as a format, 2) passivity as a listening method, 3)consumption, rather than self-production of accompanying visual or informational paratext (after Genette) and 4) the chance to collaborate online and transform musics independent from the author-owner gaze.

AUTHOR

Logan Muller (New Zealand)

ABSTRACT

One wonders with all the technological advances in the last ten years, why so many businesses have been failing. It seems now that even our leading economies of the last century are beginning to show stress cracks in their infrastructures and old fix-it budgets are just not cutting it anymore. Technology has fulfilled all those reasons we were given 15 years ago why business was becoming harder and harder. Yet failures and inefficiencies are rife. With the obsession on technology, automation, integration, alignment, online, 24/7 it seems we have been avoiding asking the real questions at hand. Are our business structures out of date? Have they passed their use by date? Are we doomed to become another fallen empire because of arrogantly clinging to a dying commercial infrastructure? IT has accelerated the inevitable by empowering the customers in our consumer economies. Businesses are faced with the change or become extinct. The environments within which they operate are also under threat. Developing economies have blindly followed the American paradigm of business. It was developed in the 1800s and was based on an army model! The complete reverse of these attributes is what successful e-business is about. No wonder western business structures have scrambled to IT as a potential saviour- albeit in many cases, in vain. Socially the accepted modern economy was supposed to improve the standards of living, but has it increased our quality of life? The track in which society is racing was initially a foundation for a product driven economy to deliver its products to a needy consumer base. i.e. when demand outweighed supply. Look at when our corporate model was formalised, 1870 and based on the military model of delivering consistency and conformity to an unquestioning mass. Oh how things have changed in consumer needs in the last 132 years, but have our business structures adapted accordingly? NO. All we have done is encumbered an inappropriate system with layer after layer of sales, marketing and branding hype in order to perpetuate the model. Tell any producer in the 1800s that their $4 dollar item would need to sell for $180 in order to cover the costs of, branding, sales support, marketing and manufacturing logistics and they would have laughed in our face. Yet even with commodity items such as running shoes, this has become an accepted norm. The great producing economies of the 1800s and early 1900s have become no more than economies built around hype, marketing and now are the experts in customer manipulation. It has got to the point where, to maintain the product driven military based business paradigm, the ‘great producing economies’ can no longer afford to produce their products anymore and have to farm production out to the emerging economies in order to sustain the weight of the props needed to sell their goods. Ironic really. What is our social responsibility in the IT sector? Is it to the business entities that pay our wages, or to society to unleash the true power and benefits? IT has blindly followed the tunneled vision of these business structures and focussed on the automation of the entrenched business processes rather than focussing on new ways to make the entire paradigm more effective and efficient. Rather than asking how IT can be used to facilitate production based on need, we have concentrated on the continuation of mass production of goods and regarded ‘efficiency’ in its most superficial meaning. In a world of increasing pollution, huge disparities in living standards and education, why are we clinging to a economic paradigm in western economies, supported by IT in every conceivable form, that focuses on the production of goods for the sole purpose of making a dollar and being ‘competitive with the competition’ rather than the long term sustainability of our earth? Recent advances in Internet technologies have provided a mechanism for a truly customer led economy. A first step in a mindset that produces only what is needed. This advance is significant. Customer-led businesses are flourishing and, despite all the technology in the world, our top, down, product driven businesses are failing at a never before repeated rate. This paper examines the connection between IT and the need to re-engineer our commercial and organisational structures BUT not re-engineering from a business process point of view, but re-engineering from a philosophical viewpoint. IT has accentuated the failings in our business model. In a recent survey we discovered less than 4% of the websites surveyed showed any sign of the essential ingredients of successful business paradigms. It is the precursor to a research project in the author’s opinion is long overdue.

AUTHOR

Patrick Flanagan (USA)

ABSTRACT

This paper will offer an overview of the digital divide, presenting statistical evidence to substantiate the claim that the digital divide is real and not merely a theoretical construct purported by cyberlibertarians. Additionally, the paper makes the claim that without access to information technology, the notion of globalization will merely remain an ideal and its evolution controlled by a handful of the more wealthy powerful nations. After displaying the empirical data, the paper will identify and evaluate some ways that have attempted to bridge the gap of the digital divide. Appealing to the law for more equal distribution and greater access has rendered futile, at the very least unsatisfactory, results. Understandably so, as the law only sets the minimum conditions for communities to live in peace and civility with one another. Ethics, on the other hand, establishes the maximum for which can communities can strive towards to flourish. A consideration then of the metaethical concept of the common good, I believe, can serve the future of information technology well. Until such time as there is greater distribution and more equal access, the incredible achievements of information technology will always be billed as limited and parochial, the property of the “haves.” As a way to resolve this dissonance between the “haves” and “have-nots,” the paper proposes what Paulo Freire calls a “radical self-awareness in a culture of silence” to address the issue of the digital divide. The rest of the paper will then discuss Paulo Freire’s dynamic pedagogy and its import for resolving the digital divide dilemma by appealing to his particular understanding how a just and equal common good should be achieved.

The internet has had a revolutionary impact on the global community. A little over ten years ago it was only a handful of select government, university, and technical people who had access to the internet. Now, the internet and the world wide web, its user-friendly platform, are ubiquitous. People “cannot live without the internet.” The internet plays such a vital role in the economic, political, cultural, and social spheres of life. As a magnificent and powerful tool, the internet has been at the forefront of the transformation of societal cultures, the reconstruction of politics, and the renovation of economies.

Such growth has not come without certain costs and significant liabilities. Criminal acts such as scams, fraud, identity theft, trespass, and hacking have become more prevalent on the web, despite the fact that there have been global initiatives legislated to combat cybercrime, network security bolstered to prevent hacking, and code devised to protect critical infrastructures. Despite the laws “on the books” and the legal initiatives throughout the world, the law has not been able easily to prosecute criminals using the internet as their preferred platform.

The profound impact information technology has had on the global community and the regrettable, yet inherent, resultant ordeal of crime typically has been important focus for information technology. Unfortunately, the important and justice issue of the digital divide gets lost between the two extremes. Thus, it would be critical also not to forget the challenge of the digital divide. It is a live and well. Despite the celebrated exponential growth of information technology throughout the world, many people continue to live without access. Availability likewise is a significant problem. Additionally, where there is availability in some parts of the world, such as in China and Singapore, strict governmental regulation compounds the issue and adds another element to the digital divide problematic. Despite other positive and negative issues that have occupied peoples’ minds about technology, one cannot be distracted from the digital divide. It is still very much prevalent throughout the world and closure of the chasm does not seem to be in the foreseeable future at this time.

The Brazilian liberation philosopher Paulo Freire offers a particular perspective on the common good that can prove instrumental in the reconstruction of a common good for this age of information technology, a common good that promises both equality and justice. Freire’s key to renewal is education for as he believes education is liberation, but not education as it historically has been understood. No longer can education be based on banking procedures where people make deposits and withdrawals with necessarily and real significant reflection and where likewise interest is accrued or penalties assessed based on one’s behaviors. Freire resisted such a pedagogical method and sought to implement a comprehensive educational system whereby people are taught not only basic skills, but application through expression and activism in the political area so that real freedom and equality might be possible. His method consisted of two stages that were part of a continuing cyclical process of renewal and liberation: conscientization and praxis. People first needed to realize and become conscious of their oppression and the ways their freedom has been eclipsed through dehumanization. And secondly, action needed to be taken to reform the structures of the state so a more just and equitable society might exist.

Speaking as one who knows poverty, isolation, and forced estrangement from his own native land, he offers a simple concrete and yet profound “way out” for the “have-nots.” His educational method is a liberation or humanization for the marginalized classes of society from what he calls “cultures of silence.” Freire seeks to help women and men drained from the oppressive structures and consigned to a particular way of life to energetically rise above their powerlessness and take responsibility for their future. Passivity is fatal and only serves to “keep down” and limit the resources of the already marginalized. In the end, Freire offers a way out for the “have-nots” through cooperation, dialogue, unity and cultural synthesis.

AUTHOR

Richard Volkman (USA)

ABSTRACT

In a 1997 article in Wired magazine, Jon Katz proclaims, “The world’s information is being liberated, and so, as a consequence, are we.”¹ Katz argues that information technology transforms our cultural circumstance to such a degree that the old dogmas and traditions that have bound our thinking no longer have power over us. We have been liberated from the effects of tired ideology and the authority of leaders, and we have consequently discovered in the information age a new age of freedom.

I will argue that digital culture does transform our cultural circumstances in ways that are liberating. The processes of creation, distribution, and consumption of artifacts of digital culture are all fundamentally different from these process in the days of broadcast and print culture, and these changes each tend towards the liberation of individuals from the authority of leaders, gatekeepers, and corporate power. I will demonstrate this through an analysis of such disparate artifacts as movies, news services, creative writing, and video games. In the information age, the creators of cultural artifacts are not in control of the meaning of their works. The meaning of a work in digital culture is distributed across the Net in the minds of what used to be called consumers, and that meaning is subject to constant reinterpretation and evolution.

This transformation is perhaps most obvious in the case of video games, which are perhaps the purest form of digital culture. In this medium, which could not exist were it not for technology, the actual meaning of the artifact and its cultural significance does not come from the message its creator intends to convey, but from the interaction it invites from its users. It is not up to the producers of digital artifacts to send simple messages about what it means to be a boy or a girl in this or that cultural circumstance because one does not read the messages of video games. One literally plays with them.

To take a concrete example, consider the Pokemon series of video games and movies. As the father of a five-year-old, I am an unwitting expert with respect to this genre. As anyone who has watched one of the cartoons or played one of the games can attest, these characters and their settings are distinctly ambiguous in race, blending Japanese and American traits until it is impossible to tell which was intended. In fact, this ambiguity itself is almost certainly intended, but not to send any particular message. Rather, Nintendo recognizes the value of letting American kids interpret Ash one way, while Japanese kids can read him differently. In order to reach the widest possible market, and perhaps for more artistic reasons as well, the creators have found it desirable to let kids read their own messages into these characters. This kind of stylized racial ambiguity is not confined to the Pokemon series. Indeed, it is one of the hallmarks of the Anime or Japanimation scene, and finds expression in countless other artifacts of digital culture. On the Internet, no one knows you’re a dog. ²

Artifacts of digital culture get their meaning from the interaction of consumers with the artifacts, and this fact extends beyond the “pure” digital artifacts and into more traditional media, such as writing and visual arts. Hypertext offers one common example of this, since the ability to click around to other sources in the context of reading a work can transform the meaning of the work. Consider, for example, a web site of Nietzsche’s works hyperlinked to relevant passages of the Bible or Koran. Surely such a juxtaposition is pregnant with meanings that Nietzsche did not intend. Indeed, the line between creator and consumer of messages–so important to broadcast culture–is blurred or even obliterated.

This obliteration is perhaps best exemplified in the chat rooms, bulletin boards, and self-organizing communities that spring up online. I will illustrate the point by examining web sites like Slashdot³, in which the reading community, the writing community, and the reviewing community are entirely merged. Through an invisible-hand process involving moderation, feedback, and revision, better and better cultural artifacts emerge. It is like they are organically grown in an environment carefully designed to permit only the best to survive. There are analogies here to biological evolution, but it is crucial to recognize the crucial differences between these communities and actual biological systems, especially with respect to the design of the environment itself and the sorts of artifacts that can be expected to flourish in that environment. Not coincidentally, the values fostered by the Slashdot environment are strikingly similar to those of the Open Source software movement, the free market in goods and services, and the scientific community at large. In every case, the core value is freedom.

Drawing from these examples and others, I will to offer an analysis of the sort of freedom that is at stake in the assertion that we are liberated by the liberation of information. While this is not a new sort of freedom, it is clear that its pervasiveness in digital culture will hearken to a very new sort of culture.

REFERENCES

[1] Jon Katz, “Birth of a Digital Nation,” Wired 5.04 (1997): http://www.wired.com/wired/5.04/netizen.html.

[2] Peter Steiner, untitled cartoon, The New Yorker 69, no. 20(1993). The cartoon can be seen online at http://www.unc.edu/courses/jomc050/idog.html.

[3] http://www.slashdot.org

AUTHOR

Micha Ren (Poland)

ABSTRACT

The main thesis of this paper is the following:
The faults usually associated with ICT can be mostly attributed to friction between ICT and old way of doing things. Where possible, it is beneficial to change all parts of the system to the “new way” rather than part-by-part. New legislation regarding digital signatures will allow for that step to be taken in many areas of everyday life. Digital signatures create the problem of certification of identity, and the development of certification agencies must be closely monitored.

Information and communications technology was often accused of being a snake, eating its own tail – the whole industry producing no more than it is consuming. [1] Counting strictly by amount of money produced this may be true, but there remain things not accounted for, parts of everyday life that would not have existed at all without new technologies. In most stores one can pay with a credit card – inconceivable thirty years ago. Of course, this development has given rise to new kinds of fraud – there are many horror stories about credit card numbers used for remote transactions. This is the result of friction between the real world, “brick and mortar” part of the system, and the digital, intangible part. Credit cards are susceptible to fraud because they merely give access to money – they are not the money themselves. It would be possible to devise a system of secure, untraceable, and almost impossible to forge (certainly much harder than traditional bills) digital cash. [2] But not all aspects of everyday life can exist without their “brick and mortar” parts. The ICT industry is in the stage of figuring out what can be done with technology – what can be transferred from “brick and mortar” to digital, and in what ways can digital do better.

The dream of paperless office has remained but a dream for decades. Now, this may change to an extent. The amount of electronic data exchanged in high-tech companies is already high, but for some things, paper is still indispensable. One reason is technological – there is no suitable display medium which is cheap, light, flexible and high-contrast. This obstacle will be surmounted, as it only requires refinement of existing technologies; in fact, this is happening now. [3] Another, more interesting reason is that no electronic document carried legal weight (except, perhaps, as evidence) until recently. Now, however, more and more countries create laws which acknowledge electronic signatures. That law is very important for the ICT industry. Some countries, Poland included, went as far as to state that electronic and traditional signatures will be treated equally. This is a very simple statement, but it is said that the devil is in the details, and indeed the most important part of those new laws is laying out the requirements that the digital signature must fulfill in order to be considered valid.

There emerges the most difficult part – that of certification. The digital signature is superior to a normal one – it depends on the document being signed, so it can’t be extracted and copied. However, the signature has no connection to the person signing it, contrary to handwriting, which can be recognized as belonging to an individual. A digital signature is just a piece of data, and it is of extreme importance to be able to assert: “that piece of data could only be generated by the individual named …” – something that can be accomplished by certification. [4] All digital signatures are created based on a secret, that only the signer possesses. A certification authority must exist which will vouch that a particular secret is indeed in possession of a particular individual – that too, is handled by digital signatures, but the signature of the certification authority is assumed to be well known. This function could be handled by the government, much like issuing passports or ID cards. It could also be handled by private companies, which could be certified by the government itself. Finally, it could follow a web of trust model, such as found in PGP [5]; however, this is unlikely since the trust in the certificate of authenticity can only go as far as trust in the certification authority.

And that is where the problem lies. If all countries found their own certification agencies, will every signature be trusted? Will every certification carry the same weight? I do not believe that USA and Principality of Sealand will be given equal treatment – in the USA, anyway. It is likely, however, that the pressure to be able to participate in the global economy will force, not necessarily official, but de facto “standard” – one certification authority – a country or entity, which will be fully trusted. Unsurprisingly, the most likely country for that role is the USA, or an organization existing in the USA. And a country which controls this supreme certification authority will gain an advantage – it will be easier for its agents to assume false identities. The question of “whom can you trust” is easy to answer at the country level (as the governments already issue “proofs of identity”, but between countries, it is not trivial.

REFERENCES

[1] Gogo³ek, W³odzimierz, (2000), “Mity i rzeczywistoœæ Internetu.” conference materials from “INTERNET – Wroc³aw 2000” (in Polish).

[2] M. Kuty³owski, W. Strothmann, “Kryptografia. Teoria i praktyka zabezpieczania systemow komputerowych.”, Read Me 1999 (in Polish)

[3] “The Electronic Paper Chase”, Steve Ditlea, Scientific American 11/2001, also online at http://www.sciam.com/2001/1101issue/1101ditlea.html

[4] A. Menezes, P. van Oorschot, S. Vanstone, “Handbook of Applied Cryptography”, CRC Press, 1996, also online at http://www.cacr.math.uwaterloo.ca/hac/

[5] “The International PGP home page”, online at http://www.pgpi.org/