AUTHOR

E. Konarzewski & J. Sienkiewicz
Higher Education College,
Gizycko, Poland

ABSTRACT

1. Introduction

General access to the electronic media results in a number of considerable menaces. The following subjects have been chosen for diagnostic and defining purposes as for the desired ethical behaviours:

• secondary level students
• college students
• teachers
• families
• institutions
• informal groups

The attitudes of the subjects are considered in a number of different aspects. The subject of analysis was the natural inability to select and process information, which is typical of teenagers. The need of responsible course of action of the subjects capable of supporting the process of shaping the appropriate behaviours has been pointed out.

1. Diagnosis of the current conditions

Ethical duties seem to be the responsibility of all the parts participating in the process of the electronic data transmission. The Internet appears to rise peculiar fears. This is so, due to the radically new results it causes, such as considerable depreciation of the information tools, transmission unification or lack of the responsible reaction and certain weakening of interpersonal contacts.

Information transmitted electronically can both be used in order to stop the general progress and to obstruct the integral human wealth, alienating, isolating or making the humans themselves unimportant. It can also involve people in communities which are deprived and organised according to falsely valued communities.

A real danger appears – the tendency to present matters that are morally doubtful and ignoring the values that are of noble quality. It seems to be extremely challenging for the pedagogical process organisers to cope with the matter.

The spread of misinformation, vulgarity and cliché support appear to be the basic issues endangering the appropriate moral condition of the youth.

2. Subject and methodology of the research

Students of the secondary level and collage level were chosen to provide the data for this research.

The main research issues concerned moral aspects while using the Internet during the lessons as well as in the students’ free time.

The subject of the analysis was the relation: pedagogical subject – type and contents of the electronic information. Particular attention was paid to the contents of the most negative influence on the young people’s morality, such as sex, violence etc.

The results of the research confirm the thesis about the moral menace appearing while using the means of electronic data transmission.

The study signals the need of the widest possible participation of all the pedagogical institutions in the process of shaping the youth’s – socially accepted – moral system.

3. Available precautionary measures

A number of precautionary measures are constantly being taken to deal with the negative influence that the electronic information has on the young. In the document titled The Basic Issues of the General Education the Polish Ministry of Education has – among the contents of the computer science education – specified

• benefits of general and free access to information
• consequences for both the individuals and for the society
• moral and legal issues associated with using the electronic media.

As the educational and pedagogical achievements the following are exposed as the principals:

• ability to analyse the offers addressed at the young people
• skill of choosing the offer applying the appointed criterion, also rooted in the moral values
• capability of evaluating the computer science application
• ability to evaluate the usefulness of various files as well as the ways and forms of their presentation

The above mentioned document is obligatory for all those organising the pedagogical/educational process.

A document that appears to be useful and helpful in the activities aiming at shaping young people’s moral views is the Pope’s Council of the Mass Media Relations appeal dated 4 April 2000.

The ETHICOMP conference also seems to play an important part here.

1. Directions of the perspective activities

We are of opinion that the freedom in expressing one’s opinions, ideas exchange and opinion discussions should always be supported. However, the above assumption analysed from the ethical point of view does not constitute an eternal and unchangeable norm. It is as well certain that the right to free and independent information transmission is supposed to respect truth, justice and personal life respect.

We believe in the rule that in the data/information transmission the right of one man must not be violated in the name of another man’s right.

The main principles of the social ethics helpfulness, justice, equality and responsibility are to be fully applied.

The ethical sphere does not concern only the transmission itself and its process but the basic structural and system issues, too.

2. Conclusions

Here we present the necessary factors that appear to be of utmost importance as they influence shaping the desired behaviours in subjects’ participating in the electronic transmission.

First of all, we emphasise the mental aspect – making the subjects aware of the menace existence. We critically investigate the institutions and organisations that do not respect the ethical norms in their – presented to the youth – information.

A need of dialogue in which all the participants of the social communication are involved is shown. The dialogue’s overall aim should be promoting/ creating widely accepted attitudes.

REFERENCES

Chenu, M. D. (1969) Teologia materii. Cywilizacja techniczna i duchowosc chrzescijanska. , /trans/. Olga Scherer, Paris

Debowski, J. (1988) Wspólczesny katolicyzm o czlowieku i cywilizacji technicznej, Bialystok

Magee, B. (2000) Wyznania filozofa, /transl./ Bogdan Chwedenczuk, Warszawa: Prószynski i S-ka,

Foley, J. P. [ed.] (2000) : Etyka w srodkach masowego przekazu, Vatican

Misiak, P. Pana L. droga do wolnosci, Forum Akademickie, no. 5 / 2000

Misiak, P., Infoprzemijanie, Forum Akademickie, no. 6 / 2000

Ministerstwo Edukacji Narodowej (1998) Podstawy Programowe Ksztalcenia Ogólnego, Warszawa

AUTHOR

Andrzej Kocikowski
Associate Professor
Institute of Cultural Studies
A. Mickiewicz University,
Poznan,
Poland

ABSTRACT

The first goal of my participation in ETHICOMP2001 is to prepare and next to carry out the discussion about “The Discontinuity of Cultural Process in the Digital Civilization”. This “discontinuity” has at least two aspects, the first of which is the main focus of a very interesting paper prepared by Lukasz Knasiecki. The second aspect – at least as important as the first one – will be the topic of my presentation. In short, the aspect of discontinuity analyzed by Knasiecki shows the painful truth about the computing revolution devouring its own children. The three fundamental theses of this paper I allow myself the liberty of quoting below:

• Fast development of digital technologies creates products, which are incompatible with their predecessors
• The lifetime of a digital product is very short
• The cultural discontinuity phenomenon is created – a lot of civilization’s products become nonexistent

The second aspect analyzed in detail by me, to described by Knasiecki only in necessary detail, can be expressed by the following statements:

• Production of electronic devices (including broadly defined information carriers) which serve the analog culture will be discontinued in mass quantities
• Only the products of the former civilization which are deemed worthy of conversion to the digital format can be accessed in mass-media
• The cultural discontinuity phenomenon in a different aspect is created
• The North-American civilization gains an unfounded, disturbing advantage over the rest of the world

In the first part of the paper I will remind the chosen statement of one of the theories of the historical process (historical materialism) The reminder will include subjects which characterize the capitalistic system as the process of increasing global capital worth; this process can not do without a profit category. I will also present a few theoretical remarks which will apply to a phenomenon particular to the aforementioned issue, that is: the characterization of the process of creation of knowledge (information) as a particular form in which the process of capital increase can occur.

In the second part of the paper I will focus on extending and justification of views expressed by the theses (d) – (g). The first issue is that an unplanned consequence of the computational revolution is removing many devices and data carriers serving the analog culture, beyond the margins of society; their production will have to be discontinued, because it follows the logic of electronic industry development. That leaves the question of what to do with all those products of culture, which were created thanks to the aforementioned devices and were stored on their respective data carriers? The record player and the analog record, the amateur film camera and the 8mm reel, the photo camera and the 6cm film, reel-to-reel tape recorder with its reels, video recorder and VHS tape. What will happed to the private archives of people who recorded the legacy of at least one generation on analog tape?

Public media, including mass media, can of course convert all analog data to digital. Yet there remains the question of which analog data, and by whom, will be considered “fit to” be converted? Assuming that economics will dictate what and how much of the analog age will be shown in the soon-to-come digital age, the answer is surprisingly simple: only that which will pay off.

The rate of expansion of digital technologies and the aforementioned circumstances cause to question the issue of the so called “cultural continuity” which characterizes the life of the species; the issue of continuity is concerned mainly by the so-called cultural heritage and its importance in the upbringing of new generations. To what and in what way will everybody concerned refer?

Taking certain facts into consideration may lead to a conjecture that the North-American civilization gains in the forming system (the global-village information society) an unfounded advantage. Total control over distribution of the information in the world allows manipulating the now discontinuous cultural process. Great Informers from the country of the most advanced information technology can usurp the right to be apostles of the new and only Truth.

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.