AUTHOR
Paul B. de Laat

ABSTRACT

It has become generally accepted, that trust is an important `lubricant’ of social relations, both in `real life’ and in cyberspace. However, what are the prospects for trust developing between `pure virtuals’? Recently, using some very sophisticated arguments, Philip Pettit (forthcoming) answered this question in the negative: trust on the Internet can only be fantasy. My article will be devoted to an analysis and critique of his arguments.

In Pettit (1995), the author argued for the existence of two mechanisms of trust. First, people can be seen as trustworthy because they are considered to be loyal (say a friend or colleague), virtuous (say with religious convictions) or prudent (meaning that they appreciate the benefits of establishing a long-term relationship). Next to this primary trust, a more subtle form is to be distinguished (`secondary trust’). I may trust someone, because I assume that (s)he desires my good opinion. My act of trust gives the trustee an incentive to behave well; alter is supposed to be `trust-responsive’. Here we witness, as the author phrases it, the `cunning of trust’. This secondary kind of trust might explain the existence of trust in very unlikely situations (e.g., between perfect strangers).

Then, in Pettit (forthcoming), he `applied’ this analysis to the Internet. Pure virtuals, he argued, cannot make use of the usual mechanisms of knowledge about the other: face (`bodily presence’), frame (watching the other interact with others), and file (my record of alter’s past behaviour). As a result, primary trust is impossible. Can we trust, instead, upon the mechanism of secondary trust? No, Pettit argues, we cannot. Alter will only possibly be motivated by my future display of esteem, if (s)he believes that my act of trusting reliance is motivated (as well) by my belief in his/her trustworthiness. Secondary trust has to hide, so to speak, behind primary trust. If ego is seen to play exclusively on alter’s trust-responsiveness, the mechanism will backfire, while the move is seen as straightforward opportunism. So in the case of Internet, both mechanisms of eliciting trust from the other are blocked.

My article aims to undermine this argument. I intend to show that Pettit’s analysis can be turned around and used to argue for precisely the opposite proposition: trust on the Internet is theoretically possible. My counterarguments are the following:

(1) `Pure’ virtuals do not exist. Each cybercommunication carries clues and meanings about oneself. These may look tiny but are significant nevertheless. Even more so, while the usual interpersonal clues of face-to-face communication are lacking. A decade of research into CMC has established that these clues are being blown up in significance, in a process of over-attribution; we construct so called `hyperpersonal’ cyberpartners. In addition, participants seem to manage these clues. Details of one’s social life are being circulated, even when these do not seem directly relevant to the group’s purposes. As a result, contrary to Pettit’s argument, virtuals do have clues upon which primary trust may be imputed.

(2) Empirically, there is evidence that sometimes internet interaction between unknown virtuals starts off with trust being assumed ex ante. In order to anticipate upon the anxieties of cyberspace, participants pre-invest attitudes and actions that signal high amounts of trust. This process has been explored in Jarvenpaa & Leidner (1999), and dubbed `cybertrust’ in a 2004 article of mine. Such cybertrust, it will be argued, is the analogon of `swift trust’ in real life situations, when temporary groups engage in tasks characterized by high time pressure, mutual interdependencies, and high risk (a term coined by Meyerson et alii, 1996). How is this anticipatory action to be interpreted? I would suggest that it is nothing else but a kind of secondary trust seeking as described by Pettit: cybertrust is an ex ante appeal upon one’s fellow virtuals to respond and be nice.

Why is the display of cybertrust not interpreted as ludicrous? A possible answer is, that it is not directed to a specified individual, but to a group, with fuzzy boundaries. One’s act does not say: `I trust you’, but `there is surely someone out there whom I can trust’. The virtual that takes up the invitation, by so doing identifies himself as trustworthy; trustworthiness is self-declared, not other-attributed. A cycle of trust may ensue.

(3) Once virtual communities have formed, these may construct their own mechanisms of (primary) trust building, whether by themselves, or aided by `cybermediaries’. For one thing, monetary trust in one’s partner can be created by cybermediaries that take on the escrow function. Moreover, systems of reputation tracking may be constructed. Their most famous pioneer, of course, is eBay. For each transaction, buyer and seller may rate each other; based on these scores, one’s reputation may rise or fall. Finally, groups may build collective frames of mind that guide expectations towards one another. An example coming to mind is the hacker culture, into which open source software projects are embedded.

(4) Finally, it would seem that trust building is much easier than usually assumed if competence trust is involved. Technicians exchange technicalities that gradually confirm or refute the talkers’ competencies. So the issue of competence trust sorts itself out without any social cues needed. In Pettit’s terms: from the outset, professionals assume each other to be competent (primary trust). While such an assumption is quite normal, the way is also paved for the motivating effect of secondary trust: alter feels flattered and challenged to respond. Note, that I do not (like Pettit does) collapse competence trust into confidence or reliance, in which case a trust analysis would not apply. If my analysis is correct, the Internet is just as good a setting for professionals interacting as `real life’.

AUTHOR
Moira Carroll-Mayer, Bernd Carsten Stahl and Ben Fairweather

ABSTRACT

This paper urges discussion of the ethical issues to which the nanotechnologically enabled autonomous weapons policy gives rise. For the first time in history society is faced with the reality of digitised, nanotechnologically enabled autonomous weaponry, weaponry that without human intervention takes the decision to select and strike the target. The US and the UK under Joint Vision 2020 and Operation Watchkeeper respectively have as their goal the replacement of conventional weaponry with digitised largely autonomous weaponry, such transformation scheduled for completion some time within the next 15 years. Some autonomous weaponry is already on the field and more, for example self-replicating nanoassembler weaponry is anticipated. Little is known, outside the policy-making cadre, of these developments or of the means by which they are to be implemented. Accordingly the paper will discuss the concept of C41SR or the “system of systems” within which the autonomous weaponry will ultimately operate.

The advent of autonomous weaponry poses serious challenges for just war codes of conduct under which war has been conducted for centuries. The just war doctrine of command responsibility through which culpability for criminal actions on the field of war is punished demands the involvement of a human to whom responsibility can be ascribed. The autonomous weapons policy upon its current trajectory is irreconcilable with that doctrine. The concept of self-replicating nanoassembler weaponry, a form of autonomous weaponry avidly pursued in US DOD laboratories, also challenges the just war principles of proportionality and discrimination on the battlefield.

The research for this paper was undertaken employing critical research methodology. This decision was prompted by awareness that the topic, the ethical implications of the nanotechnological weapons policy implies a presence of tension between the interests of wider society and those of the hegemony. Critical research is rooted in a concern for ethics and the presence of social tension therefore the subject area of the paper provides the ideal milieu for critical research.

The research followed two distinct routes, one built upon a critical review of the literature emanating from military, political and scientific sources and the other upon the findings of a critical discourse analysis of the text of Joint Vision 2020.

The critical review of military, political and scientific literature facilitated a thorough investigation into the ethical issues to which the nanotechnological weapons policy gives rise. Importantly too the review enabled the research to establish whether and to what degree hegemonic bodies involved in the weapons policy address the ethical issues as perceived by those outside the policy making cadre.

The critical discourse analysis of Joint Vision 2020 assists understanding of how the nanotechnological weapons policy is forged, legitimised and made to seem unproblematic in society. The discourse analysis additionally rendered results substantiating allegations that the hegemony veils the development and ethical implications of nanotechnologically enabled autonomous weaponry from wider society

This paper penetrates the mist surrounding the nanotechnologically enabled autonomous weapons policy and paves the way for the confrontation of the most serious ethical dilemma to have arisen in the history of technological development.

AUTHOR
FS Grodzinsky, K Miller and M J. Wolf

ABSTRACT

Steganography is the art and science of placing information within a seemingly unrelated artifact in order to hide the information. The term steganography comes from the Greek meaning “covered writing.” The Greeks etched messages in wooden tablets and covered them with wax. Another Greek technique was to tattoo a shaved messenger’s head, let his hair grow back, then shave it again when he had traveled to the recipient of the message.

There are important connections between steganography and cryptography. However, the two activities are separate, and it is important to understand the technical details that distinguish these two techniques. A user of cryptography often assumes that attackers are aware of the message being transmitted and seeks to make the message unintelligible to the attackers. On the other hand, a user of steganography is (typically) intent on hiding even the existence of the intended message from possible attackers.

As an additional security measure, the steganographer can encrypt a message first and then hide it using steganography to further thwart an attacker; similarly, a message can be embedded using steganography and the resulting media can itself be encrypted. Thus, steganography is a technique for providing private and potentially anonymous communication. (This anonymity can extend to the sender, the receiver or both.)

This paper reviews historical uses of steganography and the impact that advances in information and communication technology have had on steganographic techniques. In particular, we note that computing has put steganography in the hands of just about everyone with a computer and an Internet connection. There are digital steganographic tools freely available on the Web.

The ability to hide messages using steganography has social and ethical implications similar to those of cryptography. Some governments have taken steps to ban the use of cryptography or certain types of cryptography. These bans are often in place to allow authorities to monitor communications; the security of people is thought to require restrictions on the privacy of communications. Currently, steganographic techniques can be used when encryption is prohibited.

Since steganography is considered part of the cyber warfare landscape we will consider whether restrictions on steganography similar to those already in place for encryption are warranted. We will analyze the ethical tradeoffs inherent in people having unfettered access to steganography. We will also consider legal, political, and economic questions surrounding the use and possible abuse of steganography.

While there may be much to be gained in terms of security (both cyber and physical), restricting the private use of steganography restricts free speech. We will argue that there is an important benefit to society when government and private business are not always aware of who is communicating with whom, and when the communication itself is closely held. This argument is even stronger when we realize that even though current steganographic techniques are good, they are not perfect.

Steganalysis, the detection of steganographic messages in electronic media can often detect the presence of steganographic messages. Thus, it is possible for outside parties (such as governments) with effort, to detect and possibly track down both the sender and receiver of steganographic messages. These detection techniques, if used fairly, would give law enforcement and security officials the means to fulfill their responsibilities under the watchful eye of the courts, while allowing citizens, as a rule, to communicate freely. Despite the strong public benefit of unfettered communication, there are also significant risks associated with an inability to detect such messages in the case of criminals, terrorists and those who threaten civil liberties.

While steganography has the property of allowing parties to communicate with greater privacy, it also can be used in a ways that can threaten civil liberties. For example, certain printer manufactures have designed certain color printers, copiers and fax machines to encode the serial number of their machine into every printed document it produces. Our analysis will include a discussion of companies that employ steganography to track documents and other artifacts, including their responsibilities to their customers, to society in general, and to the government.

In summary, the issue of digital steganography, its relation to cryptography, and the differences in how these two techniques are viewed and regulated, are all important intersections of technical details and human values. Our paper will examine these intersections.

REFERENCES

Cryptology: Classical Steganography. http://library.thinkquest.org/27993/crypto/steg/classic1.shtml?tqskip1=1 Accessed January 7, 2005.

Franz, Elke , and Schneidewind, Antje. (2004) Steganography II: Adaptive steganography based on dithering. Proceedings of the 2004 multimedia and security workshop on Multimedia and security, September 2004.

Schneier, Bruce. (2003) Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly about Security in an Uncertain World. New York: Copernicus Books.

Tuohey, Jason.(2004) Government uses color laser printer technology to track documents PC World (November 22,2004) http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,118664,00.asp Accessed January 3, 2005.

Wang Huaiqing, Wang ,Shuozhong. (2004) Cyber warfare: steganography vs. steganalysis Communications of the ACM, Volume 47 Issue 10, October 2004.

AUTHOR
Kenneth Einar Himma

ABSTRACT

Hackers believe that, at the very least, non-malicious intrusions are morally permissible and have offered a number of arguments purporting to justify such intrusions. Some hackers believe, for example, these intrusions are justified by consequentialist considerations because they result in an increase in humanity’s stock of knowledge about the relevant technologies and thereby promote the development of technologies that will help ultimately to make the Internet more secure. Some believe that any barriers to information are morally illegitimate and hence deserve no respect – including barriers that separate the information on one person’s computer from another person’s computer.

Recently, a number of writers, such as Mark Manion and Abby Goodrum, have begun to argue that attacks on government and corporate sites can be justified as a form of political activism – that is, as a form of “hacktivism.” The argument is roughly as follows. Since civil disobedience is morally justifiable as a protest against injustice, it is sometimes justifiable to commit digital intrusions as a means of protesting injustice. Insofar as it is permissible to stage a sit-in in a commercial or governmental building to protest, say, laws that violate human rights, it is permissible to intrude upon commercial or government networks to protest such laws. Thus, digital attacks that might otherwise be legally or morally objectionable are legally and morally permissible if they are politically-motivated acts of civil disobedience or hacktivism.

I argue that this increasingly influential line of reasoning is problematic on a couple of grounds. First, it wrongly presupposes that committing civil disobedience is morally permissible as a general matter of moral principle. While it is plausible to think that unlawful acts of civil disobedience should not, as a moral matter, be punished because of their potential contributions to political debate, it does not follow that those acts are themselves morally permissible. The first idea concerns what morality requires of the state; the second concerns what morality requires of individuals.

Considerations of political morality frequently preclude punishing acts that are morally wrong. No mainstream political theorist believes that it would be morally permissible for the state to punish persons for breaking unilateral promises (as opposed to an exchange of promises constituting a morally binding contract) – despite the fact that breaking any sort of promise is presumptively wrong. The moral standards that govern states and individuals frequently diverge; thus, for example, states may permissibly punish wrongdoing, but individuals may not. Thus, the argument for hacktivism rests on a fundamental mischaracterization of the underlying moral issues regarding civil disobedience.

Second, and more importantly, it is morally wrong, on ordinary views, to inflict significant harm of the sort that is typically caused by acts of digital civil disobedience on the strength of a view that is deeply contested in society. Notice that acts of digital civil disobedience typically result in causing significantly greater harm than sit-ins or other acts of non-digital civil disobedience. A distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that, for example, is intended to shut down a large commercial website can result in millions of dollars in losses to that site and potentially in losses of livelihoods; and it is just not clear, as an ethical matter, that the infliction of such harms on ordinary people can be justified as a form of free speech.

This is particularly problematic because civil disobedience is typically motivated by a moral view that is deeply contested in the culture; in many cases, the view motivating civil disobedience is one that is held by a small percentage of people in the culture. Because there is no reliable way to determine which side of the view is correct, there are moral limits on what sorts of harm or inconvenience can justifiably be inflicted on persons who are not morally responsible for the policy being protested. Hacking that can result in the loss of jobs is always problematic, but is especially so when grounded in views that have not been adequately defended – as is all-too-frequently the case.

I conclude that, at the very least, politically-motivated intrusions are morally permissible as long as they do not result in great harm to innocent persons. But this, however, seems to preclude the most common hacktivist strategies. For example, it seems to preclude digital acts contrived to deny persons access to web content because of the potential damage to both site owners and visitors; indeed, DDoS hacktivist attacks may fairly be presumed wrong because of effects on both the ultimate targets and the innocent agent machines used to stage the attacks. Similarly, it seems to preclude hacking into secure sites for the purpose of exposing sensitive information about firms or individuals.

In any event, the foregoing analysis suggests a framework for evaluating particular acts of digital protest. To fully assess the permissibility of any particular digital protest, the likely harms caused by a digital attack must be weighed against the relevant moral goods, which include the good that is achieved by politically motivated speech. However, the analysis must also take into account the extent to which the underlying political views that purport to justify the digital intrusion are reasonably contested.

AUTHOR
Professor Pelle Ehn

ABSTRACT

‘So the impact of UTOPIA is continuing to expand, and the idea that workers and their unions have an important role in the design of new technology is reaching a wider and wider audience. Today Scandinavia, tomorrow, perhaps, the rest of the world.’ This is a quote from an enthusiastic editorial published in MIT Technical Review in 1985. UTOPIA was one out of many projects starting in the 1970’s and shaping an approach to IT design, sometimes referred to as the ‘Scandinavian approach’. This development took place at the time when information technology stated to became ubiquitous in Scandinavian workplaces and paralleled major reforms in labour legislation concerning work environment and co-determination. Democracy at work, tools for skilled workers, and user participation in the design process, were key values espoused in shaping and in legitimising the approach. As the approach developed and got international recognition it became a major source of inspiration for and assimilated into the emerging general research field of participatory design.

When Thomas Moore in 1516 constructed the original vision of UTOPIA, he did so as a play of Greek words, making it mean both ‘a good place’ and a place that exists ‘no-where’. From this perspective I will reflect upon what became of the Scandinavian approach and its utopian designers. To what extent has UTOPIA become a ‘now-here’ as an existing reality? Have social and technical changes made the approach obsolete? Was it, in a market economy, possible to design sustainable information technology based on ‘soft’ values such as skills, democracy and participation? Were such values just espoused, legitimising the research approach but never part of real design in practice? And if the approach has survived, how does it look today – in research and in practice?

In reflecting upon these questions I will also put the Scandinavian approach and participatory design in a broader design historic perspective and look at the more general utopian design vision of moving towards a ‘digital Bauhaus’. This will also imply a reconsideration of the Aristotelian virtue of phronesis and what it in practice, beyond utopian dreams, may mean to carry out design as ‘anxious acts of political love’.

AUTHOR
Professor Jeroen van den Hoven

ABSTRACT

I will sketch a conception of ethics that has been referred to as Value Sensitive Design. Value Sensitive Design is a way of doing ethics that aims at making moral values part of technological design, research, development, and production. It works with the assumption that human values, norms, our ethics for short, can be imparted to the things we make and use. This approach greatly matters since information technology has become a constitutive technology, i.e. it partly constitutes the things to which it is applied. It shapes our practices, institutions, discourses in important ways. What health care, public administration, politics, education, science, transport and logistics will look like within twenty years from now will in important ways be determined by the ICT applications we decide to use in these domains. ICT will also shape the way we experience ourselves and others.

If our moral considerations about the user’s autonomy, talk of patient centred-ness and citizen centred-ness, his privacy, her security and safety are to be more than empty promises, these values will have to be expressed in the designs, architectures and specifications, but also in technical standards and norms and protocols, of the systems that play such an important role in these domains.

If our laws, politics and public policy about corporate governance, accountability and transparency are to be more than just cheap talk we have to make sure that they are incorporated in the systems that we cannot do without when it comes to the implementation of the relevant policies.

If we want our information technology – and the use that is made of it – to be just, fair, safe, environmentally friendly, transparent, we must see to it that our technology inherits our good intentions. Moreover we want them to be seen to have those properties, and we want to be able to demonstrate and attest to the fact that they possess these morally desirable features.

We want to be able to compare different architectures from these value perspectives and motivate political choices and investments from this perspective. And finally, and perhaps most importantly we want our technology to be designed in such a way that it will be possible for users to work with them while retaining their status as responsible human beings.

I argue that we find ourselves at an interesting historical junction, which is favourable to the development and practice of Value Sensitive Design. ICT has become more sensitive to moral values, and ethics has become more attentive to design issues.