Cyberethics (Ethics of information systems)

To examine ethical issues, it is first necessary to define ethics. Today, we consider ethics as a “rational process founded on certain principles.” However, I think a definition that is more applicable to this project is the ethical theory that existed in ancient Greece. There, ethics was the study of what was good for both the individual and society. We will look at some online problems and how they can be good or bad for society. Cybernetics is simply the study of ethics on the Internet.

“Ethics begins when the elements within a moral system come into conflict.”

Cybernetics is often referred to as information systems ethics. The ethics of the information system can be defined as “The study of moral, legal and ethical issues related to the use of information and communication technologies”

There are many unique challenges we face in this information age. They come from the nature of the information itself. Information is the medium through which the mind expands and increases its ability to achieve its goals, often as a result of input from another mind. Thus, information forms the intellectual capital from which human beings construct their lives and ensure their dignity.

However, building intellectual capital is vulnerable in many ways. For example, people’s intellectual capital is affected when they lose their personal information without being compensated for it, when they are prevented from accessing information that is of value to them, when they have disclosed information that they have intimately or when they discover that the information on which your life depends is wrong. The social contract between people in the information age must address these threats to human dignity. The ethical issues involved are many and varied in Information Systems Ethics.

Ethics is necessary in information systems to overcome the following ethical problems.

Privacy: What information about oneself or one’s associations should a person disclose to others, under what conditions and with what safeguards? What things can people keep to themselves and not be forced to reveal them to others?

Precision: Who is responsible for the authenticity, fidelity and accuracy of the information? Likewise, who will be responsible for errors in the information and how will the injured party be compensated?

Property: Who owns the information? What are the fair and fair prices for your exchange? Who owns the channels, especially the airways, through which information is transmitted? How should access to this scarce resource be allocated?

Accessibility: What information does a person or organization have the right or privilege to obtain, under what conditions and with what safeguards?

Information system ethics explores and evaluates:

o the development of moral values ​​in the field of information,

o the creation of new power structures in the information field, information myths,

o hidden contradictions and intentions in information theories and practices,

or the development of ethical conflicts in the field of information. etc

Now let’s take a look at privacy with the following examples. A few years ago, Florida lawmakers gave the go-ahead to have monitors stationed in the Tallahassee Community College restrooms to determine if the facilities were being underutilized. Students and faculty vehemently protested that the monitors violated their privacy. State officials said the value of the information obtained through the study was more important than the threat to privacy. Other issues, such as the collection of private data from users who use the Internet by tracking traffic, are closely related to the policy of each one, since that information can be used for illegal purposes. These kinds of privacy issues need to be properly addressed so that they don’t exploit one’s freedom. One issue I kept thinking about when I was building my website was whether it was ethical to take an image from someone’s home page and use it on my website without giving credit to the source. Such ethical issues pertain to property.

One of the reasons that topics like online gambling and pornography have become storms of controversy in cyberspace is the simple fact that so many people have access to websites. Simply put, if no one had access to online porn, no one would care. With this comes another “Censorship” issue that must be dealt with efficiently as it is not easy to implement. These types of problems are not easy to deal with.

Similarly, let us consider China on the issue of “censorship”. China has implemented Internet censorship methods that are somewhat more difficult for people who are not generally familiar with how the Internet works. There is, for example, Internet censorship implemented in China, using a list of forbidden words that are censored on the fly. As users in China request a web page, government servers first inspect the incoming page and block it if there is a forbidden term like “Democracy”. Human censors are also actively looking for what people surf the internet and blocking websites as they see fit.

Crime on the Internet is also steadily increasing. Computer crime is a general term that encompasses crimes such as phishing, credit card fraud, bank robbery, industrial espionage, child pornography, kidnapping of children through chat rooms, scams, cyber terrorism, viruses, spam and so on. . All of these crimes are computer related and facilitated crimes. Many recent cases seen as the Microsoft website was taken down for a time, resulting in a huge loss for Microsoft. Similarly, NUST, one of the highest rated universities in Pakistan, was hacked and redirected to another domain. Credit card fraud has grown more and more. The leakage of military information from the Internet is another crime on the Internet. Software known as Google Earth, which displays information about different places, including military terrain, or which can lead to the planning of a robbery, is becoming an ethical problem around the world. Many people protest against this information leak, but it cannot be denied that it is one of the major improvements in information technology.

The question of how to police these crimes has already been built, but this task is proving an uphill battle. Since the first Cybercrime Act, the Computer Fraud and Abuse and Counterfeit Access Devices Act of 1984, governments have been trying to track down and apprehend criminals online. The FBI in different countries have tried many programs and investigations to deter Internet crime, such as creating an online crime registry for employers. One reason is that hackers will use a computer in one country to hack another computer in another country. And that criminal is not working alone. Loosely organized groups, referred to by security experts as “web gangs,” conduct much of the illegal activity online. The structure of web gangs may follow the pattern of traditional organized crime, in which members of the group may never come into contact with each other and never know who they are working for.

Conclusion:

We live in an exciting time in history. The wide availability of computers and Internet connections provides unprecedented opportunities to communicate and learn. Unfortunately, although most people use the Internet as a powerful and beneficial tool for communication and education, some people exploit the power of the Internet for criminal or terrorist purposes.

We can minimize the harm these people do by learning ourselves and teaching young people how to use the Internet safely and responsibly. The term “cybernetics” refers to a code of safe and responsible behavior for the Internet community. Practicing good cybernetics involves understanding the risks of harmful and illegal behavior online and learning how to protect ourselves and other Internet users from such behavior. It also involves teaching young people, who may not realize the potential for harm to themselves and others, how to use the Internet safely and responsibly.