Posted by: angelia13 | April 19, 2009

BOP

Book Review: Chapter 1 (The Market at the Bottom of the Pyramid)

Book: The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “All of us are prisoners of our own socialization. The lenses through which we
perceive the world are colored by our own ideology, experiences and established management practices. Each one of the groups that is focusing on poverty alleviation—the World Bank, rich countries providing aid, charitable organizations, national governments, and the private sector—is conditioned by its own dominant logic.”
-C.K. Prahalad

Learning Expectation:

In this chapter, I am expecting to learn who the markets at the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) are, referring to the title of the said chapter. Aside from this, I also want to know what the power of dominant logic is. I also want to know about the nature of the BOP markets and the concept of the market development imperative. Hopefully, by the end of this chapter, I will indeed achieve the knowledge I expect to gain from this.

Review:

Based on how I understood what I have read, the bottom of the pyramid refers to the poor people. If this is indeed the case, then I can think of the bottom of the pyramid as some kind of social structure wherein the rich people are on top, the middle-class are in the middle and the poor are in the bottom. It is like saying that the rich are the most powerful and ideal people to target as customers since they have the most capability to afford whatever we may have to offer. In my opinion, these three types of people should either be in equal positions or the poor should be on top of the pyramid. Aside from this, the reason why the poor are in the bottom of the pyramid is that they dominate the rich and the middle-class in number which I would very much agree on.
The poor outnumbers the rich people and the middle-class people. Among all of the topics I have read in this chapter, I would like to focus on the dominant logic which basically refers to the assumption in relation to the bottom of the pyramid. In dominant logic, there are 5 different assumptions that people have in relation to the bottom of the pyramid.

The first assumption states that we conclude that the poor are not our target customers for the reason that they would not be able to afford our products and services. In my opinion this would be a very wrong assumption and the reason why I say this is the structure of the pyramid itself. It is wrong because the poor outnumbers the rich people so one can have more opportunities to earn more money if they focus on the bottom of the pyramid instead of focusing on the few people at the top of the said structure whom they assume have the most capability to afford anything.

The second assumption is that the poor do not have any use for products sold in developed countries. This is also a wrong assumption in my opinion because it does not mean that these people are poor, they do not have use for items sold in developed countries. The only difference between the rich people and the poor people is the fact that the rich people lives a more fancied life and has more money while the poor work do not have that much money. Other than that, there is really not that much difference about these people, both of them has the same necessities, both are people and both have money no matter how much money they have.

Only developed countries appreciate and pay for technological innovations is the third assumption. I do not agree with this assumption. Based on observation, the poor have just as much interest in technology as a reach person or even more. On what I have observed, poor people are more engrossed to text messaging, surfing the Web, listening to mp4s, mp3 and gadgets alike. I think that is enough proof that the poor take up as much interest or even more in technological innovations as the rich people.

The next assumption is that the bottom of the pyramid markets is not critical for long-term growth and vitality of MNCs or multinational corporations. Again, I disagree with this because I believe that the BOP markets are most necessary for a corporation’s growth and vitality since they dominate the pyramid or in other words, they outnumber the rich and the middle-class in the structure of the pyramid.

The last assumption which I consider wrong is that intellectual excitement can only be found in developed markets and it is hard to recruit managers from the bottom of the pyramid. I consider this wrong too because in my point of view, finding a manager is not all about intellectuality, it is more on a person’s skill. A person from a developed market can be more intellectual that a BOP person but a person from the BOP market can be more skilful than a developed market person. To simply put it, we can never conclude that the people from developed markets are always better than those from the BOP market.

What I Learned:

By the end of this chapter, I learned that there are five different assumptions about the BOP markets and I have actually disagreed with all of these assumptions because it all says that there is no money in the bottom of the pyramid. Actually I think that most money can be found in the BOP and a lot of people fail to understand this sadly.

Integrative Questions:

1. What is the power of dominant logic?
2. What is the nature of the BOP markets?
3. What is the market development imperative?
4. Why did C.K. Prahalad say that trust is a prerequisite?
5. Why is it said that there is money at the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP)?

Book Review: Chapter 2 (Products and Services for the BOP)

Book: The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “Addressing the market opportunity at the BOP requires that we start with a
radically new understanding of the price-performance relationship compared to that currently employed in developed markets. This is not about lowering prices. It is about altering the price-performance envelope.”
-C.K. Prahalad

Learning Expectation:

I hope to learn by the end of this chapter, the explanation to the quotation I have taken from the chapter because it interests me very much. Aside from this, I also want to learn the twelve principles of innovation for BOP markets. I also want to learn about how we can make the said principles.

Review:

This chapter primarily revolves around the twelve principles of innovation for BOP markets. These so-called principles are based on my understanding building blocks of a philosophy of innovation for the BOP markets.

The first principle is price performance. As C.K. Prahalad stated, price is an important part of the basis for growth in the BOP market. Price performance according to him not only focuses on the lowering prices. It is about creating a new price-performance envelope. In my opinion, this is quite a good principle because the BOP market is supposed to be businesses’ target market since they are many in number. The lower the price is, the more that they would buy, after all, the BOP market can also afford whatever the rich can afford, the only difference or question is when they will be able to get it.

The next principles are innovation: hybrids and scale of operations. I honestly do not get the whole idea of hybrids in innovation but based on how I understood it, the hybrids of innovation means making use of different innovation strategies to gain money and to approach the market. On the other hand, scale of operations means that solutions developed should be scalable and transportable across countries, cultures and languages since BOP markets are large.

The fourth and fifth principles are sustainable development: eco-friendly and identifying functionality. As named, eco-friendly, it means identifying if your business is eco-friendly or helps in the betterment of the environment. It means considering how our product or service will affect the environment. On the other hand, identifying functionality means identifying the difference between the BOP market and the developed market. By knowing this, on my opinion, would help in knowing what kind of products and services would be appropriate only for BOP market or developed market and what would be appropriate or suitable for both markets.

The sixth is process innovation and the seventh is deskilling of work. I do not really understand process innovation that much so I would not be able to explain it well enough while deskilling of work means not requiring that much from the BOP markets because there is a shortage of talent in the BOP market as stated by the author.

Education of customers and products must work in hostile environments are the next principles. Education of customers means having to educate customers in the product or service you offer in order for them to have an idea as to how it will benefit them and how they would be using these. Products must work in hostile environments because the BOP markets are usually located in such environments so obviously, it would be recommended to provide products that would be able to work in such conditions.

Research, innovations must reach consumers and product developers must focus on the broad architecture of the system. Research refers to studying things about BOP markets in order to know them better and to know how to deal with them and know what products and services you can offer to them. Sadly, I do not understand the last two innovation principles so I cannot explain it at all.

What I Learned:

By the end of this chapter, I learned that there are twelve innovation principles for BOP markets. I also learned how these principles would be able to help me know how to interface with the BOP market.

Integrative Questions:

1. What are the 12 principle of innovation for BOP markets?
2. How can we make the innovation principles happen?
3. What is deskilling of work?
4. What is scale of operations?
5. How is BOP different from developed markets?

Book Review: Chapter 3 (BOP: A Global Opportunity)

Book: The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “BOP markets can collapse the time frames taken for products, technologies,
and concepts to diffuse in the system. Many of the drivers of change and market
growth—deregulation, involvement of the private sector in BOP markets, digitization, ubiquitous connectivity and the attendant change in the aspirations of people,
favorable demographics (a young population), and access to credit—are
simultaneously present in BOP markets.”
-C.K. Prahalad

Learning Expectation:

For this chapter, I would like to learn about the BOP solutions for developed markets. I also want to learn about the concept of capital intensity and of course, I also expect to learn in this chapter how to live in a network of relationships.

Review:

The part of this chapter that caught my attention was the lessons for MNC from BOP Markets. These lessons are the capital intensity which according to the text is a critical element of success in the BOP markets.

The next lesson is sustainable development which means knowing how the said product or service would be affecting the BOP markets such as if they would be benefitting from it or not. Aside from that, sustainable development refers also to BOP markets being a great source of experimentation for this idea. A lot of things can be improved in the BOP markets and so, there are a lot of possibilities for sustainable growth and development. Another lesson is innovation because it forces new set of disciplines such as focusing on price performance instead of focusing on how you would earn a lot of money.
Basically, these lessons are related to the principles of innovation for BOP markets discussed earlier in chapter two of the same book. Anyway, another part of this chapter that caught my attention was the part about learning to live in a network of relationships. According to the author, MNCs working at the BOP must learn to live with a variety of relationships with large institutions. I agree with this very much because in order to be able to get to the BOP, you first have to truly understand its nature and the best way to understand this is by building a strong relationship with them.

What I Learned:

By the end of this chapter, I learned that there are lessons addressed to the multinational corporations or MNCs from the BOP markets which I did not really expect at the beginning to happen. Aside from that, I also learned that MNCs must learn to live in a network of relationships in order for them to be more effective.

Integrative Questions:

1. What are the BOP solutions for developed markets?
2. What are the lessons for MNCs from BOP markets?
3. What is capital intensity?
4. What are the costs of managing?
5. What is the basic unit of analysis?

Book Review: Chapter 4 (The Ecosystem for Wealth Creation)

Book: The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “A market-based ecosystem is a framework that allows private sectors and social
actors, often with different traditions and motivations, and of different sizes and
areas of influence, to act together and create wealth in a symbiotic relationship.”
-C.K. Prahalad

Learning Expectation:

In this chapter, I want to learn about market-oriented ecosystem and ecosystems for a developing country. Also, I want to learn about the sanctity of contracts, and of course, reducing inequities in contracts.

Review:

A market-based ecosystem is a framework that allows private sector and social actors, often with different traditions and motivations, and of different sizes and areas of influence, to act together and create wealth in a symbiotic relationship, C.K. Prahalad stated on this book. I took this out from the book because this is one of the most important things I learned in the entire book, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid.

Anyway, another thing I learned from this book is the ecosystems in a developing country. Based on how I understood this, this refers to ecosystems in a BOP country or market. Here I learned about HLL, the largest FMCG firm in India which is subsidiary of the corporation Unilever. Aside from this, I also learned about fast-moving consumer goods or also known as FMCG.

Honestly speaking, although this chapter was very short it was very clear and made its point well. I really like this chapter because it is detailed and well-explained which I think is quite hard to do considering that the topic and issue discussed is quite heavy.

What I Learned:

By the end of this chapter, I learned that about the ecosystems in a developing country and about market-based ecosystem. I also learned about reducing inequities in contracts and of course building governance capabilities among the poor.

Integrative Questions:

1. What is a market-oriented ecosystem?
2. What is the role of cooperatives?
3. How do you build governance capabilities among the poor?
4. What are the steps in the evolution of SHGs?
5. What is ITC?

Book Review: Chapter 5 (Reducing Corruption: Transaction Governance Capacity)

Book: The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “Most developing countries do not fully recognize the real costs of corruption and
its impact on private-sector development and poverty alleviation. The capacity to
facilitate commercial transactions through a system of laws fairly enforced is critical
to the development of the private sector.”
-C.K. Prahalad

Learning Expectation:

For this chapter, I would like to learn if the poor are really poor and I also want to learn about the ultimate paradox. I also want to learn about TGC. Other than this, upon scanning the contents, by the end of this chapter I expect to learn about the Andhra Pradesh e-Governance Story.

Review:

The first thing in this chapter that I have noticed was the discussion with the header “Are the Poor Poor?” This title is very interesting and the question was stuck in my head. Are the poor really poor? It is stated that the poor are poor because they lack resources. I agree with this. People are indeed poor but not only because they lack financial resource. People are poor because they also lack in other resources that could aid them in improving their situation. Based on my understanding, this is only one of the assumptions that people have because they think that knowing this would help in poverty reduction by aiding them.

In my point of view, even if I agree with the statement that the poor are poor because they lack resources, there are still other possible reasons as to why they are poor and it can also be dependent in the way that their minds run. Some poor people think that they are born poor and will die poor no matter how hard they try so they don’t try at all.
Aside from this, another thing that I have noticed in this chapter is the part about building TCGs. TCGs are about creating transparency and eliminating uncertainty and risk in commercial transactions. This is quite interesting because it is said that it is more than laws or regulations. By the way, TCGs stand for transaction governance capacity. It consists of laws, regulations, social norms and institutions. For me, it is good that people came up with such an idea as the TCG. If you eliminate uncertainty and risk in commercial transactions, it makes people believe it is safe and gain more trust. Another is the lessons from the Andhra Pradesh Experiment. The most important lesson here I think the equation wherein the cost of being inside the system when divided by the cost of being outside the system is less than or equal to one. In my understanding, the benefits of being inside the system are much greater than outside the system’s.

What I Learned:

By the end of this chapter, I learned about the transaction governance capacity. I have also learned about the different assumptions that people have with regard to whether the poor are indeed poor. Another is the conclusion that came up in relation to the said assumptions. Of course, I also learned about the Andhra Pradesh Experiment.

Integrative Questions:

1. What is the ultimate paradox C.K. Prahalad was referring to?
2. What is TGC all about?
3. What is the significance of the Andhra Pradesh e-Governance Story?
4. What are the lessons from the Andhra Pradesh experiment?
5. What is the significant role of TGC?

Book Review: Chapter 6 (Development as Social Transformation)

Book: The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “One of the common problems for those at the BOP is that they have no
“identity”. Often they are at the fringe of society and do not have a “legal identity”, including voter registration, driver’s license, or birth certificate. The instruments of legal identity that we take for granted—be it a passport or a Social Security number—are denied to them.”
-C.K. Prahalad

Learning Expectation:

In this chapter, I want to learn about development as social transformation. I also want to learn how BOP markets gain access to knowledge. Of course, from the quotation I took from the context, I am expecting how those in BOP, gain it identity. More importantly, I am expecting to learn how C.K. Prahalad has morphed the pyramid into a diamond, relating to the topic.

Review:

Development as a social transformation is an idea which I would consider as a crucial thought one must learn or know. I consider it as crucial because it had made three transitions in our thinking. Development as a social transformation actually thought us that the BOP, the poor are the ideal target market. The second is that the only way to serve a BOP market is through innovation. The third is that these innovations should come with increased TGC.

The first lesson that development as a social transformation thought made me realize that a lot of us have a misconception that we can never earn money in the BOP markets when in fact, most money will come from them. From the second lesson, I have come to the realization that innovation is the key to serving the BOP market. This, base on my understanding, means that we need to use different innovation strategies in order to get to the BOP markets and make a great impact. The third lesson of development as a social transformation is that these innovations should come with an increased TGC which I agree with. Innovation strategies should be innovations that reduces risk and ensures the market more trust.

What I Learned:

Generally speaking, I only discussed the idea of development as a social transformation because I consider it as the most crucial part of this chapter and so, I would say that I learned about the idea of development as a social transformation and I have also found out how the author have defended this idea through well explanation.

Integrative Questions:

1. How do those at the BOP gain access to knowledge?
2. How do those at the BOP gain identity?
3. How did C.K. Prahalad morphed the pyramid into a diamond? (The poor morphed into the middle class)
4. Why did C.K. Prahalad say that those at the BOP do not have an identity or a legal identity?
5. Why does C.K. Prahalad consider development as social transformation?

Posted by: angelia13 | April 19, 2009

Handbook of Ethics

Book Review: CHAPTER 1

Book: Foundations of Information Ethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Information-Computer-Ethics/dp/0471799599/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239782484&sr=8-1

Quote: “Being, as the basic theme of philosophy, is no class or genus of entities; yet it
pertains to every entity. Its ‘universality’ is to be sought higher up. Being and the
structure of Being lie beyond every entity and every possible character which an entity
may possess. Being is the transcendens pure and simple. And the transcendence
of Dasein’s Being is distinctive in that it implies the possibility and the necessity of
the most radical individuation.” (Heidegger 1987, 62).

Learning Expectations:

Know the foundation of information ethics and the proper usage of such foundation to determine the availability of information technology.

Review:

If we take into account the importance of harmony, respect, and courtesy or “indirect speech” in Eastern traditions of moral life and moral philosophy, we might expect a fruitful dialogue with regard to parrhesia within the field of what is now being called intercultural information ethics. We are far away from a comprehensive view of this field. In fact we have just started to look at it as a phenomenon of its own. There is a long path of thinking ahead of us if we want to retrieve and interpret our written and oral traditions under this perspective through different epochs and societies and taking into consideration their mutual influences in practical moral life as well as in academic and literary reflection.

As I suggested elsewhere the birth of philosophy in Greece is related to the problematization of the concept of logos, understood as a dialogue between autonomous peers in contrast to the heteronomous concept of angelia as a process by which the communication of a message is sender-dependent, although the receiver can in principle mutate into a sender (Capurro 2003). I use the word “problematization” in the sense addressed by Foucault in his lectures on parrhesia, namely as a situation in which a behaviour or a phenomenon becomes a problem. According to Foucault truth-telling became a problem in a moment of crisis of Athenian democratic institutions in which the relations between democracy, logos, freedom, and truth were a matter of debate between the aristocracy and the demos or the ordinary people.

What I have learned:

I have learned the remarkable development of computer and network technology has given rise to so unprecedented and so diversified a set of ethical and moral problems that attempts at solving these problems undoubtedly will take philosophically focused and technologically well-informed intellectual efforts. The problems we are facing include the ethical status of “unauthorized” uses of computers and networks, the cultural and economic imbalance between groups with different historical, regional backgrounds in the globalized information infrastructure, the new dimensions of human rights like privacy and copyright in the digitized world, and the moral obligations and duties as professionals in information technology.

Integrative Questions:

1. What is the foundation of ethics?
2. What is Information Technology?
3. How to implement such ethics in IT?
4. What are the purposes of such ethical approach in studying information technology?
5. Explain briefly the foundation of ethics.

Book Review: CHAPTER 2

Book: Milestones in the History of Information and computer Ethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Information-Computer-
Ethics/dp/0471799599/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239782484&sr=8-1

Quote: “Cybernetics takes the view that the structure of the machine or of the organism is an index of the performance that may be expected from it.”

Learning Expectations:

I must learned from the facts about the mislestone of ethics by different views of the authors. Also learned the values of ethics in information technology.

Review:

The more specific term “computer ethics” has been used to refer to applications by professional philosophers of traditional Western theories like utilitarianism, Kantianism, or virtue ethics, to ethical cases that significantly involve computers and computer networks. “Computer ethics” also has been used to refer to a kind of professional ethics in which computer professionals apply codes of ethics and standards of good practice within their profession. In addition, other more specific names, like “cyberethics” and “Internet ethics”, have been used to refer to aspects of computer ethics associated with the Internet.

During the past several decades, the robust and rapidly growing field of computer and information ethics has generated new university courses, research professorships, research centers, conferences, workshops, professional organizations, curriculum materials, books and journals.

When the War ended, Wiener wrote the book Cybernetics (1948) in which he described his new branch of applied science and identified some social and ethical implications of electronic computers. Two years later he published The Human Use of Human Beings (1950), a book in which he explored a number of ethical issues that computer and information technology would likely generate. The issues that he identified in those two books, plus his later book God and Golem, Inc. (1963), included topics that are still important today: computers and security, computers and unemployment, responsibilities of computer professionals, computers for persons with disabilities, computers and religion, information networks and globalization, virtual communities, teleworking, merging of human bodies with machines, robot ethics, artificial intelligence, and a number of other subjects. (See Bynum 2000, 2004, 2005, 2006.)

Although he coined the name “cybernetics” for his new science, Wiener apparently did not see himself as also creating a new branch of ethics. As a result, he did not coin a name like “computer ethics” or “information ethics”. These terms came into use decades later. (See the discussion below.) In spite of this, Wiener’s three relevant books (1948, 1950, 1963) do lay down a powerful foundation, and do use an effective methodology, for today’s field of computer and information ethics.

What I have learned:

From this chapter I have learned the following:
• History of information and computer ethics
• Norbert Wiener’s foundation of information ethics
• Cybermetics
• The human use of human beings
• Wiener’s account of a good life

Integrative questions:

1. What is the purpose of milestone of an ethics?
2. What are the possible ideas of an author to understand the ethics in information technology?
3. Is it applicable to the course of information technology?
4. Do you think that IT is one of the most important course today?
5. Familiarize the history of information technology and computer ethics.

Book Review: CHAPTER 3

Book: Moral methodology and Information Technology

Library References: None

Amazon References: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Information-Computer-
Ethics/dp/0471799599/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239782484&sr=8-1

Quote: “The ubiquitous combination of coupled databases, data mining, and sensor technology may start to cast doubt on the usefulness of our notion of “privacy.” Ethical analysis and reflection, therefore, is not simply business as usual. We need to give computers and software their place in our moral world. We need to look at the effects they have on people, how they constrain and enable us, how they change our experiences, and how they shape our thinking.”

What I expect to learn:

To learn more about moral methodology

Review:

In developing his information ethics theory (henceforth FIE), Floridi argued that the purview of computer ethics — indeed of ethics in general — should be widened to include much more than simply human beings, their actions, intentions and characters. He offered FIE as another “macroethics” (his term) which is similar to utilitarianism, deontologism, contractualism, and virtue ethics, because it is intended to be applicable to all ethical situations. On the other hand, IE is different from these more traditional Western theories because it is not intended to replace them, but rather to supplement them with further ethical considerations that go beyond the traditional theories, and that can be overridden, sometimes, by traditional ethical considerations. (Floridi, 2006)

The name ‘information ethics’ is appropriate to Floridi’s theory, because it treats everything that exists as “informational” objects or processes:

All entities will be described as clusters of data, that is, as informational objects. More precisely, will be a discrete, self-contained, encapsulated package containing the appropriate data structures, which constitute the nature of the entity in question, that is, the state of the object, its unique identity and its attributes; and a collection of operations, functions, or procedures, which are activated by various interactions or stimuli (that is, messages received from other objects or changes within itself) and correspondingly define how the object behaves or reacts to them.

What I learned:

I have learned the Applied Ethics in this chapter, the Generalism, Particularism, Reflective Equilibrium

Integrative Questions:

1. What is applied ethics?
2. What is generalism?
3. What is particularism?
4. What is the concept of reflective equilibrium?
5. What is PACS?

Book Review: CHAPTER 4

Book: Value of Sensitive Design and Information Systems

Library Reference: None

Amazon References: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Information-Computer-
Ethics/dp/0471799599/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239782484&sr=8-1

Quote: “In brief, the idea of “informed” encompasses disclosure and comprehension. Disclosure refers to providing accurate information about the benefits and harms that might reasonably be expected from the action under consideration. Comprehension refers to the individual’s accurate interpretation of what is being disclosed. In turn, the idea of “consent” encompasses voluntariness, comprehension, and agreement. Voluntariness refers to ensuring that the action is not controlled or coerced.”

What I expect to learn:

To know more about value sensitive designs

Review:

Information technology (IT) has become part of our daily lives and is no longer a merely enabling technology. It is constitutive, i.e. it partly (re-) constitutes the things to which it is applied. Therefore it shapes our practices, discourses and institutions in important ways. What health care, public administration, politics, education, science, transport and logistics are and will be within twenty years from now will in important ways be determined by the IT applications we decide to use in these domains.

Within the scientific community, some research groups therefore have started to focus on how to express and integrate moral and public values into IT application designs in what is sometimes referred to as Value Sensitive Design. Value Sensitive Design (VSD) is a methodological design approach that aims at making moral values part of technological design, research and development. It assumes that human values, norms and moral considerations can be imparted to the things we make and use.
It construes information technology (and other technologies for that matter The idea of Value Sensitive Design has a wider application in all engineering and design disciplines, but was first proposed and discussed in connection with information and communication technology and that is still its main area of application.) as a powerful force which can be used to make the world a better place, especially when we take the trouble of reflecting on its ethical aspects in advance.

“Value Sensitive Design is a theoretically grounded approach to the design of technology that accounts for human values in a principled and comprehensive manner throughout the design process. It employs an integrative and iterative tripartite methodology, consisting of conceptual, empirical, and technical investigations. We explicate Value Sensitive Design by drawing on three case studies. The first study concerns information and control of web browser cookies, implicating the value of informed consent. The second study concerns using high-definition plasma displays in an office environment to provide a window to the outside world, implicating the values of physical and psychological well-being and privacy in public spaces.

The third study concerns an integrated land use, transportation, and environmental simulation system to support public deliberation and debate on major land use and transportation decisions, implicating the values of fairness, accountability, and support for the democratic process, as well as a highly diverse range of values that might be held by different stakeholders, such as environmental sustainability, opportunities for business expansion, or walkable neighborhoods. We conclude with direct and practical suggestions for how to engage in Value Sensitive Design.

What I learned:

• Vale sensitive design
• Definition of value
• Related Approaches to Values and System Design
• Conceptual Investigations
• Empirical Investigations
• Technical Investigations

Integrative Questions:

1. What is value as defined in the chapter?
2. What is value design?
3. Define credibility, openness, and accountability.
4. Differentiate the three factors.
5. What do you mean by empirical investigations?

Book Review: CHPATER 5

Book: Personality Based, Role Utilitarian and Lockean Justification of Intellectual Property

Library References: None

Amazon References: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Information-Computer-
Ethics/dp/0471799599/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239782484&sr=8-1

Quote: “Intellectual property is generally characterized as nonphysical property that is the product of cognitive processes and whose value is based upon some idea or collection”

Learning Expectations:

• To learn basically the intellectual property
• Why do we need to adopt intellectual property?

Review:

The first part of this chapter discusses about what is intellectual property. It is explained at introduced here that intellectual property are all based on individual personality. Since each one of us has a individual personality, we assume that we have also intellectual property as well. We must be knowledgeable to develop ourselves. Innovating ourselves is one way of changing our lives. It is explained here that we must fight our strength and weaknesses. We have strength, then maintain it and make you good as possible. On the other hand, weakness is your fear as an individual, therefore fight your fears. This is to justify yourself to be intellectual person.

Its non-physical, which means, it is all based on ideas, on mental reasoning. The people must collaborate with all ideas we have. One must share ideas to others and ideas must be in a collaborative way of distributing it. It surrounds the control of physical appearance of the knowledge of the people. Each expression could be different but there is only one intellectual or rational idea.
This chapter is focusing on three aspects. These are the personality-based, rule-utilitarian and Lockean Justifications. The first one is the personality-based where an individual is just focusing on his/her personality. He/she has own ideas on a particular perspective. Only he/she can understand it and no one can interfere his/her ideas. Once it is shared to other person, there is surely a conflict between ideas. The intellectual property has now conflict. We can’t fight against it because, as explained, each one of us has an intellectual property. The analogy is that you can’t dive to the intellectual property of others because it is private and only he/she can only understand it. That’s for personality-based. The next one is the rule utilitarian.

This is where utilitarian of intellectual properties used. Once the idea is passed to another person, then the person who will be receiving it is considered to be a utilitarian. He/she just use the intellectual idea of a particular person for the benefit for him / her. That’s absurd! Because making use of an individual’s idea is considered to be a utilitarian. It can give both positive and negative effects for the people. It will now depend on us if we use the utilitarian point of view. The last one is Lockean Justification where the justifications of human are more sensitive.

What I’ve learned:

I learned how to utilize my intellectual ideas in such way that applying these aspects in my life. To be honest, it is complicated. In determining your own personality, you must be knowledgeable about yourself first. Knowing yourself is one of the most important things in life. Therefore the ideas you are thinking are also important and also part of your intellectual property. The rule-utilitarian can give us positive and negative effects because your ideas or intellectual property can be beneficial to others. The justification is also important because the dignity of one person is relying to it.

Integrative Questions:

1. What is personality based?
2. What is rule-utilitarian?
3. What is justification?
4. What are the purposes of these aspects to an individual?
5. How can we use this correctly?
Book Review: CHAPTER 6

Book: International Privacy: concept, theories and Controversies

Library References: None

Amazon References: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Information-Computer-
Ethics/dp/0471799599/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239782484&sr=8-1

Quote: “These cases demonstrate that there are ethical challenges that affect privacy and property. The conflict between privacy and property rights in cyberspace can be understood as a tension involving “access and control” (Tavani, 2004, 2007). Whereas property-rights advocates argue for greater control over information they view to be proprietary (thereby restricting access to that information by ordinary persons), privacy advocates argue for individuals having greater control over their own personal information (thus restricting access to that information by entrepreneurs).”

Learning Expectation:

I have learned so much on this case, because it is all about the international privacy that you may able to applied in the course of IT.

Review:

We then show why a context-based theory of privacy such Nissenabaum’s can help us to understand the issues at stake for individual privacy in this debate. A central tenet of her theory is that there are “no arenas of life not governed by norms of information flow” – i.e., no information or spheres of life for which “anything goes.” As Nissenbaum (2004, 128) states: “Almost everything – things that we do, events that occur, transactions that take place – happens in a context…” In her scheme, contexts include “spheres of life” such as education, politics, the marketplace, and so forth. Two core principles of Nissenbaum’s framework are:

• the activities people engage in take place in a “plurality of realms” (i.e., spheres or contexts);
• each realm has a distinct set of norms that govern its aspects.

These norms both shape and limit or restrict our roles, behavior, and expectations by governing the flow of personal information in a given context. Nissenbaum’s theory requires that the gathering and distribution of information must satisfy norms that (a) are appropriate to a particular context, and (b) govern the distribution of information for that context. Thus, there are two distinct types of norms:

• Norms of Appropriateness, which determine whether a given type of personal information is either appropriate or inappropriate to divulge within a particular context.
• Norms of Distribution, which restrict the flow of information within and across contexts.

In Nissenbaum’s scheme, a violation of privacy occurs when either norms of distribution or norms of appropriateness have been “breached.” Both types of norms must be “respected” to maintain the contextual integrity of the flow of personal information. As in the case of Moor’s privacy theory, which appeals to the notion of a “situation” (Moor, 2004), Nissenbaum’s theory is context-based. Both theories show why it is mainly the nature of the context in which information flows, not the nature of the information itself that determines whether normative protection is needed. Rather than focusing on the nature of the information included in a P2P situation – i.e., asking whether or not it should be viewed as private – we can ask whether P2P situations or contexts (in general) deserve protection as “normatively private situations” (Moor) or contexts (Nissenbaum).

Appealing primarily to Nissenbaum’s theory of privacy as contextual integrity, we will argue that it is inappropriate for the RIAA to have access to personal information that belongs to a P2P context. We conclude by showing that if we accept Nissenbaum’s context-based approach to the controversy, in conjunction with one or more of the distribution models, that we also examine, we can both protect privacy interests of individuals in P2P systems and help ensure that property owners’ interests are also reasonably preserved.

What I have Learned:

I have learned about the improvement of Information technology, about knowing the concepts of IT and the applicability of such courses in other way of information ethics

Integrative questions:

1. What is Informational Privacy, Concepts’ and Theories?
2. What are the differentiate of concepts, theories and controversies
3. What are the purposes of these subjects?
4. What are the possible ideas used by an author?
5. Do you think this concepts, theories and controversies helps to become a better person?

Book Review CHAPTER 7

Book: Online Anomymity

Library References: None

Amazon References: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Information-Computer-
Ethics/dp/0471799599/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239782484&sr=8-1

Quote: “One of the earliest computer ethics topics to arouse public interest was privacy. For example, in the mid-1960s the American government already had created large databases of information about private citizens (census data, tax records, military service records, welfare records, and so on). In the US Congress, bills were introduced to assign a personal identification number to every citizen and then gather all the government’s data about each citizen under the corresponding ID number. A public outcry about “big-brother government” caused Congress to scrap this plan and led the US President to appoint committees to recommend privacy legislation. In the early 1970s, major computer privacy laws were passed in the USA. Ever since then, computer-threatened privacy has remained as a topic of public concern. The ease and efficiency with which computers and computer networks can be used to gather, store, search, compare, retrieve and share personal information make computer technology especially threatening to anyone who wishes to keep various kinds of “sensitive” information (e.g., medical records) out of the public domain or out of the hands of those who are perceived as potential threats. During the past decade, commercialization and rapid growth of the internet; the rise of the world-wide-web; increasing “user-friendliness” and processing power of computers; and decreasing costs of computer technology have led to new privacy issues, such as data-mining, data matching, recording of “click trails” on the web, and so on [see Tavani, 1999].”

Learning Expectations:

To understand the online anonyumity
Evaluate the purpose of this study
Knowing the availability of such online system

Review:

The variety of privacy-related issues generated by computer technology has led philosophers and other thinkers to re-examine the concept of privacy itself. Since the mid-1960s, for example, a number of scholars have elaborated a theory of privacy defined as “control over personal information” (see, for example, [Westin, 1967], [Miller, 1971], [Fried, 1984] and [Elgesem, 1996]). On the other hand, philosophers Moor and Tavani have argued that control of personal information is insufficient to establish or protect privacy, and “the concept of privacy itself is best defined in terms of restricted access, not control” [Tavani and Moor, 2001] (see also [Moor, 1997]). In addition, Nissenbaum has argued that there is even a sense of privacy in public spaces, or circumstances “other than the intimate.” An adequate definition of privacy, therefore, must take account of “privacy in public” [Nissenbaum, 1998]. As computer technology rapidly advances — creating ever new possibilities for compiling, storing, accessing and analyzing information — philosophical debates about the meaning of “privacy” will likely continue (see also [Introna, 1997]).

Questions of anonymity on the internet are sometimes discussed in the same context with questions of privacy and the internet, because anonymity can provide many of the same benefits as privacy. For example, if someone is using the internet to obtain medical or psychological counseling, or to discuss sensitive topics (for example, AIDS, abortion, gay rights, venereal disease, political dissent), anonymity can afford protection similar to that of privacy. Similarly, both anonymity and privacy on the internet can be helpful in preserving human values such as security, mental health, self-fulfillment and peace of mind. Unfortunately, privacy and anonymity also can be exploited to facilitate unwanted and undesirable computer-aided activities in cyberspace, such as money laundering, drug trading, terrorism, or preying upon the vulnerable (see [Marx, 2001] and [Nissenbaum, 1999]).

What I have learned:

 Development of new system
 Implement the systems online
 Knowing the anonymity

Integrative questions:
1. What is online anonymity?
2. What is anonymity in information technology?
3. How to explain anonymity in information technology?
4. What are the values of such on line system?
5. Give some application of on line systems?

Book Review: CHAPTER 8

Book: Ethical Issues, about Computer Security, Hacking, Hacktivism, and Counterhacking

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Information-Computer-Ethics/dp/0471799599/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239782484&sr=8-1

Quote: “At first glance, it might seem obvious that hacking is wrong. Although the more malicious of these acts involve serious wrongs because of the harm they cause, all are wrong because they constitute a digital trespass onto the property of another person. Unauthorized entry into some other person’s computer seems not relevantly different than uninvited entry onto the land of another person. Real trespass is morally wrong, regardless of whether it results in harm, because it violates the owner’s property right to control the uses to which her land is put and hence to exclude other people from its use. Similarly, digital trespass is wrong, regardless of whether it results in harm, because it violates the owner’s property right to exclude other people from the use of her computer, which, like land, is physical (as opposed to intangible) property.”

What I expect to learn:

To know ethical issues involving computer security

Review:

I don’t even know where to start with the ethical issues involving computer security because there are so many of them. Let me just clear up that there is a thing called ethics if you guys out there are not familiar because ethics should be inclined with what you are doing in life. A situation where you can apply this is with your life alone. If you tend to do things without thinking about ethical concerns the you are screwed up because in the first place, we need some guidelines ot follow knowing that freedom is not absolute for if it is, then we will all be bombing each other’s countries arguing who should have own.
Intense concern with my files and my workstation occurred to me after reading this chapter because it made me realize that there are so many people that can just hack your private files even when your computer is shut off – yes, it does happen – so I made a promise to myself that I have to be more careful with where I place my files, how I transfer them, how strong I encrypt them and how accessible they are because you will never know what might happen. We cannot really attack someone just because we think he or she hacked us because hacking is a skill that people master first before doing it big and publicly so a mere knowledge about computers like opening programs and deleting files is not enough. Knowledge about IP addresses, ports, cables, LAN, and other network related functions of your computer should be well thought of and watched because it can be their access point.

What I learned:

I learned about the prima facie case against and hacking. Aside from this, I also learned about overcoming the prima facie case. Aside from this, I have also learned about the social benefits of benign intrusions, benign intrusion as preventing waste and benign intrusions as exercising the right to a free of content.

Integrative Questions:

1. What is Hacktivism?
2. What is hacking?
3. Enumerate the social benefits of benign intrusions.
4. Is Hacktivism moral?
5. What is The Active Response Spectrum?

Book Review: CHAPTER 9

Book: Information Ethics and Library profession

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Information-Computer-Ethics/dp/0471799599/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239782484&sr=8-1

Quote: “Intellectual freedom is the right of every individual to both seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction. It provides for free access to all expressions of ideas through which any and all sides of a question, cause or movement may be explored. Intellectual freedom is the basis for our democratic system. We expect our people to be self-governors. But to do so responsibly, our citizenry must be well-informed. Libraries provide the ideas and information, in a variety of formats, to allow people to inform themselves. Intellectual freedom encompasses the freedom to hold, receive and disseminate ideas.”

What I expect to learn:

I expect this chapter to show me the definition of information ethics and its connection with library profession.

Review:

This paper argues for the importance of information ethics to 21st century library professionals. It describes what various authors have said about how information ethics can be applied to the ethical dilemmas faced by library professionals. In order to deal effectively with their ethical dilemmas, library professionals must have a good working knowledge of information ethics. Codes of professional ethics can help to provide such knowledge, but they are not sufficient. Courses on information ethics must be part of the education of information professionals. Such courses should provide library professionals with an understanding of ethical theories and how they apply to concrete practical cases. Such courses should also make explicit the connection between information ethics and the mission of the library professional. This paper is not intended to provide an exhaustive list of publications on the topic of information ethics and library professionals. This paper provides library professionals with a concise introduction to information ethics.

What I learned:

I learned about core value of the library profession. Aside from this, I have also learned about children’s access to information.

Integrative Questions:

1. What is the core value of library profession?
2. What is selection as mentioned in the chapter?
3. What is bias as mentioned in the chapter?
4. What is neutrality as mentioned in the chapter?
5. What is labelling as mentioned in the chapter?

Book review: CHAPTER 10

Book: Ethical Interest in Free and Open source Software

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Information-Computer-Ethics/dp/0471799599/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239782484&sr=8-1

Quote:

While the Internet’s rapid expansion has enabled an equally rapid expansion of web-based professional services, it has not been matched by the consideration and understanding of the related ethical implications. The growth of new opportunities is accompanied by equal, if not greater, growth in ethical issues for businesses seeking to expand their offerings via the Internet. These issues include the quality of services and information, privacy and security, nature of relationship, forms of delivery, contractual considerations, and regulation and enforcement.

Quality of services and information. Providing services via the Internet raises questions about the validity of the advice offered by the professional. For example: Is such advice valid? Is the recipient able to evaluate the quality of the advice received? Alternatively, is the information provided by the client valid? Does an obligation exist on the part of the professional to verify the information received from Internet clients?

Learning Expectations:

Know the open and free source software, understand the proper usage of such open and free source and create new methods in information technology

Review:

Computers have a central and growing role in commerce, industry, government, medicine, education, entertainment and society at large. Software engineers are those who contribute by direct participation or by teaching, to the analysis, specification, design, development, certification, maintenance and testing of software systems. Because of their roles in developing software systems, software engineers have significant opportunities to do good or cause harm, to enable others to do good or cause harm, or to influence others to do good or cause harm. To ensure, as much as possible, that their efforts will be used for good, software engineers must commit themselves to making software engineering a beneficial and respected profession. In accordance with that commitment, software engineers shall adhere to the following Code of Ethics and Professional Practice.

The Code contains eight Principles related to the behavior of and decisions made by professional software engineers, including practitioners, educators, managers, supervisors and policy makers, as well as trainees and students of the profession. The Principles identify the ethically responsible relationships in which individuals, groups, and organizations participate and the primary obligations within these relationships. The Clauses of each Principle are illustrations of some of the obligations included in these relationships. These obligations are founded in the software engineer’s humanity, in special care owed to people affected by the work of software engineers, and in the unique elements of the practice of software engineering. The Code prescribes these as obligations of anyone claiming to be or aspiring to be a software engineer.

It is not intended that the individual parts of the Code be used in isolation to justify errors of omission or commission. The list of Principles and Clauses is not exhaustive. The Clauses should not be read as separating the acceptable from the unacceptable in professional conduct in all practical situations. The Code is not a simple ethical algorithm that generates ethical decisions. In some situations, standards may be in tension with each other or with standards from other sources. These situations require the software engineer to use ethical judgment to act in a manner which is most consistent with the spirit of the Code of Ethics and Professional Practice, given the circumstances.

What I have learned:

I have learned several options in information technology and how to make a good and proper way in source software.

Integrative questions:

1. What is source of information technology?
2. What are the proper ways in open and free source?
3. Do the ethical issues help the said source of information technology?
4. What does the author want to discuss?
5. Do you understand the chapter?

Book Review: CHAPTER 11

Book: Internet Research Ethics: the Filed and its Critical Issues

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Information-Computer-Ethics/dp/0471799599/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239782484&sr=8-1

Quote: “I engage with contemporary debates about Internet research ethics and the idea, which is expressed in a great deal of this material, that Internet research is a form of human subjects’ research. Many of the ethical guidelines that I discuss do not distinguish between Internet research, which can be defined as studies of pre-existing Internet settings and materials, and research that uses the Internet as an “interview” strategy and may engage with individuals in physical settings. However, my main focus in this article is the ways that human subjects’ guidelines are being applied to Internet research. Some of my comments apply specifically to Internet researchers and human subjects guidelines in the United States.”

Learning Expectations:

I expect to learn about the availability of internet search, the proper way of researching ethics through the use of internet and the actual field in issues.

Review:

Academics from varied institutions and countries are engaged in the important task of articulating ethical guidelines for those who research the Internet. However, they have failed to provide users and researchers with important information because they do not address the ways that Internet material is mediated and constructed. The ethical issues and dilemmas involved in Internet research include researchers who ignore the screen, varied icons, repetitive motifs, and produced content. Addressing constructed material is important because Internet settings abound with ageist, classist, homophobic, racist, and sexist imagery and ideas. The current writing about ethical Internet research behaviors can enable such intolerant conceptions by encouraging academics and other users to presume that Internet settings provide access to the truth about individuals or are a direct conduit to people. In other words, conceiving of Internet material as people and human subjects without foregrounding the constructed aspects of users’ proclaimed “self-representations” makes it seems like Internet material is exacting and natural.

Considerations of Internet research ethics address the ways that individuals and societies understand the Internet and expect their materials and identities to be treated. At the same time, these ethical models change the ways that the Internet is perceived. As “we write, we are shaping the future of the Internet, shaping our ideas about it, and forming popular opinion […] This is a history we are actively writing” (Costigan, 1999, p. xx ). As writers and readers of such histories, it is important to attend to the kinds of histories we encourage and those that we may prevent. Feminism and a variety of other critical approaches have questioned the means by which individuals and institutions become part of a historical narrative. These political projects might make us wonder about an ethics of Internet “writing” and meaning production that has in some instances attempted to legislate the disciplines that have the “appropriate” skills to do Internet research.1 To some extent, calling Internet research “human subjects research” designates the disciplines that can work in this area, the appropriate discourses that can be employed, and prevents Humanities scholars from participating.

Internet research ethics is going to have an effect on the forms of research that are sanctioned or even permissible, the ways that we understand Internet culture, and our larger understandings of individuals and society. This suggests that there are significant consequences to hindering the participation of certain disciplines and preventing some kinds of histories from being produced. A truly ethical model of Internet research ethics would acknowledge such outcomes and encourage a variety of histories and disciplines. It would develop guidelines and rules that consider these problems at the same time as it foregrounds their possible effects.

What I have learned:

Many Internet users shift between describing Internet settings as a conduit to the self and as artistic or cultural production. Acknowledging the highly mediated and representational aspects of this material and considering the ethical codes of research disciplines that engage with culturally produced material suggest a very different set of research strategies. When Internet material is viewed as cultural production then the models for Internet research

Integrative questions:

1. What is internet?
2. What is the use of internet in information technology?
3. What are the critical iosues of such internet?
4. How much importance does internet give to the readers?
5. Do you think internet is one of the major aspects of IT?

Book Review: CHAPTER 12

Book: Health Information Technology: Challenges in Ethics, Sciences and Uncertainty

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Information-Computer-Ethics/dp/0471799599/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239782484&sr=8-1

Quote: “There is arguably no better trigger for reflection on morality and its relationship to the law and society than privacy and its cousin, confidentiality. The demands of privacy are intuitively straightforward and the consequences of its violation obvious. Without a credible promise that privacy and confidentiality will be safeguarded, the task of fostering trust is frustrated. If for instance a patient believes that a physician will disclose interesting or salacious diagnostic data to others, the patient might not disclose information the physician needs to render an accurate diagnosis in the first place.”

What I expect to learn:

To be aware of the challenges being faced by the health information technology

Review:

Isn’t it cool how we can be a part of some kind of experiment? No, I don’t mean being guinea pigs of some new medical experiment but this, technology. Being the ones to test new technology that continues to develop nowadays is an honor because once we are a part of something that will be great in the future for the next generation.

The chapter even included privacy in health information technology. Privacy is, most generally, as discussed in the chapter, the right entitlement or reasonable expectation people have that they are and will be secure from intrusion. Given the example in the chapter, it is obvious that society values both personal privacy and the law enforcement but in some cases, the police officer investigating a crime may and, in fact, must take steps to justify that her official need is worth the intrusion. “Put differently, privacy rights are not absolute, but may be balanced against other values. The same is true for confidentiality, which applies to information—medical records, for instance. Where privacy is customarily about people, confidentiality applies to information about people. Privacy is also sometimes regarded as including within its scope people’s concern about protecting confidentiality. Privacy is a broader concept.” – indeed as a broader concept yet privacy still serve as one of the most studied factor in information technology and one that is most protected.

What I learned:

In this chapter I learned about privacy and confidentiality. Aside from this, I have also learned about clinical decision support systems, diagnostic expert systems and prognostic scoring systems. Aside from this, I also learned about the standard view, progressive caution and decision support.

Integrative Questions:

1. Define confidentiality as explained in the chapter.
2. What is a clinical decision system?
3. What is a diagnostic expert system?
4. What is a prognostic scoring system?
5. Differentiate the standard vie and the progressive view.

Book Review: CHAPTER 13

Book: Ethical Issues of Information and Business

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Information-Computer-Ethics/dp/0471799599/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239782484&sr=8-1

Quote: “On the basis of this recognition of the existence of shared and successful norms, some scholars have attempted to identify such norms and use them to ethically justify certain types of economic behaviors”

Learning expectation:

On this chapter, I have learned about the ethical issues of information and business.

Review:

Within legal boundaries, what you say and do in the privacy of your own home is your business. Particularly when it comes to digital information, that privacy and moral flexibility does not extend to the workplace. Common sense dictates that your actions in a public place are no longer private. People by nature consider their surroundings before saying or doing something that would embarrass themselves or offend others. When it comes to the workplace, the burden of maintaining a politically and morally correct environment falls on the employer as well as the employee.

As access to the Internet becomes more prevalent, businesses must take increased care to clearly define what content is legal, allowable and appropriate something as simple as a verbal warning will often suffice, but documented sensitivity training is becoming the standard for most businesses. Human resource departments have established comprehensive rules for conduct and often simple tests are administered to make sure the employee understands and his or her responses are recorded.

In the digital age, the record of the discussion can be important. If an employee views a website that another employee finds offensive, the record of that site visit can become hard evidence in a court of law. It’s an attorney’s dream to build a case with such evidence. Because the employee was not only at the workplace when the offence took place, but using the employer’s equipment to commit the offense both will be held liable for the action. Only unambiguous evidence of the fact that the employee clearly understood stated rules against such conduct will limit the employer’s liability.

What I have learned:

I have learned that employers can also seek to limit the content that is available to the employees, but this can be an even heavier burden. Determining which content to block and how to effectively block may represent an overwhelming task. The censorship of information will pose a difficult ethical situation for an employer. In addition to this, blocking unwanted content while still maintaining open access to the Internet can be virtually impossible.

Integrative question:

1. Explain the stake holder approach
2. What is business ethics?
3. Explain the concept of business
4. What approach is widely used in business ethics?
5. What does ICT mean?

Book Review: CHAPTER 14

Book: Responsibilities for Information on the Internet

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Information-Computer-Ethics/dp/0471799599/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239782484&sr=8-1

Quote: “If they were to have these responsibilities, then these responsibilities might easily conflict with their obligations to make profits for the stockholders”

Learning expectation:

I am expecting to know what the responsibilities that we have in the field of internet.

Review:

In most countries of the world, the “information revolution” has altered many aspects of life significantly: commerce, employment, medicine, security, transportation, entertainment, and so on. Consequently, information and communication technology (ICT) has affected — in both good ways and bad ways — community life, family life, human relationships, education, careers, freedom, and democracy (to name just a few examples). “Computer and information ethics”, in the broadest sense of this phrase, can be understood as that branch of applied ethics which studies and analyzes such social and ethical impacts of ICT. The present essay concerns this broad new field of applied ethics.

Moreover, this book is an undertaking in practical ethics, and practical ethics is the middle ground where abstract ethical theories and concepts meet real-world problems and decisions. It takes an enormous amount of work to understand what theories mean for real-world situations, issues, and decisions, and in some sense, we don’t understand theories until we understand what they imply about real-world situations. Practical ethics is best understood as the domain in which there is negotiation between theory and real-world situations. We draw on moral concepts and theories but we must interpret them and draw out their implications for the issues at hand. In practical ethics, we work both ways, from theory to context and from context to theory. Often a theory or several theories provide illumination on a practical matter; other times, struggle with the practical problem leads to new insight into a theory.

What I have learned:

I have learned that during the past several decades, the robust and rapidly growing field of computer and information ethics has generated new university courses, research professorships, research centers, conferences, workshops, professional organizations, curriculum materials, books and journals.

Integrative question:

1. What does ISP’s means?
2. Explain the Information in General
3. Enumerate the Two types of problems of reliability
4. What are the problems on reliability?
5. Give one responsibility that you think should be included

Book Review: CHAPTER 15

Book: Virtual Reality and Computer Simulation

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Information-Computer-Ethics/dp/0471799599/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239782484&sr=8-1

Quote: “Virtual reality and computer simulation have not received much attention from ethicists. It is argued in this essay that this relative neglect is unjustified, and that there are important ethical questions that can be raised in relation to these technologies. First of all, these technologies raise important ethical questions about the way in which they represent reality and the misrepresentations, biased representations, and offensive representations that they may contain.”

Learning expectation:

I expect to learn what is virtual reality is.

Review:

Cost-benefit management trends in Taiwan healthcare settings have led nurses to perform more invasive skills, such as Port-A cath administration of medications. Accordingly, nurses must be well-prepared prior to teaching by the mentor and supervision method. The purpose of the current study was to develop a computer-assisted protocol using virtual reality (VR) in performing Port-A cath as a training program for novice nurses. A pre-tested and post-tested control group experimental design was used in this study.

Seventy-seven novice nurses were invited from one large medical center hospital in North Taiwan. Thirty-seven and forty nurses were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. First, we designed a 40 minute port-A cath injection VR simulation. Then, the experimental group practiced this simulation two times over 3 weeks. The control group attended the traditional class. The post-test 1 was right after completion of the simulation practice. The post-test 2 was after the second simulation practice in 3 weeks. The results showed that most novice nurses lacked Port-A cath experience both in the classroom and during the period of their practice training. The knowledge score regarding the Port-A cath technique was significantly higher in the nurses that participated in the simulation training than in the control group. The novice nurses were most satisfied with the reduction in their fear of performing the Port-A cath technique and their enhanced clinical skills. VR simulation significantly reduced error rates and increased correct equipment selection, showing that nurses who participated in the simulation may be better prepared for inserting Port-A cath.

What I have learned:

I learned about virtual child pornography, depiction of real persons, avatars, agency and identity and I have also learned about behaviour in single-user VR.

Integrative questions:

1. What is virtual reality?
2. What is computer simulation?
3. What does VR mean?
4. What are the behaviors in single-user VR?
5. What is virtual child pornography?

Book Review Chapter 16

Book: Genetic Information: Epistemological and Ethical Issues

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Information-Computer-Ethics/dp/0471799599/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239782484&sr=8-1

Quote: “Genetics has utilized many concepts from informatics. These concepts are used in genetics at two different, albeit related levels. At the most basic level, genetics has taken the very notion of information, central to the field of informatics, to explain the mechanism of life”

Learning expectation:

To know what is epistemological and ethical issues

Review:

This presentation has a double aim of clarification: epistemological and ethical. The analysis mainly refers to the uses and representations of genetic knowledge regarding people or groups. The descriptive part is completed with ethical stands regarding the following issues: transindividual scope of genetic knowledge, the obligation to know and the right not to know, discrimination and solidarity, and appropriation of genetic knowledge.

As an example of applied social science, the field of human resource management is used to show that ethical problems are not only those of carrying out research, of professional conduct, and of the distribution fairness of social science knowledge. A largely overlooked ethical issue is also the implicit choices that are made as an integral part of research and implementation. First, an analysis is undertaken of the implicit assumptions, values and goals that derive from the conception of human problems in work organizations as managing human resources . Secondly, it is argued that such a conception is in fact a socially constructed reality with real consequences and not a reflection of objective states of human and social nature with which we have to live. Thirdly, to the extent that our implicit assumptions are in part based upon conceptual choices that are made by individuals or as a collective act of a discipline or work organization, the development of an ethical framework that could guide such choices becomes a crucial challenge for business ethics.

What I have learned:

I have learned the Concept of Information, The Notion of Genetic Information, Ideological Use of a Model and Ethical Issues in Fund-raising, Cooperation and Public Access of Data.

Integrative question:

1. What is the concept of genetic information?
2. What is the typical notion of genetic information?
3. What did Berlinski contribute? Elaborate.
4. What did Maynard mention? Explain.
5. Is public access of data legal? If not, should it be?

Book Review Chapter 17

Book: The Ethics of Cyber Conflict

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Information-Computer-Ethics/dp/0471799599/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239782484&sr=8-1

Quote: “There are several areas of cyber conflict that the paper does not address. Besides cyber attacks conducted for pleasure or personal gain, the paper does not consider revenge attacks by insiders—all of which are generally regarded as unethical.”

Learning expectation:

To know more about the ethics of cyber conflict and what the conflicts are

Review:

Not all countries have a sophisticated legal system, they are immersed in local regional conflict, or poverty, or other issues that preclude them devoting time to making or developing laws that concern the use of the internet in state or country.
Not every country looks at anything the same way as any other country. Take the age of consent, it varies between ages of 10 in Malaysia, to 16 in Britain to 18 in America, and all points in between. Trying to ride herd over internet content is going to default to the person who sells the most tools to the most countries. The Internet may end up being controlled by defacto American corporations that are the ones most responsible for Internet Censorship and legal implementation of laws, based on American laws, as applied to a country that may not have such issues, laws or viewpoints.

WIPO – World Intellectual Property Organization has spent over 32 years trying to get a unified law on how to protect intellectual property, and it will take a lot longer to do this. If you follow their time line, there have been actions in this area since 1873, or well over 100 years. Hacking is a crime in some countries, is not a crime in others generally. There are also exceptions; the famous Chinese American hacking events when the P3 was shot down over China in 2001, China won that conflict by almost 2000 attributable systems to Chinese hacking groups. Both governments turned a blind eye, and no one will ever be prosecuted for the 10’s of thousands of systems that were brought down, defaced, or otherwise compromised.

The Chinese government has unofficially used hacking activity to assert political agenda, such as when the Japanese government in 2005 rewrote parts of their official history books to down play the events in Manchuria during world war two. Japan suffered under weeks of heavy DDOS attack from China via compromised PHPbb bulletin boards and other springboards.

What I have learned:

I have learned the Law of War, where the contents are:
• Distinction of Combatants from Noncombatants
• Military Necessity
• Proportionality
• Indiscriminate Weapons
• Superfluous Injury
• Perfidy
• Neutrality

Integrative question:

1. What is cyber conflict?
2. What are the cyber conflicts mentioned in this chapter?
3. What is Jus in Bello?
4. What is Jus ad Bellum?
5. What are the ethical frameworks of Hacktivism?

Book Review: Chapter 18

Book: A Practical Mechanism for Ethical Risk Assessment- A SoDis Inspection

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Information-Computer-Ethics/dp/0471799599/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239782484&sr=8-1

Quote: “The availability of high-quality software is critical for the effective use of information technology in organizations.”

Learning expectation:

To conclude practical mechanism for ethical risk assessment

Review:

Management, investors, and the public at large have become increasingly interested in evaluating companies for ethical performance and risk in the wake of Sarbanes-Oxley, the NYSE standards, the updated U.S. sentencing guidelines, and the Department of Justice principles of prosecution.

To address this need in the industry, Berman and Kirk O. Hanson, executive director of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, presented a preliminary draft of the ethics assessment tool they are developing, dubbed the Santa Clara Alternative. They unveiled their work in progress at the June 13, 2006, meeting of the Business and Organizational Ethics Partnership. The tool builds on a presentation Hanson gave at an earlier BOEP meeting entitled “Crisis-Prone or Crisis-Prepared.”

The first part of the tool asks a series of questions designed to analyze where ethical risk may arise from the industry itself. How intense is the competition? The more the competition, the more risk for ethical lapses. How important are a few large customers? The more important, the higher the risk. Some of the other questions look at product differentiation, overcapacity in the industry, and trade regulations.
Attendees had several suggestions for this section, such as addressing the track record of the particular industry, the placement of the industry on the supply chain (the closer to the end-user, the more likely it is to face scrutiny), how global the industry is, and the special set of risks inherent in dealing with government contracts. Although the need for high quality software is obvious to all and despite efforts to achieve such quality, information systems are frequently plagued by problems. [Ravichandran 2000]. These continued problems occur in spite of a considerable amount of attention to the development and applications of certain forms of risk assessment (which will be discussed in Section II). The narrow form of risk analysis and its limited understanding of the scope of a software project and information systems has contributed to significant software failures.

What I have learned:

I have learned that the section of the Santa Clara Alternative dealing with the company itself focuses on three separate aspects: structure or strategy; the ethics system, and the culture.

Under structure or strategy, questions delve into how hierarchical the company is (the more hierarchical, the greater the risk), how flexible it is in adjusting goals to changing conditions, and how much the company deals with “problematic” countries, industries, suppliers, and business partners (the more dealings, the higher the risk).

Integrative questions:

1. What is SoDIS?
2. What is the SODIS audit process?
3. What is the concept of risk identification?
4. What is risk assessment?
5. Is risk assessment necessary?

Book Review: Chapter 19

Book: Regulation and Governance of the Internet

Library Reference: None

Amazon References: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Information-Computer-Ethics/dp/0471799599/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239782484&sr=8-1

Quote: “Most online communities used by children and young people today are usually characterised by a combination of centralised control by the service provider as well as decentralised cultures of self-regulation among the users themselves sustained by tools provided by the provider.”

Learning expectation:

To know the regulation and governance of the internet

Review:

Inappropriate content ‘flagged’ by users, news items ranked by users, online sellers rated by users, online lexica articles written by users and silent agreements among users on socially acceptable behaviour in online communities. In the age of Web2.0, self-regulation among the users as well as user governance has become an integrated element of our participation in the online world. And growing up online requires a set of complex personal competences. Participation in online communities is an integrated element of many children and young people’s everyday lives today.

Here it is of key importance to command the ability to interpret and perform different social and cultural norms of a given community as well as using and understanding the self-regulatory tools available on the different community sites. For organisations working with child protection in the age of the social internet where user empowerment is fundamental, many questions appear. Among those worth singling out are: How can we support an ethical culture among young internet users and with which tools can we provide them to sustain already existing cultures of self-regulation?
Many forms of self-regulation among users are characteristic of the online world today – some a more integrated element of our online identities, some still being negotiated explicitly in our respective online communities. Often self-regulation among users is defined by a set of shared values and ideas among the users of a particular internet community – not formalized, but based on silent agreements.

What I have learned:

I have learned that one implicit form of self-regulation is our increasing awareness of the public nature of our online identities. In Denmark, the internet was introduced into the average Danes’ home in the mid 90s and thus gradually the public sphere has become an integrated element of our private spheres.

Integrative question:

1. What is content regulation?
2. Why is content regulation necessary?
3. What are the technical issues surrounding effective regulation of content?
4. What is censorship?
5. What are the mentioned normative issues in internet regulation?

Book Review Chapter 20

Book: Information Overload

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Information-Computer-Ethics/dp/0471799599/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239782484&sr=8-1

Quote: “For a variety of reasons—some economic, some social, and some spiritual11—our society’s sense of progress and achievement is tied to the accelerated production of material and information goods. Some of these information goods are end-products (films an video games and newspapers), while others are agents of control (advertisement and e-mail messages) that help to manage the accelerating processes of production and consumption.”

Learning expectation:

To be on familiar terms with what an information overload is

Review:

Have you experienced headaches in the middle of your class, thinking what might be its cause and realizing that your professors have taught you a lot of lessons that your mind cannot absorb them anymore? Then my friend, you might be experiencing information overload. This commonly occurs when the mind is trying to grasp so much information that it end up to a point that it cannot understand anything anymore. Information overload is said to be the side effect of our advancing technology. This result from the too much availability of information generated through internet and other channels of communication.

Many forms of self-regulation among users are characteristic of the online world today – some a more integrated element of our online identities, some still being negotiated explicitly in our respective online communities. Often self-regulation among users is defined by a set of shared values and ideas among the users of a particular internet community – not formalized, but based on silent agreements. One implicit form of self-regulation is our increasing awareness of the public nature of our online identities. In Denmark, the internet was introduced into the average Danes’ home in the mid 90s and thus gradually the public sphere has become an integrated element of our private spheres. At first, we were perhaps not so cautious of our online activities arguably resulting in the “private” tone of the “personal diary”, the weblog, for example. However, many of us have gradually become accustomed to cultivating and designing the online persona that shows up on a Google Search for example. This is one form of user self- regulation. As Professor Joshua Meyrowitz recently put it at the seminar ‘Media and Mobility’ in Copenhagen: “the idea that the whole world is watching leads to a sense of caution”. Other forms of self-regulation are defined by cultural norms within the respective online community in which we participate, but are more explicitly being negotiated by the users of the communities. This is for example often seen in the user comments to Youtube videos where a user with a ‘misplaced’ comment is put in his place by other users. The implicit debate is here: ‘What is the most socially appropriate way of interacting on this community site?’ Attempts to create more formalised “social codes of conduct” for online interaction have been made. But most often these are met with great resistance from internet users that intensely shield the free and independent nature of the internet. We saw it when Jimmy Wales, the man behind Wikipedia, and Tim O’Reilly, father of the term “Web2.0”, earlier this year, argued for establishing a formal “Bloggers Code of Conduct” causing a fierce debate in the blogging environment – a debate that is still at this very moment taking place online.

What I have learned:

I have learned that overload is something that happened in every one of us in everyday life.

Integrative questions:

1. What is information overload?
2. How did the chapter define information?
3. What is the difference of perception and reality?
4. What is the history of information overload?
5. What are the given consequences of information overload?

Book Review Chapter 21

Book: Email Spam

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Information-Computer-Ethics/dp/0471799599/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239782484&sr=8-1

Quote: “A fundamental problem with any philosophical discussion of email spam is definitional. Exactly what constitutes spam? Published definitions by some major players differ dramatically on which emails should be identified as spam. Some emphasize the importance of “consent”; others require the emails to be commercial in nature before they are called spam; still others focus on thenumber of identical messages that are sent as spam. At least oneWeb site (Spam Defined, 2007) is soliciting signatories to settle on the definition of spam.”

Learning expectation:

To distinguish what an email spam is

Review:

All of you who have email addresses would probably know what a spam is. Well actually, not all because we may have spam mails but we don’t really know how it got sent to us and why is it sent to us. The definition of spam emails in Wikipedia is that it is also known as junk e-mail, and is a subset of spam that involves nearly identical messages sent to numerous recipients by e-mail. A common synonym for spam is unsolicited bulk e-mail (UBE). Definitions of spam usually include the aspects that email is unsolicited and sent in bulk “UCE” refers specifically to unsolicited commercial e-mail. The total volume of spam (over 100 billion emails per day as of April 2008) has leveled off slightly in recent years, and is no longer growing exponentially.

The amount received by most e-mail users has decreased, mostly because of better filtering. E-mail spam has steadily, even exponentially grown since the early 1990s to several billion messages a day. Spam has frustrated, confused, and annoyed e-mail users. Laws against spam have been sporadically implemented, with some being opt-out and others requiring opt in e-mail. About 80% of all spam is sent by fewer than 200 spammers. Botnets, networks of virus-infected computers, are used to send about 80% of spam. Since the cost of the spam is borne mostly by the recipient, it is effectively postage due advertising. E-mail addresses are collected from chatrooms, websites, newsgroups, and viruses which harvest users’ address books, and are sold to other spammers. Much of spam is sent to invalid e-mail addresses. ISPs have attempted to recover the cost of spam through lawsuits against spammers, although they have been mostly unsuccessful in collecting damages despite winning in court.

Now you know what spam emails are and thanks to google and wiki for the definition. Anyway, spam emails are not something we want but it is a method of some websites to endorse their investors to other people.

What I have learned:

In this chapter I have learned about unsolicited commercial bulk emails (UCBE), the ethics of reducing the number of spam emails read after sent and the ethics of suggestions to reduce the number of emails sent.

Integrative questions:

1. What is spam?
2. Why is it called spam?
3. Where is spam qualified to?
4. What the intent of the sender of spam email?
5. What are the consequences of the receiver once a spam is received?

Book Review Chapter 22

Book: The Matter of Plagiarism: What, Why, and If

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Information-Computer-Ethics/dp/0471799599/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239782484&sr=8-1

Quote: “The emphasis on impropriety is important. There are a wide variety of situations where it seems acceptable to repeat prior expressions while ignoring a possible attribution and making no attempt to seek permission from a putative source. We commonly repeat jokes and report established dates for historical events without citing sources, and we do so without qualms about plagiarism. An expression is only plagiarism if it is unacceptable on some established value.”

Learning expectation:

To know what plagiarism really is

Review:

It was just discussed to us that plagiarism is not infringement of copyright. For those who thought plagiarism is some disease found only in South East part of the world, plagiarism is the use or close imitation of the language and ideas of another author and representation of them as one’s own original work. Plagiarism is not copyright infringement. While both terms may apply to a particular act, they are different transgressions. Copyright infringement is a violation of the rights of a copyright holder, when material protected by copyright is used without consent. On the other hand, plagiarism is concerned with the unearned increment to the plagiarizing author’s reputation that is achieved through false claims of authorship. See, even Wikipedia can prove why both terms may seem similar but totally different in definition.

What I have learned:

I learned about lack of authorization and lack of accreditation.

Integrative questions:

1. What is the concept of plagiarism?
2. How can plagiarism be avoided?
3. How can plagiarism be extinguished?
4. What is the literature view?
5. What is lack of accreditation?

Book Review Chapter 23

Book: Intellectual Property: Legal and Moral Challenges of Online File Sharing

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Information-Computer-Ethics/dp/0471799599/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239782484&sr=8-1

Quote: “All the goods of the information age- all of the expressions once contained in books or film strips or newsletters- will exist as thought or something very much like thought: voltage conditions darting around the net at the speed of light, in conditions that one might behold in effect, as glowing pixels or transmitted sounds”

Learning expectation:

To know more about intellectual property

Review:

I am guilty to using online file sharing because first of all, it is free and second of all, it is accessible. Honestly, for me, that is enough reason for anyone to shift from buying a brand new album by an indie band to downloading or listening to the whole album for free. Of course I don’t want you to open your browser just to check out what file sharing is. This is the definition of file sharing in Wikipedia, “File sharing refers to the providing and receiving of digital files over a network, usually following the peer-to-peer (P2P) model, where the files are stored on and served by personal computers of the users. The first file-sharing programs marked themselves by inquiries to a server, either the data to the download held ready or in appropriate different Peers and so-called Nodes further-obtained, so that one could download there. Two examples were Napster (today using a pay system) and eDonkey2000 in the server version (today, likewise with Overnet and KAD – network decentralized). Another notable instance of peer to peer file sharing, which still has a free version, is Limewire.” Of course I know what these software are because yes, I have committed an unethical approach to technology because back then, five to 7 years back, downloading something from the internet is not illegal because it is just the concept of sharing but now, many complained that P2P software ruin the music and movie industry because of all the files that people can have access to without paying a cent.

What I have learned:

I learned about considering whether a certain action on the Internet is sharing or theft. I have also learned about the concept of secondary liability. The most important thing I have learned in this chapter is moral consideration. I learned that one should consider how the way he uses technology would affect the society and whether it contradicts the moral principles of men or not.

Integrative question:

1. What is intellectual property?
2. What are the legal challenges of online file sharing?
3. Should P2P be against the law? Why or why not?
4. What is secondary liability of file sharing?
5. Who is Grokster?

Book Review Chapter 24

Book: Censorship and Access to Expression

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Information-Computer-Ethics/dp/0471799599/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239782484&sr=8-1

Quote: “The benefits we receive from having these interests satisfied (and the harms from not having them satisfied) will not be easily overridden. Second, we have to ask ourselves not what in principle it might be good to censor. We have to ask ourselves what in actual practice would be the consequences of having policies in place that restrict access. It is at this point that “slippery slope” and “chilling effect” arguments might have some force.”

Learning expectation:

To know about censorship

Review:

We usually encounter the word censorship in movies that are opt to be blocked by this rectangular black object desperately trying to cover up body parts that are not supposed to be shown in national television but that is not the case here. Let us first define what censorship is from Wikipedia to truly understand how this chapter connected this to ethical issues. To my surprise, there are different kinds of censorship which “is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful or sensitive, as determined by a censor.” The real reason behind the concept for censorship is not similar for numerous types of data that are censored: Moral censorship, is taking away of materials that censor deems to be obscene or otherwise morally questionable.

Pornography, for example, is often censored under this rationale, especially child pornography, which is censored in most jurisdictions in the world. In another example, graphic violence resulted in the censorship of the “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” movie entitled Scarface, originally completed in 1932. I never realized that there are types of censorship that we need to consider because we are used to knowing that censorship means that floating black object covering people’s faces and bodies but I guess I was wrong. Military censorship is the process of keeping military intelligence and tactics confidential and away from the enemy. This is used to counter espionage, which is the process of gleaning military information. Very often, militaries will also attempt to suppress politically inconvenient information even if that information has no actual intelligence value. Political censorship occurs when governments hold back information from their citizens. The logic is to exert control over the populace and prevent free expression that might forment are bel. Religious censorship is the means by which any material objectionable to a certain faith is removed. This often involves a dominant religion forcing limitations on less prevalent ones. Alternatively, one religion may shun the works of another when they believe the content is not appropriate for their faith.

What I have learned:

By the end of this chapter, I found out what censorship really is and that it has many kinds. Aside from this, I have also learned the types of harm and arguments against censorship. Also, I have learned about inherently harmful access and instrumentally harmful access.

Integrative question:

1. What is censorship?
2. Should censorship be implemented? Give at least two reasons.
3. Why are people interested in accessing other people’s computers?
4. What are the types of harm against censorship?
5. What is inherently harmful access?

Book Review Chapter 25

Book: The Gender Agenda in Computer Ethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Information-Computer-Ethics/dp/0471799599/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239782484&sr=8-1

Quote: “To date, the focus of feminist ethics has tended to be women’s caring roles, especially mothering.5 There are some theoretical problems with this focus, particularly in terms of the emphasis on “ethics of care” that can be seen as problematic as it reinforces women’s traditional self-sacrificing role while, at the same time, emphasizing a level of control over those who are cared for. There have been few attempts to apply feminist ethics to science and technology”

Learning expectation:

To identify the gender agenda in computer ethics

Review:

Back then, women have no rights aside being mothers and I also get it that up to now, it is still a big deal to other parts of the world but hey, wake up guys because if you open your eyes wide enough, you will see how many women showed power and passion to their true beings and demonstrated how it is to truly be brave and to truly treasure a right. I know I seem upset but who would not be upset after reading a history book explaining why women have no rights back then and how they treat women. Now is not the right time to morn about it because it is done. We are finally saved from all those cultural chains that pulled women away from their capabilities and justice as a human being.

Ethics of care, I have to admit, obviously means the heart of women and in a good way. Here is an excerpt from the chapter explaining the relevance of digital divide: What is the relevance, if any, of the digital divide discourse (e.g., Internet access to all) with the fact that data is not information, information is not marketable knowledge, and marketable knowledge is not wisdom? The gaps between these various notions must be identified to call better attention to how our efforts to bridge the various gaps should succeed. For example, we must provide education that enables people to convert data to information, and information to marketable knowledge. To ensure full human flourishing, we want to ensure that bridging the digital divide leads not only to ending life-threatening poverty, but also to full flourishing of human beings, which requires wisdom, aesthetic experience, philosophical self-reflection, and so on.

What I have learned:

I have learned of the gender and computer ethics studies, quantitative research method and qualitative research method. I have also further understood ethical behaviour and I also learned of the role of women in computing. Other than these, I have also learned cyberstalking, hacking and about the hacker communities.

Integrative questions:

1. What do you mean by feminist ethics?
2. What is the male-female binary in this chapter?
3. What is cyberstalking?
4. What is the hacker community?
5. What is the concept of Quantitative Versus Qualitative Research Methodologies?

Book Review Chapter 26

Book: The Digital Divide: A Perspective for the Future

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Information-Computer-Ethics/dp/0471799599/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239782484&sr=8-1

Quote: ”More correct is, though, to try and fight the reason behind the ‘piratical’ behavior, which necessitates the substantial promotion of balanced approaches to intellectual property rights. The paper will present a series of recommendations to achieve this balance.”

Learning expectation:

I expect to learn what digital divide is

Review:

Simply put, the “digital divide” is the division between those who have access to ICT and are using it effectively, and those who do not. Since information and communications technology is increasingly a foundation of our societies and economies, the digital divide means that the information “have-nots” are denied the option to participate in new ICT-based jobs, e-government, ICT-improved healthcare, and ICT-enhanced education.

More often than not, the information “have-nots” are in developing countries, and in disadvantaged groups within countries. To bridges.org, the digital divide is thus a lost opportunity — the opportunity for the information “have-nots” to use ICT to improve their lives.

Public awareness means attitudes, behaviors, opinions and activities that comprise the relations between the general public or lay society as a whole to a particular matter of wider significance. Public awareness does not have a legal nature and a lawyer is not any more qualified position than another professional to explore public awareness and certainly not more than a professional specialized in for example, public relations and communication. Still, a copyright lawyer should know what copyright is about and moreover, what copyright is for lay people-she should also have an idea of what changes (legal and, secondly, other) are necessary to promote public awareness of copyrights.

We seem to live in a very anti-copyright age, an age where we can speak with relative accuracy about a movement against intellectual property in general, and against intellectual property as a very idea. The scholars who attack intellectual property do not question it only when it comes to the Internet; they explore the fundamental question of the necessity or justice of intellectual property in general. And these scholars are not few, nor are they insignificant, and their arguments, that very often reach deep into constitutional and more specifically, human rights issues, are certainly not to be ignored, at least definitely not when one aims at copyright public awareness. Although some people have become more involved with reading these arguments, or exploring works such as Lessig’s book Code and other Laws of Cyberspace, or become more sensitive to how intellectual property has impacted the public domain, the majority of people who respond, do so because the arguments presented are sometimes powerful and true. If we want lay people to listen to copyright lawyers, there must be a concrete legal response to these arguments.

What I have learned:

I have learned the digital divide is the division between those who have access to ICT and are using it effectively, and those who do not.

Integrative question:

1. What does digital divide mean?
2. What does ICT mean?
3. What does LASCAD mean?
4. What does LINCOS mean?
5. What does KAT mean?

Book Review Chapter 27

Book: Intercultural Information Ethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Information-Computer-Ethics/dp/0471799599/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239782484&sr=8-1

Quote:“Digital information technology has at first sight changed the horizon of human thinking and action in such a way that we have to deal with many problems for which classic ethical theories do not have only any answers but they cannot even provide a sufficient basis to deal with them.”

Learning expectation:

I expect learn the issues and discussion about intercultural information ethics

Review:

Our present life-world is shaped by information technology. The Oxford philosopher Luciano Floridi has coined the term “infosphere” to capture this point (Floridi 1999). I use instead the term digital ontology in the sense that this world view of the digital embraces today all dimensions of our being-in-the-world (Capurro 2001). This predominant digital world view is not the cyberspace or “the new home of mind” proclaimed by John Perry Barlow in 1996 (Barlow 1996) but the intersection of the digital with the ecological, political, economic, and cultural spheres. Intercultural information ethics addresses questions concerning these intersections such as: How far is the Internet changing local cultural values and traditional ways of life? How far do these changes affect the life and culture of future societies in a global and local sense? Put another way, how far do traditional cultures and their moral values communicate and transform themselves under the impact of the digital “infosphere” in general and of the Internet in particular? In other words, intercultural information ethics can be conceived as a field of research where moral questions of the “infosphere” are reflected in a comparative manner on the basis of different cultural traditions. The Internet has become a challenge not only to international but also to intercultural information ethics as I will show in the second part of this paper. But, indeed, intercultural information ethics suggests a paradigm shift not only within traditional (Western) ethics but also within (Western) philosophy itself to which I will first briefly refer.
This dialogue is thus not only an inner one but also an intercultural and finally a transcultural one that goes beyond the local tradition of Western philosophy as well as beyond any mono-cultural foundation of philosophy but remaining attached to it at the same time in the different voices that articulate it. When Heidegger states that we can only get into a historical or creative dialogue with the original Greek experience, “we” is then of course not restricted to Europeans who must overcome their own tradition starting with an inner-cultural dialogue. This dialogue changes the meaning of the word “we” that is to say, the matter of philosophy.

What I have learned:

I have learned that there are at least three major global or spherical projects in European history. The first one is the globalisation of reason in Greek philosophy. Reason conceives itself – from Aristotle until Hegel – as global thinking that goes beyond nature into the realm of the divine as the eternal, infinite or metaphysical sphere. Such a sphere bursts with the rise of modern science. Metaphysical claims are criticised by modern empirical science. In this unequal fight, David, modern empirical science, is the winner over the metaphysics of Goliath. The second globalisation is the earthly one. It begins in Europe in the 15th Century and bursts in the 20th Century. The idea of a spherical earth and the attempts to circumnavigate it are indeed older, but the totalitarian ambitions of modern subjectivity are paid off, at least for a while. The third globalisation is the digital one with predecessors in the late middle Ages as well as in Modernity. Today we are confronted with the digital formatting of mankind. The digital globalisation not only reinforces and expands upon the divide between the digital haves and have-nots but also makes more explicit and even deepens existing inequalities.

Integrative question:
1. What is virtual reality?
2. What is computer simulation?
3. What does VR mean?
4. What is behavior in single-user VR?
5. What is virtual child pornography?

Posted by: angelia13 | April 19, 2009

Cyberethics

Book Review: Ethics and the Information Revolution

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “The growing information revolution therefore is not merely technological – it is
fundamentally social and ethical.”
-Terrel Ward Bynum

Learning Expectation:

Since this chapter is entitling Ethics and the Information Evolution, I am expecting to learn the evolution of Computer Ethics Idea, the people behind computer ethics idea, the time or era they discovered that Computer Ethics is really an important aspects on the Information Technology.

Review:

I make the case for the importance of computer ethics and I explore why computer and information technology raises ethical questions when many other technologies do not. Building on Moor’s idea that the task of computer ethics is to fill policy vacuums, I describe generally how computer and information technology gives rise to ethical issues. I push further addressing how these issues can be resolved and explore the traditionalist account which specifies that we can extend ordinary moral principles to situations created by computer technology. This discussion prepares the way for asking in what ways computer ethical issues are unique and in what ways not.

As in the last edition, I argue that it is useful to think of the ethical issues surrounding computer and information technology as new species of generic moral issues. I support this idea by arguing that while ethics is always about human action, technology instruments human action and technology makes it possible for individuals and institutions to behave in ways they couldn’t behave without technology. Traditional ethics and ethical theories have largely ignored the instrumentation of human action. Computer ethics brings this unexplored area of ethics into focus. I conclude this chapter with a brief discussion of the virtues and dangers of using analogies in analyzing computer ethical issues.

Though people have a choice if they will follow ethics or not, most of the time people will make sure that their action will be inline on the existing ethical principles. They do that because they knew what is right and wrong, and that will prevent them to do things that can affect other people in a harmful way.

What I have learned:

On this chapter, I learned that Computer Ethics started during 1940’s by Norbert Wiener. During that time he realized the potential growth of the social and ethical consequences of the computing technology.

I am happy to know that computer ethics is growing. It is a good thing because the number of computer criminals can be decrease, and people would be sure that they were safe on the net.

Integrative Question:

1. What year did Computer Ethics started?
2. Computer Ethics is first called as?
3. Who made ELIZA’s software?
4. Who is the pioneer of the cybernetics?
5. What is the meaning of ICT?

Book Review: Ethics On-Line

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “The issue’s and problems in electronic networks are the problems of the real world
around them. The problems have to do with who we are and what we do off-line”
-Deborah G. Johnson

Learning Expectation:

I am expecting to learn why it is entitled Ethics On-Line. As wekk as what are the insights of the author regarding on the problem online.

Review:

This chapter is largely as it was in the second edition though I have added brief descriptions of virtue ethics and John Rawls’ theory of justice. As before, the aim of this chapter is to show that ethics is not just a subjective and relativistic enterprise. The aim is to show that ethics and ethical analysis involves giving reasons and making arguments for one’s claims and subjecting those reasons and arguments to critical evaluation. By reviewing traditional ethical theories, the chapter provides readers with a useful vocabulary and conceptual tools for thinking through ethical issues. The chapter is not intended to provide the theoretical framework from which answers to all ethical questions can be deduced. Rather, the aim of this chapter is to suggest that ethical analysis is a dialectic process.

Because of the wide range that on-line technology provides, people who doesn’t have any good to do will used this as the means on harming others. Like what Johnson said on her example, like how fast e-mail can be send to people around the world with one click, viruses can also be transferred with anyone, at anyplace on anytime.

Reproducibility is another special feature. With online, people can produce copies that can only be stopped whenever the copier wanted to. This is one problem that we are engaged with. Software can be copied and reproduce without the knowledge of the owner or the creator. These three things are good but when it is used inappropriately or being abused, it can harm other people. There are already laws about these things, but it is still spreading widely. Like Johnson said, the only thing that can stop this is the disciplines that people are obeying.

What I have learned:

I learned that no matter how many laws or how much enforcement the government or enforcer would do, if the people wouldn’t have any discipline among themselves, anything would be useless.

The best thing to solve social problems can be finds within one’s self. To be able to solve or decrease and possibly diminished computer or online problems should be start within the users of the computers.

Integrative Questions:

1. What are the Special Characters of Communication in Networks?
2. What is one of the special characteristic that associates with way of fair treatment?
3. Anonymity contributes to what important characteristic?
4. Scope is always in relation with what?
5. These three special characters when misused will lead to what?

Book Review: Reason, Relativity, and Responsibility in Computer Ethics

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “People are surging to gain access to computer technology. They see it as not only
a part of their daily lives but a necessary venue for routine communication and commercial transactions.”
-James Moor

Learning Expectation:

On this chapter, I am expecting to learn, why it is entitled Reason, Relativity, and Responsibility in Computer Ethics.

Review:

The organization of this chapter and the ideas explored are fundamentally the same as in the last edition of Computer Ethics though I have tried to clarify the ideas further, and I have updated the chapter by addressing the issue of licensing of software engineers. I have also recognized recent changes to the ACM code of ethics. The chapter begins with a discussion of how becoming a member of a profession can lead to somewhat special moral rights and responsibilities. That analysis sets the scene for defining profession and professional, and for asking whether computing is a profession. This is followed by a brief discussion of software engineering licensing. The focus of the chapter then turns to the responsibilities of computer professionals, to employers, to clients, to the public, and to co-professionals, and how they come into conflict. The chapter ends with a brief discussion of professional codes of ethics.

Making ethical or policy on computer wasn’t that easy. Like what I read on the book, you need the process of thinking analytically before you can make one. I do agree on this because how can you make some rules on a very malleable thing? You should think about all forms it can possibly show and then you will make your ethical or unethical way of doing things.

What I really like about this chapter is the policy vacuum in which it served as the ethical principle whenever there is no governing rule. For computer ethics, this is always been used because there are too many things that haven’t had a policy on computer side. Though I can’t make any comment to the law makers because technology changes within a seconds, and the law they will make for certain issue today, before it can be approved as law, it is already a passé.

What I have learned:

I learned that on our society we have too many say on something that sometime it can lead us to mislead other people too. We are careless on our words that when you gave a good reasoning, people tend to believe it without further thinking if it is what they are looking for. Reading this chapter, I learned that it is very difficult to create an ethical policy on something that has been very malleable. It isn’t that easy also to create a law with an issue that can be passé immediately.

Integrative Question:

1. What it is that made by narrow bounds of special interest communities?
2. What are the two parts of Computer Ethics according to Moor?
3. What is logically malleable?
4. What is a policy vacuum?
5. Relative doesn’t mean what?

Book Review: Disclosive Computer Ethics

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “Many computer related practices are simply unfamiliar or unknown to most
people, because they are not visible for the average computer user and are not
widely discussed in media, and these practices consequently fail to be identified
as morally controversial.”
– Philip Brey

Learning Expectation:

In this chapter I expect to learn, about the computer ethics, its uses and how advantage it is. I also expect to learn what is Disclosive Computer Ethics is.

Review:

I begin this chapter by identifying what is morally significant and distinct about the Internet. Focusing on the Internet as a medium of communication, what seems morally significant is the many-to-many global scope of the Internet, the availability of a certain kind of anonymity, and the reproducibility of the medium. After drawing out the implications of these features, emphasizing the difficulties of accountability and trust, I move on to discuss hacking and hacker ethics. Here I have included some of the material from the previous edition. I conclude the chapter with a discussion of the problems the Internet seems to pose for controlling socially undesirable behavior and for encouraging civil behavior.

Actually, this chapter is about Disclosive Computer Ethics or the description of computer technology and related practices in a way that reveal their moral importance. This chapter actually focuses on moral issues namely: privacy, democracy, distributive justice and autonomy.
Critical Function of computer ethics is to identify, analyze, morally evaluate and device policy guidelines for on-line monitoring. The hardware, software and procedures used in computing practice often have moral neutrality when in fact they are not morally neutral.

What I have learned:

In this chapter, I learned that it is very difficult to create an ethical policy on something that has been very malleable. It isn’t that easy also to create a law with an issue that can be passé immediately.

I also learned that on our society we have too many say on something that sometime it can lead us to mislead other people too. We are careless on our words that when you gave a good reasoning, people tend to believe it without further thinking if it is what they are looking for.

Integrative Question:

1. What year Computer Ethics started?
2. Computer Ethics is first called as?
3. Who made ELIZA’s software?
4. Who is the pioneer of the cybernetics?
5. What is the meaning of ICT?

Book Review: Gender and Computer Ethics

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “Technology is a significant site of gender negotiations where both masculine and
feminine identities are constructed and deconstructed. Technologies are incorporated into our gender identities…feminine or masculine”
– Alison Adams

Learning Expectation:

To know why this book is entitled, gender and computer ethics and to know what is computer ethics.

Review:

Chapter 5 is a combination of old and new material. As in the previous edition, I begin by asking how computer and information technology has changed the collection and distribution of personal information. I describe the traditional way in which the privacy issue has been framed—as necessarily involving a trade-off between individual interests in controlling information and the efficiency and improved decision making of those who can make use of the information. I argue for reframing the issue in a way that recognizes personal privacy not just as an individual good but as a social good, and I try to make clear the importance of privacy for democracy. I conclude the chapter by discussing a variety of possible approaches to improving the protection of personal privacy.

Women have domesticated the phone by including it in the household, using it to maintain relations with friends and family, thereby subverting the original ideas of its design, for business, and other public rather than private matters. Because of its ease of use and its link with feminine identity, it is said to have “become a ‘mundane’ technology. Studies have shown that women are increasingly using the internet, but according to surveys they are still far behind in comparison to men, the profile of the average internet user being male, under 35, employed, with no children in the household. There have been many theories as to why there are not as many women using the internet.

Because women are stereotypically thought to be linked to private life and not represented in the public world, they may have some reservations signing on to what is described as a “new public space or even a new ‘public sphere’”. It has been said that women have less access to the web, and that man are more likely to have jobs that provide access. Also there is a ‘flamed out’ theory that states that male violence is used to “control women’s behavior, or to exclude women from public spaces entirely

What I have learned:

I have learned in this chapter that the women nowadays, were explorer. The man’s doping were also can be done by them. The topic of gender has been somewhat neglected I computer writing to date. I also learned the two main strands of current research in gender and computer ethics. The first strand can be viewed by spillover from information systems and computing research. One more knowledgeable things that I get was that much decision making in relation to computer technologies takes place in the workplace.

Integrative Question:

1. What is computer ethics?
2. What is traditional ethics, feminist ethics/feminist theory?
3. What is feminist ethics/feminist theory?
4. What feminist ethics offer computer ethics?
5. What is cyberstalking?

Book Review: Is Global Information Infrastructure a democratic Technology?

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “The adoption of a given technical system unavoidably brings with it conditions
for human relationships that have a distinctive political cast”
-Deborah G. Johnson

Learning Expectation:

I expect to learn why the book title Global Information Infrastructure a democratic Technology. I also want to learn what is democratic technology is.

Review:

In the years since I wrote the first edition of Computer Ethics, the property rights issues have gotten more and more complicated. While there is dissatisfaction with current law, in fact, the law has not changed fundamentally. I have come to the conclusion that the most useful approach for an introductory text of this kind is to stay with the fundamentals. Thus, this chapter is very similar to the property rights chapter in the second edition. I begin by describing the problem that ownership of software poses. I describe copyright, trade secrecy, and patent law and the inadequacies each has for protecting computer software. Digging deeper into the problem, I explore the philosophical basis for property rights looking first at the natural rights arguments and then at the utilitarian arguments for and against ownership. I conclude with an argument similar to the one I made in the second edition: Making an illegal copy of proprietary software is immoral because it is illegal. While it is immoral because it is illegal, there are other kinds of immorality that would be immoral even if they were legal. I conclude with a brief discussion of how the Internet is likely to exacerbate property rights issues.

In any case, the idea that the GII is democratic because it connects every individual to every other individual and allows individuals in political discussion puts the emphasis on the users of the technology. On this account of the value-ladeness of the technology, we may buy and use things because of their symbolic meaning in our culture, not only because of their focal function. The type of account of values embedded in a technology is similar to the material account in that on both types of account, values are though to be amenable to being read off the technology. On the expressive meaning account, however, values are dependent on social context so that one cannot understand the values expressed in a technology unless one understands its social contexts. They should be kept distinct primarily because they point to very different ways in which values be embedded in technologies and therefore, they recommend quite different directions of analysis of technology.

What I have learned:

I have learned that global information infrastructure is often claimed to be a democratic technology. I also learned that GII is to be the coming together of technology with telecommunications. It is originated with the internet, but that name now seems inappropriate.

I have also learned that the infrastructures in many aspects of our lives used to take place, work, shopping, banking and entertainment. One thing that I have learned is that in terms of democracy, a technology may have: intractable properties that require democratic patterns of authority, intractable properties that require non-democratic patterns of authority and flexible properties that are compatible with either pattern authority.

Integrative Question:

1. What are two tenets has form from the foundation of science and technology?
2. What are the two tenets of Bijker’s articulation?
3. What type of account where values pervade the invention and production of technology?
4. What type of account is similar to the preceding in the sense that it also affirms inseparability between the technologies?
5. What is Winner famous article title?

Book Review: Applying Ethical and Moral Concepts Theories to IT Contexts: Some Key problems and Challenges

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “In wake of enlightenment, the emphasis in ethical theory has been for a long
time on systems and rules”
-Frans A.J. Birrer

Learning Expectation:

I expect to learn how to apply ethical and moral concepts theories to IT. I am also expecting to see the meaning of ethical and moral concept theories. And lastly I expect to learn its problems and challenges

Review:

It has often been suggested that technology carries values and biases embedded in it. This paper is an examination of the relation between (the implementation of) computer technology and the incorporation of values and biases. The social complexity of this issue tends to be underexposed. Suggestions are presented for a more comprehensive understanding. Computer and information ethics, as well as other fields of applied ethics, it needs ethical theories which coherently unify deontological and consequentiality aspects of ethical analysis. The proposed theory of just consequentialism emphasizes consequences of policies within the constraints of justice. This makes just consequentialism a practical and theoretically sound approach to ethical problems of computer and information ethics.

This subchapter begins with scenarios that pose a wide range of accountability issues: responsibility for rape in a virtual reality game, accountability when software recommends a decision, liability of Internet Service Providers, and responsibility for the Y2K problem. A discussion of the different meaning and uses of terms such as responsibility, accountability, liability, and blame lays the groundwork for the chapter. The focus then turns to the legal environment for the buying and selling of computer and information technology where the distinction between selling a product and providing a service is pivotal. The remainder of the chapter is devoted to issues that are unique to computer and information technology, especially the diffusion of accountability, the Y2K problem, and Internet issues.

Suggesting that such issues can simply be filed under some branch of “ethics” gives a misleading idea of the nature of these problems, of the kind of framework that is needed to solve them, and of the type of expert specialization one should turn to for advice on these matters. It also leads to an undesirable depolarization of such issues, as if the answers can be found by “rational” analysis provided by some establishment of ethical experts rather than by negotiation.

What I have learned:

I have learned from this chapter that computer ethics to almost anything that for decades used to be indicated by terms like social issues in computing. I have also learned that before applying ethical and moral concepts theories to IT contexts there are three conditions to be met, knowing the questions, limitations, and sufficiently detailed the knowledge. I have also known that there are good reasons to distinguish between ethics in a narrow sense, and broader category.

Integrative Question:

1. What are the conditions that we will meet in applying ethical and moral concepts and theories to IT contexts?
2. What is revival of virtue ethics?
3. What are the behavioral description to employers
4. What makes a picture a lot simpler?
5. What is another term for social issues in computing?

Book Review: Just Consequentialism and Computing

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “The ends do not justify the means”
-James Moor

Learning Expectation:

In this chapter entitled Just Consequentialism and Computing I expect to learn:
1. The things about consequentialism and computing.
2. And why the author gave it a title of Just consequntialism and computing.

Review:

Chapter 8 is the second chapter devoted to the Internet. Drawing on material from the second edition, I begin this chapter with a general discussion of technology and social change and identify the pitfalls in asking questions such as, Is computer and information technology causing a social revolution? Is it changing things or reinforcing the status quo? Is technology good or bad? Attention is then focused on values embedded in computer and information technology. I emphasize how value-laden technology is. The chapter turns, then, to the Internet and democracy. I examined the arguments that are made to show that the Internet is a democratic technology and I critique these arguments.

Computer and information technology and especially the Internet have been implicated in the widening gap between haves and have-nots within countries and among countries of the world. After examining this issue which has come to be known as “the digital divide,” I briefly discuss the gender gap in computing, and then I turn briefly to the value of freedom of expression. I conclude this chapter by pointing to three issues that will be particularly important to watch in the future: jurisdiction, systems of trust, and insularity.
Another growth area in computing is, of course, the web. The internet, which began for military and scientific purposes, has been around for three decades. But the development of part of the internet, the world wide web, during the past ten years is revolutionizing the way we communicate, check the news, and buy merchandise. By one estimate in 1998 there were 200 million internet users and the expectation is that by 2003 there will be over 500 million internet users. Cyberspace is no longer just a black and white engineering world but a colorful and diverse stage for human interaction. The transmission of information over the internet today is as likely to be a color digital picture of a new grandchild as a coded military message.

With the exponential increase in computing power and interconnectivity on the internet the web promises to have a striking and unimaginable cultural impact during the coming century. Even with current capabilities we can foresee that everyone on the web be will be able to publish an updated, personal magazine of information and have a subscription to a gigantic, updated and at least partially indexed world magazine of information. Everyone on the web will be able to broadcast personal audio and visual programs and receive millions of others.

What I have learned:

I have learned that we should develop computing policies in such a way that they are above all just. Another is setting ethical policies for computing might compared to setting a course while sailing.

I also learned that sailors take danger bearings to avoid dangerous objects as a reef. Certain courses should not be taken.

Integrative Question:

1. What are the two factors that are salient in computing which exacerbate the problem of ensuring justice on the net?
2. What are the considerations that threaten the existence of justice in cyberspace?
3. How can justice in cyberspace be generated and maintained?
4. Where does Gert refer his view of impartiality?
5. Where does “setting ethical policies for computing might be compared?
Book Review: The internet as Public Space: Concepts, Issues, and Implications in Public Policy

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “No universal service for schools or libraries that fail to implement a filtering or
blocking technology for computers with internet access”
-Jean Camp and Y.T. Chien

Learning Expectation:

I expect to learn all the things that have something to do with the internet as public space, its issues and implications in public policy. I also intend to learn what is public space is.

Review:

In particular, three issues must be considered when regulating electronic spaces: simultaneity, permeability and exclusivity. Simultaneity refers to the ability of a person to be two places at once: at work and at a train station. Permeability is the ability of barriers between spatial, organizational or traditional barriers to be made less powerful or effective with the adoption of information technology. The permeability of the work/home barrier is most clearly illustrated with telecommuting. Exclusivity is the nature of one space, perception, or activity to prevent others. Intranets may offer exclusive access through a variety of access control mechanisms. In the physical sphere, the walled private cities offer an excellent example of exclusivity.

In order to accomplish our goal we begin by describing what the Internet is not: a new entrant into the media types paradigm. The media types approach fails with respect to the Internet. The failures of the media regulatory metaphor have lead to a spatial metaphor, which better addresses the subtly and complexity of virtual reality. However, the differences which prevent the spatial model from being mapped directly onto the Internet are issues of simultaneity and the permeability of boundaries on the Internet.

We address the fundamental policy issues that result from treating the Internet as public space. We delineate the types of public spaces that may be found on the Internet: libraries, clinics or hospitals, universities, marketplaces, international marketplaces or cultural exchange centers, schools, and as a forum for political speeches or debate. For each public place a subset of the previously discussed policy issues applies in a unique way.

What I have learned:

I have learned that internet nowadays has its big contribution to the society. Internet become the easiest communication of everyone near or far places. I have also learned that is more than multi-media, it was a national and global telecommunication.

I learned too that thru internet we can go different places without expense in transportation, thru here we can view the places we want, we can talk to our love ones just easy as clicking internet in a computer. In internet to, one can be a publisher, at the same time the method of publication can make the person a broadcaster as well.

Integrative Question:

1. What are the uses of internet as public spaces?
2. What are the digital characteristics of a public space?
3. What are the two contradictory characteristics of internet?
4. What is the recent debate about what internet really is?
5. What is the language of the digital age?

Book Review: The Laws of Cyberspace

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “Behavior in the real world, this world, the world in which I am speaking is
regulated by four sort constraints. Law is just one of those constraints,
law is prominent of regulators”
– Larry Lessig

Learning Expectation:

I expect to learn the things about the laws in cyberspace.

Review:

Few intellectuals have influenced the way people think about cyberspace as much as Lawrence Lessig. His first book, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, was described by one critic as “a direct assault on the libertarian perspective that informs much Internet policy debate.” At the same time, by probing the complicated relationship between “East Coast code” that is, legislation and the “West Coast code” that creates the architecture of the Internet, the book changed the terms of the debate, influencing even the people Lessig was criticizing.

By explaining technology to the lawyers and law to the technologists, Lessig has deepened a lot of people’s understanding of the Net. Few in the public policy community, for example, have given much thought to the different layers of cyberspace. By contrast, Lessig distinguishes the physical layer the network’s hardware and wires from the logical layer (the protocols that determine who connects to what) and the content layer the actual material delivered by the protocols over the wires. To maintain our ability to innovate online, he argues, one must recognize the different relationship public policy has with each layer of the system.
In the meantime, Lessig argues fiercely for preserving an online commons, a concept he distinguishes but does not completely disentangle from government control. In the wake of the socialist collapse, he writes, “the issue for us will not be which system of exclusive control the government or the market — should govern a given resource. The question for us comes before: not whether the market or the state but, for any given resource, whether that resource should be controlled or free.”

In our culture, whenever we think about commons, we instantly affix the idea of tragedy. But logically, that can only be true if there is some rivalrousness about that property if my use of it interferes with your ability to use it the same way. Obviously, intellectual goods are not like that. My use of my poems doesn’t stop your use of my poems. So if a commons is nonrivalrous, there can be no tragedy, because my consumption of it does not reduce the amount available to you.

What I have learned:

I have learned that cyberspace is an avoidable and yet it is unregulable, no nation can live without it, yet no nation can be able to control behavior in it. I have also learned that cyberspace is the place where individuals are inherently free from the control of real space sovereigns.

Integrative Question:

1. What is cyberspace?
2. What are the Harvard rules in the cyberspace?
3. Difference of net in University of Chicago and Harvard?
4. What is the constraint adult not to sell porn to kids?
5. What are norms?

Book Review: Of Black Holes and Decentralized Law-making in Cyberspace

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “The task of identifying the alternative rule-makers for purposes of normative
comparison is made even more difficult than this because cyberspace,
having emerged from decentralized disorder – from the primordial ooze of
the internet engineering task force – many well create conditions that the favour
the growth of powerful centralizing forces. The state of Virginia will soon discover that
its anti-spam statute has little effect on the amount of spam that its citizens receive, because while spam originating anywhere on the network can easily make its way into Virginia, spam originating elsewhere, i.e. outside of Virginia’s borders – is largely
immune to Virginia’s control. The same will be true to a federal anti-spam statute
(if such statute is enacted), just on a grander scale. We can already write the headline.”
-David Post

Learning Expectation:

To understand what is meant by the “black holes” in cyberspace

Review:

Conditions in cyberspace do seem to create, in Professor Elkin-Koren’s words, “new opportunities for voluntary normative regimes” of this kind. Not surprisingly, conflicts between formal and informal, centralized and decentralized, rule-making processes are at the heart of many of the important and challenging cyberspace policy debates. The extraordinary current turmoil in the domain name allocation system is one illustration. The story has been told in detail elsewhere.

Briefly, in the beginning before the Internet became such a Big Deal responsibility for operating the machines, and the databases on those machines, that correctly route Internet messages fell to the Internet Assigned Number Authority (IANA), an imposing-sounding entity that, in reality, consisted of a small number of dedicated volunteers in southern California. As the Internet began its explosive growth, IANA’s ability to maintain the system became increasingly overloaded; beginning in 1993, responsibility for maintaining these databases – at least, for three of the increasingly popular “generic top-level” domains com, net, org and the like was handed over to a private firm, Network Solutions, Inc., under a contract – styled a “Cooperative Agreement” – funded by the U.S. government first through the National Science Foundation, later through the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

When that cooperative agreement was due to expire in 1998, the Commerce Department had a decision to make. It could simply walk away from the relationship on the stated expiration date, which is ordinarily what happens when cooperative agreements (or any government contracts) expire. It rejected that option, however, taking the position that it would be “irresponsible to withdraw from its existing management role [in the domain name system] without taking steps to ensure the stability of the Internet.” The Internet naming system, it concluded, needed a “more formal and robust management structure,” and it called for the creation of a new, not-for-profit corporation formed by the “Internet stakeholders” themselves to manage the domain name system. Shortly thereafter, control of this system was placed in the hands of a single institution now known as ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers which would have overall responsibility for setting the rules under which the domain name system would henceforth operate. Putting aside whatever one might think of this decision, the decision to centralize authority over this system in a single, government-authorized entity will inevitably have deep implications for the Internet as a whole.

What I have learned:

I have learned in this chapter the following:
• The incident
• The explanation
• The question
• The debate

Integrative Question:

1. What are black holes in cyberspace?
2. What is spam?
3. What is RBL means?
4. What is MAPS means?
5. What does ISP stand for?

Book Review: Fahrenheit 451.2: Is Cyberspace Burning?

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “Any content-based regulation, no matter how benign the purpose could burn the global village to roast the pig”

Learning Expectation:

To know what is cyberspace burning and if it is really happening?

Review:

This paper examines the free speech implications of the various proposals for Internet blocking and rating. Individually, each of the proposals poses some threat to open and robust speech on the Internet; some pose a considerably greater threat than others.
Even more ominous is the fact that the various schemes for rating and blocking, taken together, could create a black cloud of private “voluntary” censorship that is every bit as threatening as the CDA itself to what the Supreme Court called “the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed.”

We call on industry leaders, Internet users, policy makers and parents groups to engage in a genuine debate about the free speech ramifications of the rating and blocking schemes being proposed.

Third-party ratings systems, designed to work in tandem with PICS labeling, have been held out by some as the answer to the free speech problems posed by self-rating schemes. On the plus side, some argue, ratings by an independent third party could minimize the burden of self-rating on speakers and could reduce the inaccuracy and mis-rating problems of self-rating. In fact, one of the touted strengths of the original PICS proposal was that a variety of third-party ratings systems would develop and users could pick and choose from the system that best fit their values. But third party ratings systems still pose serious free speech concerns.

First, a multiplicity of ratings systems has not yet emerged on the market, probably due to the difficulty of any one company or organization trying to rate over a million web sites, with hundreds of new sites ¬ not to mention discussion groups and chat rooms ¬ springing up daily.

Second, under third-party rating systems, unrated sites still may be blocked.
When choosing which sites to rate first, it is likely that third-party raters will rate the most popular web sites first, marginalizing individual and non-commercial sites. And like the self-rating systems, third-party ratings will apply subjective and value-laden ratings that could result in valuable material being blocked to adults and older minors. In addition, available third-party rating systems have no notification procedure, so speakers have no way of knowing whether their speech has received a negative rating.

What I have learned:

I have learned that the ACLU and others in the cyber-liberties community were genuinely alarmed by the tenor of the White House summit and the unabashed enthusiasm for technological fixes that will make it easier to block or render invisible controversial speech.

I also get to understand the issue about the first flames of Internet censorship appeared two years ago, with the introduction of the Federal Communications Decency Act (CDA), outlawing “indecent” online speech. But in the landmark case Reno v. ACLU , the Supreme Court overturned the CDA, declaring that the Internet is entitled to the highest level of free speech protection.

Integrative Questions:

1. When was the Reno v. ACLU held?
2. Where was the Reno v. ACLU held?
3. What are the six reasons why self-rating schemes are wrong for the Internet?
4. What is CDS?
5. What does ACLU mean?

Book Review: Filtering the Internet in the USA: Free Speech Denied?

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “We’d rather block more than less” (Berlin and Kantor)

Learning Expectation:

To learn what is filtering and how does it affects the internet and the user.

Review:

Much of the motivation for filtering and blocking programs arises from the efforts in the U.S. to defeat the Communications Decency Act of 1996 by showing that programs existed, or would soon exist, to control access at the local level removing the need to place the burden on Internet Service Providers (ISPs). The repercussions of this “bargain with the devil” are being felt today and the impact on free speech is considerable, especially in such public areas as libraries, schools, and community center.

A variety of organizations, institutions, companies, and countries seek to restrict Internet access from within their premises and territories. For example, companies may seek to improve employee productivity by restricting access to leisure sites; libraries and schools may seek to avoid exposing children to sexually-explicit content, or be required to do so; countries may seek to control the information received by their citizens generally. Common among nearly all these applications is the public unavailability of the filtering lists — that, by the design of filtering systems, users cannot and do not know the set of specific sites blocked. In some cases users might ask for a specific site and be told of its unavailability due to filtering, but in other cases such unavailability may be conflated with unremarkable network blockages — a Web site might be unreachable for any number of reasons, and the failure to view it at a particular moment cannot reliability be attributed to active filtering.
With this project we seek to document and analyze a large number of Web pages blocked by various types of filtering regimes, and ultimately create a distributed tool enabling Internet users worldwide to gather and relay such data from their respective locations on the Internet. We can thus start to assemble a picture not of a single hypothetical World Wide Web comprising all pages currently served upon it, but rather a mosaic of webs as viewed from respective locations, each bearing its own limitations on access. As various countries, companies and other entities employ or consider employing filtering software, documentation of the specific details, successes, and in some instances flaws of existing filtering efforts may prove helpful.

What I have learned:

I have learned that much of motivation for filtering and blocking arises from the efforts in the US to defeat the Communications Decency Act of 1996. I also used to learned that filtering or blocking software can be taken to be mechanism used to: restrict access to internet content, based on an internal database of the product, or restrict access to internet content through a database maintained external to the product itself, or, restrict access to internet content to certain ratings assigned to host sites by a third party, or, restrict access to internet content by scanning content, based on a keyword, phrase or text string or; restrict access to internet content based on the source of the information.

Integrative Question:

1. What are three basic types of filtering?
2. What are the librarians and filtering programs?
3. What does PICS mean?
4. What is the software tool that internet users use to conduct searches for content on particular subject?
5. What is the software tool internet users need in order to access information on the World Wide Web?

Book Review: Censorship, the Internet, and the Child Pornography Law of 1996: A Critique

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “When the law speaks universally, there, and a cause arises on it which is not covered by the universal statement, then it is right, where the legislator fails us and has erred by over-simplicity, to correct the omission to say what the legislator himself would have said had been present. And would have put into his law if he had known”
Jacques N. Catudal

Learning Expectation:

To learn all the important things about censorship, internet and the child pornography law in 1996

Review:

After describing the Child Pornography Prevention Act (CPPA) of 1996, I argue that the Act ought to be significantly amended. The central objections to CPPA are (1) that it is so broad in its main proscriptions as to violate the First Amendment rights of adults; (2) that it altogether fails to provide minors and their legal guardians with the privacy rights needed to combat the harms associated with certain classes of prurient material on the Internet; and, (3) that the actual rate of technological advance in home computing, and Congress’ failure to appreciate how prurient material may be accessed, combined with CPPA to wrongfully expose an increasing number of individuals to possible prosecution and personal ruination.

Several other objections are registered along the way, including one aimed at the draconian punishments the law metes out to violators. I close by offering the outlines of an amended version of the law that promises not to violate the rights of adults, that affords children and adults equal and effective protection against the very harmful practices the current law cannot eradicate, and that prescribes punishments that are consistent with the tolerance necessary to support a more democratic vision of the Internet.

The United States Supreme Court has recently ruled that virtual child pornography is protected free speech, partly on the grounds that virtual pornography does not harm actual children. I review the evidence for the contention that virtual pornography might harm children, and find that it is, at best, inconclusive. Saying that virtual child pornography does not harm actual children is not to say that it is completely harmless, however. Child pornography, actual or virtual, necessarily eroticizes inequality; in as exist society it therefore contributes to the subordination of women.

What I have learned:

I learned the meaning of censorship, the child pornography laws. The unwieldy discussion of censorship on the internet, that it will be useful to introduce an define a number of key terms and distinctions, not only for achieving greater clarity and control over the discussion but for setting the moral and political backdrop against which it takes place.

I also learned that the difference forms of censorship bears on affecting the prohibition.

Integrative Question:

1. What is the meaning of child pornography?
2. When and where was the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals upheld?
3. How does Ray Bradbury describe Fahrenheit 451?
4. What group had an argument in the issue about net?
5. What do we call the rating standard that establishes a consent way to rate and block online content?

Book Review: Internet Access Controls Without Censorship PICS

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “When publishers are unwilling to participate, or can’t be trusted to participate honestly, independent organizations can provide third-party labels.”
-Paul Resnick and James Miller

Learning Expectation:

I expect to learn all the important details about this book.

Review:

PICS-compatible software can implement selective blocking in various ways. One possibility is to build it into the browser on each computer, as announced by Microsoft and Netscape. A second method-one used in products such as CyberPatrol and SurfWatch-is to perform this operation as part of each computer’s network protocol stack. A third possibility is to perform the operation somewhere in the network, for example at a proxy server used in combination with a firewall. Each alternative affects efficiency, ease of use, and security. For example, a browser could include nice interface features such as graying out blocked links, but it would be fairly easy for a child to install a different browser and bypass the selective blocking. The network implementation may be the most secure, but could create a performance bottleneck if not implemented carefully.

PICS do not specify how parents or other supervisors set configuration rules. One possibility is to provide a configuration tool like that shown in Figure 3. Even that amount of configuration may be too complex, however. Another possibility is for organizations and on-line services to provide preconfigured sets of selection rules. For example, an on-line service might team up with UNICEF to offer “Internet for kids” and “Internet for teens” packages, containing not only preconfigured selection rules, but also a default home page provided by UNICEF.

Labels can be retrieved in various ways. Some clients might choose to request labels each time a user tries to access a document. Others might cache frequently requested labels or download a large set from a label bureau and keep a local database, to minimize delays while labels are retrieved.

What I have learned:

Form this chapter I have learned that PICS provides a common format for labels, so that any PICS-compliant selection software can process any PICS-compliant label.

I also learned that PICS provides a labeling infrastructure for the Internet. It is values-neutral: it can accommodate any set of labeling dimensions, and any criteria for assigning labels. Any PICS-compatible software can interpret labels from any source, because each source provides a machine-readable description of its labeling dimensions.

Around the world, governments are considering restrictions on on-line content. Since children differ, contexts of use differ, and values differ, blanket restrictions on distribution can never meet everyone’s needs. Selection software can meet diverse needs, by blocking reception, and labels are the raw materials for implementing context-specific selection criteria. The availability of large quantities of labels will also lead to new sorting, searching, filtering, and organizing tools that help users surf the Internet more efficiently.

Integrative Question:

1. What does PICS not specify?
2. What does PICS provide?
3. What are the three factors in blocking net?
4. What is a common set of dimensions would make publishers self labels?
5. Who creates labels?

Book Review: Internet Service Providers and Defamation: New Strands of Liability

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider”
-Richard A. Spinello

Learning Expectation:

To learn why this chapter entitled Internet Service Providers and Defamation: New Strand of Liability

Review:

This article explores recent developments in the regulation of Internet speech, in particular, injurious or defamatory speech and the impact the attempts at regulation are having on the `body’ in the sense of the individual person who speaks through the medium of the Internet and upon those harmed by that speech. The article proceeds in three sections. First, a brief history of the legal attempts to regulate defamatory Internet speech in the United States is presented & semi; a short comparative discussion of defamation law in the UK and Australia is included.

As discussed in this chapter, this regulation has altered the traditional legal paradigm of responsibility and, as a result, creates potential problems for the future of unrestricted and even anonymous speech on the Internet. Second, an ethical assessment is made of the defamatory speech environment in order to determine which actors have moral responsibility for the harm caused by defamatory speech. This moral assessment is compared to the developing and anticipated legal paradigm to identify possible conformity of moral and legal tenants or to recognize the conflict between morality and law in assigning responsibility to defamatory actors.
This assessment then concludes with possible suggestions for changes in the legal climate governing the regulation of defamatory speech on the Internet, as well as prediction of the result should the legal climate continue to develop on its present course. This is not to suggest that all law, or even the law of defamation, be structured to reflect the subjectivity of a moral construct, but since it is the authors position that the legal assignment of liability in online settings is misaligned, this reflection can serve as beginning reassessment of that assignment.

What I have learned:

I have learned that from the last few years defamation on internet has emerged as controversial topic of internet law. I had also learned that when a victim alleges defamation he or she must prove that the publication of the defamatory statement refers to the victim.

One more is that the different standards of liability for disturbing \defamatory information depending upon the role one plays in the process.

Integrative Question:

1. How does the defamation occur in the internet?
2. Does cyberspace alter the need for libel laws?
3. What is the meaning of CDA?
4. What is the meaning of AOL?
5. When did the Congress enter the fray and promulgated a new policy on ISP?

Book Review: A Politics of Intellectual Property: Environmentalism for the Net?

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “One basic weakness in a conservation system based wholly economic motives is that most members of the land community have no economic value… when one of these non-economic categories id threatened, and if we happen to love it, we invent subterfuges to give it economic importance it is painful to read those circumlocutions today”
-James Boyle

Learning Expectation:

I expect to learn the environmentalism for the net. What does it mean and what this is for.

Review:

Accordingly, if the government produced a proposal that laid down the ground rules for the information economy, that profoundly altered the distribution of property rights over this extremely important resource and that threatened to “lock in” the power of current market leaders, one would expect a great deal of attention to be paid by lawyers, scholars and the media. Nothing could be further from the truth.

From my point of view, however, the really depressing thing about the report is that it fails to accomplish its stated goal; to examine what level of intellectual property rights would be necessary in cyberspace. It fails in a way that is both revealing and disturbing. The problem isn’t simply the tendency to give a pro-author account of the existing law.

Assume for a moment the need for a politics of intellectual property. Go further for a moment, and accept the idea that there might be a special need for a politics to protect the public domain. What might such a politics look like? Right now, it seems to me that, in a number of respects, we are at the stage that the American environmental movement was at in the 1950’s. There are people who care about issues we would now identify as “environmental” — supporters of the park system, hunters, birdwatchers and so on. (In the world of intellectual property we have start-up software engineers, libraries, appropriationist artists, parodists, biographers, biotech researchers etc.) There are flurries of outrage over particular crises — burning rivers, oil spills.

What I have learned:

In this chapter, I learned that there are structural reasons why these tendencies will continue. The first crucial aspect of the current information economy is the increasing homologisation of forms of information.

Another knowledge I learned is that libertarians don’t want newspapers censored; their attitude to the Net is the same (though the interactive quality of the technology, and the proprietary feeling that novelty gives first adopters have certainly given more people a stake in the protection of the system.) Non-profit groups have to adjust to changes in communications technology, just like changes in tax law, or the regulation of lobbying.

Integrative Question:

1. What are the two basic analytical frameworks of environmental movement?
2. How is Cyberpunk built?
3. What is privatize?
4. What products require enormous investments?
5. What article mentions two limitations on intellectual property rights?

Book Review: Intellectual Property, Information, and the Common Good

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “Intellectual property has always been closely tied to technology. Technology arises from intellectual property in the form of new inventions. But technology also supports intellectual property by providing new, more powerful and more efficient”
– Michael C. McFarland, SJ

Learning Expectation:

To learn what was the meaning and all about of this chapter

Review:

Intellectual property is an odd notion, almost an oxymoron. Property usually refers to tangible assets over which someone has or claims control. Originally it meant land. Now it could also refer to a car, a milling machine, a jacket or a toothbrush. In all these cases the property claim is of control of the physical entity. If I claim a plot of land as my property, I am saying I can control who has access to that land and what they do there. I can build a fence around it, rent it out, or drill for oil on it.

If a car is my property, I get the keys to it. I can exclude others from using it and use it myself for whatever I want, as long as I do not threaten the lives or property of others. Intellectual property is different because its object is something intangible, although it usually has tangible expression. The intellectual property in a book is not the physical paper and ink, but the arrangement of words that the ink marks on the paper represent. The ink marks can be translated into regions of magnetic polarization on a computer disk, and the intellectual property, and whatever claims there are to that property, will be the same. The owner of a song claims control, not of the CD on which the song is recorded, but of the song itself, of where when and how it can be performed and recorded. But how can you build a fence around a song?

What I have learned:

I learned that computers have given rise to a whole new category of intellectual property, namely computer software. This chapter was all about the computer technology and how it changed every one’s life, its intellectual aspect, the information we get from it and the common good or affects of it.

In addition, as more and more traditional forms of intellectual property, such as writing, music and other sound, movies and videos, photographs, and so on, are being made publicly available on computer networks, they can be copied, manipulated, reworked, excerpted, recombined, and distributed much more easily than before.

Integrative Question:

1. What are the five cases in conflicts over intellectual property?
2. What is intellectual property?
3. It was the originally gave rise to intellectual property, what it is?
4. Where does technology arise?
5. What is the title of the article of Justin Hughes?

Book Review: Is Copyright Ethical? An Examination of the Theories, Laws, and Practices Regarding the Private Ownership of Intellectual Work in United States

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “The legally protected property interests individuals possess in the fruits of their intellectual endeavors”
– Shelly Warwick

Learning Expectation:

To learn the ethical, theories, laws and practice regarding the private ownership of intellectual work in US.

Review:

The essence of this decision is that infringement (copying works protected by copyright) is illegal but plagiarism (claiming the work or ideas or another as one’s own) is not illegal. The Lanham Act protects goods not expression. Copyright protects expression not ideas. Works once they enter the public domain have no protection. Scholarly ethics would require acknowledgment of sources whether or not they are protected, but entertainment ethics appear to be different. I can’t recall the parties involved, but I remember that a few years ago a judge found that a novel based to a considerable extent on the ideas presented in a scholarly work of history, and which did not acknowledge that source, had not infringed the copyright of the scholar since no expression had been copied. The judge I believe decried the ethics of the lack of acknowledgment but found, and in my opinion rightly, that the law provided no protection for ideas.

Plagiarism is certainly despicable, and academic solution of public shaming doesn’t seem to apply to the entertainment industry. But what would be worse, unpunished plagiarism or the loss of what little public domain that remains.
The focus is on two key questions: what is the relationship between ethics and copyright law and practice in the United States; and, is the concept of private ownership of intellectual property inherently ethical? These questions are important because access to an overwhelming number of the elements of daily life is now controlled by intellectual property law. Is non-conformance with these laws a calculated risk against being caught, equivalent to parking at a meter beyond the specified time period, or is it a matter of ethics. This chapter examines the relationship between intellectual property rights and ethics, focusing for the most part on copyright

What I have learned

The intellectual property is a term that has recently come into extensive use without definition that was the first things I learned in this chapter. Another is that striking the correct balance between access and incentives as the central problem of copyright law.

Current copyright law, as per the Copyright Act of 1976 as amended, protects all original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium expression.

Integrative Question:

1. What are the two ways to approach ethics of copyright?
2. What year did the 105th congress passed three major copyright laws?
3. What does the copyright doesn’t cover?
4. Who defines property rights as the relationship between individuals in reference to things?
5. Who provided the summary of various approaches to rights?

Book Review: On the Web, Plagiarism Matters More than Copyright Piracy

Book: Cyeberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “The increasing use of web-based electronic publication has created new contexts for both piracy and plagiarism.”
– John W. Snapper

Learning Expectation:

I am expecting to learn the uses of plagiarism and what is the copyright piracy role in the web.

Review:

Although commonly confused, the values inherent in copyright policy are different from those inherent in scholarly standards for proper accreditation of ideas. Piracy is the infringement of a copyright, and plagiarism is the failure to give credit. The increasing use of Web-based electron publication has created new contexts for both piracy and plagiarism. In so far as piracy and plagiarism are confused, we cannot appreciate how the Web has changed the importance of these very different types of wrongs.

The present paper argues that Web-based publication lessens the importance of piracy, while it heightens the need for protections against plagiarism. Copyright policy protects the opportunity for publishers to make a profit from their investments. As the cost of publication decreases in the electronic media, we need fewer copyright protections. Plagiarism is the failure to abide by scholarly standards for citation of sources. These standards assure us that information can be verified and traced to its source. Since Web sources are often volatile and changing, it becomes increasingly difficult and important to have clear standards for verifying the source of all information.

In college courses, we are continually engaged with other people’s ideas: we read them in texts, hear them in lecture, discuss them in class, and incorporate them into our own writing. As a result, it is very important that we give credit where it is due. Plagiarism is using others’ ideas and words without clearly acknowledging the source of that information.

What I have learned:

I learned that piracy is the infringement of copyright, and plagiarism is the failure to give credit. If someone copy ones document the copyright owner suffers from the loss of the revenue that is customarily paid for permission to copy.

A possible loss of potential reputation is hardly sufficient grounds for the ethical indignation that academics express over incidents of plagiarism. There seems to be no grounds whatsoever for worry about loss of potential reputation.

Integrative Question:

1. What’s harm in plagiarism?
2. What’s the use of copyright?
3. Where does copyright must find the balance?
4. What is plagiarism?
5. Who was the obvious candidate to be harmed by plagiarism?

Book Review: An Ethical Evaluation of Web Site-Linking

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “As the World Wide Web has grown in popularity, the propriety of linking to other web sites has achieved some prominence as an important moral and legal issue. Hyperlinks represent the essence of Web-based activity, since they facilitate navigation in a unique and efficient fashion.”
– Richard A. Spinello

Learning Expectation:

I expect to learn the ethical evaluation of web site.

Review:

The most fundamental question concerns the appropriate scope of property rights for a web site and how those rights can be properly balanced against the common good of free and open communications on the Web. It is our contention that there is no presumptive claim to the liberty of deep linking at will, since it may be disrespectful of property rights in certain situations. In order to defend this position we first make the case that a web site is a form of intellectual property, drawing support from the major theories that justify property ownership.

Once we have established that a web site is really property, we consider the specific rights implied by such ownership. We conclude that on the basis of those rights, a prima facie case can be made that because of the potential for negative effects, users should not presume that deep linking is acceptable unless they first seek out the permission of the target web site.We also fully appreciate the dangers inherent in propertizing the web and the need to encourage the most flexible forms of linking.

Therefore, we argue that any arbitrary or unnecessary restrictions against deep linking should be eschewed for the sake of the common good of open communications, flexibility, and maximum porosity in the Internet environment. While web site authors may indeed have a property right in their creative work they have a correlative obligation to promote the sharing and free flow of information when their specific ownership rights are not put in jeopardy by deep linking.

What I have learned:

I have learned that there are so many issues and problems that spread related web site. This problem was not easy to solve if the computer user will continue spreading it. In this chapter the technical aspects of web site linking was also discussed.

I have also learned that the value and benefits of linking are manifold and beyond dispute. Most web pages have multiple links to other web pages.

Integrative Question:

1. What are the three theories encountered in the traditional literature?
2. What is “The right to manage”?
3. What is the “The right to income”?
4. What refers to combination of text, graphics or media content?
5. What can be harmful for target web sites in some circumstances?

Book Review: The Cathedral and the Bazaar

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “Try to throw one way, you will, anyhow”
-Eric Raymond

Learning expectation:

To learn what was this chapter is all about.

Review:

As stated in Wikipedia, the Cathedral and the Bazaar is an essay by Eric S. Raymond on software engineering methods, based on his observations of the Linux kernel development process and his experiences managing an open source project, fetchmail. It was first presented by the author at the Linux Congress on May 27, 1997 and was published as part of a book of the same name in 1999.

The essay’s central thesis is Raymond’s proposition that “given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow” (which he terms Linus’s Law): the more widely available the source code is for public testing, scrutiny, and experimentation, the more rapidly all forms of bugs will be discovered. In contrast, Raymond claims that an inordinate amount of time and energy must be spent hunting for bugs in the Cathedral model, since the working version of the code is available only to a few developers.

The essay helped convince most existing open source and free software projects to adopt Bazaar-style open development models, fully or partially — including GNU Emacs and GCC, the original Cathedral examples. Most famously, it also provided the final push for Netscape Communications Corporation to release the source code for Netscape Communicator and start the Mozilla project.
When O’Reilly Media published the book in 1999, it achieved another distinction by being the first complete and commercially distributed book published under the Open Publication License. Open source provides the competitive advantage in the Internet Age. According to the August Forrester Report, 56 percent of IT managers interviewed at Global 2,500 companies are already using some type of open source software in their infrastructure and another 6 percent will install it in the next two years. This revolutionary model for collaborative software development is being embraced and studied by many of the biggest players in the high-tech industry, from Sun Microsystems to IBM to Intel. The Cathedral & the Bazaar is a must for anyone who cares about the future of the computer industry or the dynamics of the information economy.

What I have learned

I have learned that this is Eric Raymond’s great contribution to the success of the open source revolution, to the adoption of Linux-based operating systems, and to the success of open source users and the companies that supply them. The interest in open source software development has grown enormously in the past year.

Cathedral and Bazaar has a big role in the web site, we should just used it in the right time, place and reasons.

Integrative Question:

1. When did Linux swam onto radar screen?
2. What was Linux style of development?
3. Since when did the author running the technical side of a small free-access?
4. What does POP mean?
5. What does IMAP mean?

Book Review: Towards a Theory of Privacy for the Information Age

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: ”The justification of privacy would be more secure if we could show that it has intrinsic value”
-Deborah Johnson

Learning Expectation:

Since this chapter is all about the theory 0of privacy for the information age, I expect to learn this theory.

Review:

Privacy is one of the values that we think of as being obvious, until we try to define it. So let us call on a leading philosopher, James Moor, to provide a definition. Moor suggests that privacy is evident when a person is “protected from intrusion, interference and information access by others”. This is a good definition of privacy in Western societies, but it is important to remember that this value is neither universal nor absolute. China and Singapore are examples of many societies where it is not considered correct that individuals have the right to be shielded as described by Moor.

Even where this is held to be correct, in societies such as Australia, it is seen as acceptable for individual privacy to be overridden for the sake of something more valuable, such as the general welfare, and indeed people frequently sacrifice their own privacy for some other benefit, such as the convenience of transacting over the Internet.

If, nevertheless, it is taken that individual privacy is to be respected, then the arguments for and against RFID can perhaps be seen as arguments for and against information and communications technology (ICT) in general as the enemy of privacy. As the eminent computer ethicist Herman Tavani explains, ICT poses a unique threat to personal privacy because of the type and quantity of personal information that can be collected, combined with the speed of transmission and the length of time that the information can be held

What I have learned:

I learned how important privacy is, it is one of our personal time where we can do what we want. Privacy is only for ourselves that no one has the right to disturb or distract. In this chapter privacy is the main topic, I have known that it was not only in personal lives a persona has a privacy but also in web site.

I also learned the theory that determines the privacy for information age. Greased information is information that moves like lightning and is hard to hold onto.

Integrative Question:

1. From the point of view of ethical theory what is the curious value?
2. What makes information easy to access?
3. What are the values we have in common as human beings?
4. What is privacy?
5. What is PETS means?

Book Review: The Structure of Rights in Directive 95/46EC on the Protection of Individuals with Regard to the Processing of Personal Data and the Free Movement of Such Data

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “In one sense, all human rights are aspects of the right to privacy.”
-Dag Elgesem

Learning Expectation:

I am expecting to learn the meaning and what this chapter is all about.

Review:

Privacy is a fundamental human right. It underpins human dignity and other values such as freedom of association and freedom of speech. It has become one of the most important human rights of the modern age.

Privacy is recognized around the world in diverse regions and cultures. It is protected in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and in many other international and regional human rights treaties. Nearly every country in the world includes a right of privacy in its constitution. At a minimum, these provisions include rights of inviolability of the home and secrecy of communications. Most recently written constitutions include specific rights to access and control one’s personal information. In many of the countries where privacy is not explicitly recognized in the constitution, the courts have found that right in other provisions. In many countries, international agreements that recognize privacy rights such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights or the European Convention on Human Rights have been adopted into law.

Of all the human rights in the international catalogue, privacy is perhaps the most difficult to define. Definitions of privacy vary widely according to context and environment. In many countries, the concept has been fused with data protection, which interprets privacy in terms of management of personal information.

Outside this rather strict context, privacy protection is frequently seen as a way of drawing the line at how far society can intrude into a person’s affairs. The lack of a single definition should not imply that the issue lacks importance. As one writer observed, “in one sense, all human rights are aspects of the right to privacy.”

What I have learned:

After I read this chapter, I learned that this is all about the data in a internet where there are so many problems had encountered by the user and owner. According to article 8, any processing is justified for other reasons. However it is unclear whether it is necessary in this case for the controller to obtain the data subject’s consent to the further processing.

I also learned that the basic idea of the restricted access in its most suggestive sense, privacy is a limitation of other’s access to individual.

Integrative Question:

1. What are the three types of channels?
2. What are the two very different ideals in the directive pertaining to the protection of individual rights?
3. What are the three aspects of privacy?
4. What is the concern of European standard?
5. What article stated that personal data maybe processed for purposes of various legitimate interests?

Book Review: Privacy Protection, Control of Information, and Privacy-Enhancing Technologies

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “The increased use of the Internet for everyday activities is bringing new threats to personal privacy. This paper gives an overview of existing and potential privacy-enhancing technologies for the Internet, as well as motivation and challenges for future work in this field.”
-Herman Tavani and James H. Moor

Learning Expectation:

To learn what is privacy protection, the role of it in the internet, web site, to users and to the owners.

Review:

Information privacy is a scarce commodity in cyberspace. The technical infrastructure of cyberspace makes it remarkably easy and cheap to collect substantial amounts of information identifiable to particular individuals. Once these data have been collected, information technologies make it very easy and cheap to process the data in any number of ways (for example, to make profiles of particular users’ interests).

Although some privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) are being developed and deployed, these technologies have thus far done little to make cyberspace more privacy friendly. The market incentives for firms to collect and process personal data are very high. Data about users is not only useful in assessing how a firm might improve its service for its customers, but it also has become a key commercial asset which firms use both for internal marketing purposes and for licensing to third parties.

While innovative information and communication services are constantly improving people’s lives and generating growth throughout Europe’s economy, they can also bring about new risks. Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) can minimise them by helping people better protect their privacy and personal data online. PETs can help to design information and communication systems and services [to] minimise the collection and use of personal data and facilitate compliance with data protection rules” – PET press pack.

The European Commission points out in its Communication on Promoting Data Protection by Privacy Enhancing Technologies, that risks such as identity theft, discriminatory profiling, continuous surveillance and fraud are increasingly undermining the consumer’s privacy online because people cannot yet fully control or protect their privacy when using ICTs.

What I have learned:

After I have read this chapter, I get to know that privacy is not simply an absence of information about us in the minds of others. This chapter was all about protecting one’s privacy in the field of web site and internet. It also deals with the privacy enhancing technologies, where our technology is in the high status.

Privacy refers to the ability of the individual to protect information about himself. Anonymity is privacy of identity. We can divide anonymity into two cases: persistent anonymity where the user maintains a persistent online persona which is not connected with the user’s physical identity and one-time anonymity, where an online persona lasts for just one use.

Integrative Question

1. What are the uses of control in justification?
2. What are the complementary notions that reinforce each other?
3. What concepts aim to protect personal identity?
4. Who said that PETs can be understood as technical and organizational concepts?
5. PET can function as what?

Book Review: Toward an Approach to Privacy in Public Challenges of Information Technology

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “At the heart of the concern to protect “privacy” lies a conception of the individual and his or her relationship with society. The idea of private and public spheres or activity assumes a community in which not only does such a division make sense, but the institutional and structural arrangements that facilitate with an organic representation of this kind are present”
– Helen Nissenbaum

Learning Expectation:

I expect the following in this chapter:
• To learn problems that we encounter in privacy
• To learn why privacy is important in the field of technology.

Review:

As the technical standards and communication protocols for VSC technologies are still being developed, certain ethical implications of these new information technologies emerge: Coupled with the predicted safety benefits of VSC applications is a potential rise in the ability to surveil a driver engaging in her everyday activities on the public roads. This paper will explore how the introduction of VSC technologies might disrupt the “contextual integrity” of personal information flows in the context of highway travel and threaten one’s “privacy in public.” Since VSC technologies and their related protocols and standards are still in the developmental stage, the paper will conclude by revealing how close attention to the ethical implications of the remaining design decisions can inform and guide designers of VSC technologies to create innovate safety applications that increase public safety, but without compromising the value of one’s privacy in public.
This article does not dispute the importance of securing intimate and personal realms. Nor does it challenge the compelling connection between privacy norms and the ability to protect these realms against unwarranted intrusion. It argues, however, that an account of privacy is not complete that stops with the intimate and recent advances in wireless technologies have led to the development of intelligent, in-vehicle safety applications designed to share information about the actions of nearby vehicles, potential road hazards, and ultimately predict dangerous scenarios or imminent collisions. These vehicle safety communication (VSC) technologies rely on the creation of autonomous, self-organizing, wireless communication networks connecting vehicles with roadside infrastructure and with each other.

What I have learned:

I learned that the idea that privacy functions to protect the integrity of a private or intimate realm spans scholarly work in many discipline, including legal, political, and philosophical discussions of privacy. I also learned that the widespread use of technology such as in personal profiling, to assemble and transmit vast stores of information is called public information.

Integrative Question

1. Who is 19th century British legal theorist?
2. What do you call the technology that assemble and transmit vast stores information?
3. It is delimited by physical boundaries, what is it?
4. Who characterized privacy as a legal island?
5. What are the two misleading assumption?

Book Review: KDD, Privacy, Individuality, and Fairness

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “It should be observed that group profiles may occasionally be incompatible with respect to individuals privacy and rules and regulations regarding the protection of personal data, as it is commonly conceived of. For instance, distributive profiles may sometimes be rightfully thought of as infringement of individual privacy when the individuals involved can easily be identified through a combination with other information available to the recipient or through spontaneous recognition. In the case of non distributive profiles, however, the information remains attached to an information subject constituted by a group. It cannot be tracked back to individual persons in any straightforward sense.”

What I expect to learn:

To define the terms mentioned in the title.

Review:

We all deserve some quality time with ourselves and it is for a fact that that quality time with ourselves is not something that should be taken away from us by others nor other parties.

There are problems with KDD because for one thing, it uses personal data in terms of categorical privacy, and I have indicated the shortcomings of traditional privacy conceptions. But the primary concern would be the problems being faced by using KDD. I know privacy is something we all should attain and something the Information technology industry should think of ways to protect us but one thing or another personal information gathering problem.

We can work together through the task of getting those techniques work for everyone. As a matter of fact, we should consider cooperating with people that can truly help us with our individual privacy problems such as those geeks and loners wearing unbelievably large eyeglasses in universities; no, just kidding because we should consult those who may know the problem we are facing and can actually help us out. Something will change once cooperation because it will result into something good considering now, they can hear your side of the problem and frustration and you can know their guilt and sleepless night just to develop that anti-virus or descriptor for you to use. It is all about give and take now and it is all about groups that are information subjects for a special purpose. From the perspective of others than the producers and certain users of the profiles, the definition of the information subject will remain hidden because they do not know the specific purpose of the definition.

What I learned:

• Definition of KDD
• Personal data
• Law
• Ethics
• Social consequences
• Categorial privacy
• Solutions
• Closing remarks

Integrative Questions:

1. What is KDD?
2. Why is KDD important?
3. What is personal data?
4. Where dos categorial privacy strongly connected?
5. What should be improved to grow unfairness in social interaction?

Book Review: Data Mining and Privacy

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “Technology cannot make right what is otherwise wrong, so such data mining, is indeed a violation of privacy”
– Joseph S. Fulda

Learning expectation:

I expect to learn the meaning of data mining, its role in technology.

Review:

Data mining is the process of extracting hidden patterns from large amounts of data. As more data is gathered, with the amount of data doubling every three years, data mining is becoming an increasingly important tool to transform this data into information. It is commonly used in a wide range of profiling practices.

While data mining can be used to uncover hidden patterns in data samples that have been “mined”, it is important to be aware that the use of a sample of the data may produce results that are not indicative of the domain. Data mining will not uncover patterns that are present in the domain, but not in the sample. There is a tendency for insufficiently knowledgeable “consumers” of the results to treat the technique as a sort of crystal ball and attribute “magical thinking” to it. Like any other tool, it only functions in conjunction with the appropriate raw material: in this case, indicative and representative data that the user must first collect. Further, the discovery of a particular pattern in a particular set of data does not necessarily mean that pattern is representative of the whole population from which that data was drawn. Hence, an important part of the process is the verification and validation of patterns on other samples of data.

Privacy. It’s a loaded issue. In recent years privacy concerns have taken on a more significant role in American society as merchants, insurance companies, and government agencies amass warehouses containing personal data. The concerns that people have over the collection of this data will naturally extend to any analytic capabilities applied to the data. Users of data mining should start thinking about how their use of this technology will be impacted by legal issues related to privacy.

What I have learned:

I have learned from this chapter that data mining is the process of identifying valid, novel, potentially useful, and ultimately understandable structure in data. That it can be easily accomplished when the data are highly structured and available in many different forms at many different levels in what are known as data warehouses.

Integrative Question:

1. What is data mining?
2. What does data warehouse contains?
3. What do we call if the data are highly structured and available in different levels?
4. What allows data to be compared and contrasted in different form?
5. What provides the context of the data?

Book Review: Workplace, Surveillance, Privacy and Distributive Justice

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “Employers have generally been considered merely extensions of traditional management prerogatives”
– Lucas Introna

Learning Expectation:

I expect to learn the issues about surveillance

Review:

Modern technologies are providing unprecedented opportunities for surveillance. In the workplace surveillance technology is being built into the very infrastructure of work. Can the employee legitimately resist this increasingly pervasive net of surveillance? The employers argue that workplace surveillance is essential for security, safety, and productivity in increasingly competitive markets. They argue that they have a right to ensure that they ‘get what they pay for’, furthermore, that the workplace is a place of ‘work’ which by its very definition excludes the ‘personal’ dimension at the core of all privacy claims.

Legal developments, especially in the USA, seem to favour such an interpretation. The individual’s call for workplace privacy seems illegitimate in a context where the ‘personal’ is almost excluded by default. In this paper I want to argue that the private/public distinction is not useful in the context of workplace surveillance since it always seems possible to argue that the workplace is always and only ‘public’—thereby leaving the employee without resources to defend their claim. Such a position belies the fact that the fundamental claim of workplace privacy is not a claim for some personal space as such but rather a claim for the protection against the inherently political interests in the ‘gaze’ of the employer. Furthermore, that it is probably impossible, in practice, to separate the public from the private in the flow of everyday work.

Thus, it seems that one needs to develop another approach to think through the issues at stake. I will argue that the distribution of privacy rights and transparency (surveillance) rights is rather a matter of organisational justice. I will suggest that we may use theories of justice—in particular the work of Rawls—to develop a framework of distributive justice for distributing privacy and transparency between the collective and the individual in a way that is fair.

What I have learned:

I learned that surveillance has become a central issue in our late modern society. One of the problematic areas of surveillance is the workplace surveillance. With the new technology, surveillance becomes less overt and more diffused.

I also learned that privacy is by no means an uncontroversial issue. For Posner privacy creates opportunities for hiding information that could render many social interactions.

Integrative Question:

1. What is the central issue in late modern society?
2. What does ECPA means?
3. What are the exceptions that allow monitoring communications?
4. What does IPC mean?
5. What allows monitoring cases where prior consent has been obtained?

Book Review: Privacy and the Varieties of Informational Wrongdoing

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “It is non-exclusion that makes retaliation impossible, but anonymity of the free-rider. Clearly in a small group it is easier to spot the free rider and sanction him I one of many possible ways once he is identified than in a large group, where he can hide in the crowd”
– Jeroen van den Hoven

Learning Expectation:

I am expecting to learn the things about privacy and varieties of information wrongdoings. I intend to know the wrongdoings that the title stating.

Review:

Solove gives a good classification of the various activities that could harm the privacy of users in the information age. His classification is broader than the privacy torts identified in American law. He distinguishes between Information Collection, Information Processing, Information Dissemination and Invasions.

Van den Hoven examines the concept of privacy from a different perspective. I find his work very fundamental. He deals with the specific reasons why we want to restrain access to the information that we disseminate to others. Van den Hoven identifies four reasons to restrain access to this information: information-based harm, informational inequality, informational injustice and moral autonomy and moral identification.

Formal legislation, traditionally applicable within physically defined national boundaries, can of course work internationally, but the controls and constraints of physical borders applicable to our geographical environment do not transfer easily to “cyberspace”. Using the metaphor of “cyberspace” encourages a spatial and somewhat abstract concept leading to an impression of a “virtual world”. This abstract entity compounds the perceived difficulties of enforcing legislation. Within this environment, which is controlled and constrained by users and technical development (respectively), the emphasis is on self-regulation and a response to perceived ethical concerns in the form of trust-building initiatives. This paper shows that to some extent a discourse ethics is already in operation outside, but about the Internet. The discussions surrounding the issue of regulation of the Internet, and the way the discussions are managed, are similar in many ways to the discursive atmosphere of the 18C coffee houses that Habermas refers to. Modern society is also in the process of bringing a regulatory framework to an anarchic situation, at the same time seeking a framework that will maximize the possibilities of innovation and creativity. It is impossible at this stage to derive any clear practices from this, but we hope that future studies will draw out how Habermas’s theoretical scheme can help to illuminate practices in this fundamental area of social activity.

What I have learned:

I learned that many public administration problems can be characterized as free-rider problems, law enforcement, tax collection, implementation of environmental policies. This chapter also discussed the fact that personal information is used to inflict harm or cause serious disadvantages to individuals do not necessarily make such uses violations.

Protecting privacy here is proposed as way of acknowledging our systematic inability to identify the data subject as being the same as the moral self with which the data subject identifies itself.

Integrative Question:

1. What is known to have used computerized databases and internet to get information?
2. What is the meaning of IVHS?
3. What is the meaning of CCTV?
4. Who observes that liberalism is plagued by free-riders problem?
5. Who proposes a moral theory on the basis of the distinction?

Book Review: Defining the Boundaries of Computer Crime: Piracy, Breaks-Ins, and Sabotage in Cyberspace

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “Computer crime is a territory that is not so well defined, a number of ethical questions both precede and follow from”
-Hermani T. Tavani

Learning expectation:

I am expecting to learn what are the computer crime is, and how it becomes a computer crime.

Review:

Computer crime is a growing problem all over the globe now that personal computers have become the norm. In fact there are over 800 million people are using the internet all over the globe at this moment. This international nature of modern computer society creates many complications when it comes to criminal activities. Indeed, it’s all too often that we hear of the latest virus to hit the major networks to be the work of a hacker living on the opposite side of the globe or of a large scale attack being made on an internet backbone outside of the United States.

With the number of internet users all around the world growing at an ever increasing pace, it has now become critical for all users to be familiar with the inherited risks that the internet brings forth and also some of the legal responsibilities that a user has in an open environment that is the internet. This means that knowing what a computer crime is will help not only a user avoid legal troubles down the road, but also make the user aware of the ways that computers can be exploited and how to protect oneself against such attacks.

Yet there is one major roadblock to this task. What exactly is computer crime? Does any crime involving a computer constitute a computer crime or should its definition be stricter? Does cyber-stalking count as a computer crime or is that merely an extension of a pre-existing type of crime? Why does its definition even matter?

What I have learned:

I have learned that in this chapter the computer crime they called was the piracy, break-ins and sabotage in a cyberspace. It was really a problem in so many cyberspace. If we will hear the word “crime” we usually think that it was a bad doings of a criminal person, but in this chapter computer crime was in the field of cyberspace.

Integrative question:

1. When did the “ILOVEYOU” computer virus infect computers in US?
2. What is the way of using computer technology to produced one or more unauthorized copies of proprietary?
3. What is to gain unauthorized access either to individual’s or organization’s computer system?
4. What is using technology to unleash one or more programs that disrupt the flow of electronic information?
5. What are three different perspectives of computer crime?

Book Review: Terrorism or Civil Disobedience: Toward a Hacktivist Ethic

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “Intellectual property is not tangible, material entity. It is nothing more
than a volatile pattern arrayed in patterns and closed gates to form intelligible
numerical or textual information, documents, and data reside inside computers in
a form that can be stolen without ever being removed, indeed without being ever
touched by a would-be-thief, or depriving from still using proofing off the property.”
– Mark Manjon and Abby Goodrum

Learning expectation:

I expect to be learned why this chapter entitling Terrorism or Civil Disobedience: Toward a Hactivist Ethic.

Review:

I consider the issue of whether and when electronic civil disobedience (or hacktivism) is morally impermissible. First, I argue that, in an otherwise legitimate state, civil disobedience is morally justified or excusable only in narrowly defined circumstances. Second, I attempt to identify a reliable framework for evaluating civil disobedience that weighs the social and moral values against the social and moral disvalues. Third, I apply this framework to acts of hacktivism. I argue that hacktivism is impermissible insofar as such acts result in significant harms to innocent third-parties or insofar the persons responsible for such acts conceal their identities to avoid the potential legal consequences.

Hackers believe that 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 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 ultimately 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 Manion and Goodrum (2000), 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 morally objectionable are morally permissible if they are politically-motivated acts of digital civil disobedience or hacktivism.

What I have learned:

I have learned that there are so many reason why a person hacking in a cyberspace. Hacktivist here was defined as an act of electronic civil disobedience, then the punitive outcomes must be brought into alignment with other forms of civil disobedience.

If we hear the work “Hack” we actually think of holdups, but that was true but did you know that there are many kinds of hacking, like computer hacking.

Integrative question:

1. What is hacktivism?
2. What is ECD?
3. What is the name of hactivist group that hacked India’s Bhabba Atomic Research Center?
4. When did a hacker attack yahoo, amazon, eBay, CNN and buy.com?
5. What has the potential to play active and constructive role in overcoming political injustice?

Book Review: Web Security and Privacy: An American Perspective

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “A system that maintains availability while under attack exhibits survivability. System with survivability exhibit degradation in the face of attacks. An
example of an incident that that illustrates survivability is the Morris worm
incident, where the internet slowly lost the ability to provide service but was
never completely destroyed.”
-Jean Camp

Learning expectation:

I expect to know the methods of securing information in the Web.

Review:

I recently created an account in a website called “plurk”. Plurk is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send updates (otherwise known as plurks) through short messages or links, which can be up to 140 text characters in length.

Updates are then shown on the user’s home page using a timeline which lists all the updates received in chronological order, and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. Users can respond to other users’ updates from their timeline through the Plurk.com website, by instant messaging, or by text messaging.

Now I know why my classmates are getting into plurk too much and it is because plurk allows people to know what their friend, their crush and even their professors are doing in every hour of every day. It is like, the more you inform people of your current physical ,emotional, and even spiritual status, the more they get attached to you and the larger your network gets. The more informed people gets, the more interested and curious they are of you as a person. I am not saying that this allows me to become exposed but it just helps people understand me more as a person, a student and a friend because of my status. It allows them to understand me and at the same time know what I am doing and what keeps me busy like I can just put there, “Currently typing my review for itethic” – see how detailed and brief you can be without giving too much.

What I learned:

• Access Control List
• Definition of security
• Definition of integrity
• Availability
• Private key encryption
• A replay attack
• Simple replay attacks fall with public key cryptography
• Browsing information
• Provided technical services
• Browser client connects

Integrative Questions:

1. What does ISP mean?
2. What does IP mean?
3. What does DNS mean?
4. What does NAACP mean?
5. Who declared “Security is Privacy”?

Book Review: The Meaning of Anonymity in an Information Age

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “The natural meaning of anonymity, as may be reflected in ordinary usage
or dictionary definition, is of remaining nameless, that is to say, conducting oneself
without revealing one’s name. A poem or a pamphlet is anonymous when attributable
to a named person; a donation is anonymous when the name of the donor is withheld; people strolling through a foreign city are anonymous because no one knows who why are. Extending this understanding into electronic sphere, one might suppose the conducting one’s affairs, communicating; engaging in transactions anonymously in the electronic sphere is to do so without one’s name being known. Specific cases that are regularly discussed include.”

Learning expectation:

I expect to know the meaning of anonymity in an information age.

Review:

We always want to be unknown because we have a feeling that being mysterious is cool and I’ve proven that it truly is cooler than cool.

I have been known in my class to be the very mysterious one. I do talk a lot and loudly at times but no one really do know me. People and some of my friends already told me that I should let loose and just, you know, let myself be open to the world, but that is not me. This is me. I am person who is anonymous. I have to admit, I am mysterious even to myself because I tend to not talk about things about me that much considering my interest with other people’s lives. I find my life boring even though people kept on pushing that I am doing the coolest things because for me, the hype is not there anymore; it is nonexistent. I am a living breathing proof that anonymity is supposed to be alive in this world where technology made it almost impossible to keep something from someone online. It is like people know what the other person is doing. An example of an application that does such a thing or aids us for becoming more informed in other person’s every movement is plurk. I recently created an account just to see what is the hype all about. To know why my classmates are creating accounts and having too much fun and you know what? I finally know why.

What I have learned:

• Brief definition of anonymity
• Data-flow
• Information registration
• Gatekeepers
• Analysis after admission
• Methods
• Anonymity of sender
• First encryption with a public and secure key
• Double encryption twice applied
• Encryption procedure with an anonymity sender

Integrative Questions:

1. What has made it possible to trace people in historically unprecedented ways, what is?
2. What provides respite to adults from commercial and other solicitations?
3. What is anonymity?
4. Who is the professor of dramatic literature at Vasaar?
5. What is the encryption procedure with an anonymity sender?

Book Review : Double Encryption of Anonymized Electronic Data Incharge

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “Anonymization of the patient means that only a randomized number, sex, insurance, month and year of birth are transmitted”
– Albert Vlug and Johan van der Lei

Learning expectation:

I want to learn how this encryption being use.

Review:

Both the patient identification in the data and the doctor identification in the data must be anonymized. We skip the name and address; only the sex and the month-year of birth will be sent from the doctor to the central database. Even the number of the patient in the doctors database will be replaced, because once the doctor may be a researcher using the central database who recognizes one of the patients based on the number. When data are collected for sending all patients are randomly numbered.

The list of these numbers are stored in the database of the doctor, because each time a follow-up of a CPR is sent, the random number of the same patient must be the same in order to reconstruct the whole CPR in the central database. Not only the patient and the doctor identification in the data, but also the doctor as the sender of data must be anonymized. An empty envelope around a floppy disk is sufficient for the anonymization of the doctor as sender, but electronic envelopes receives automatically a sender identification in the header of the electronic message.

We cut this electronic head by creating a virtual postbox, that forwards all the incoming electronic data thereby replacing the doctors address by its own address. All the data we receive in the central database have one sender: the virtual postbox. Once this problem was solved a large complication occurs.

What I have learned:

From this chapter I have learned that this double encryption was really amazing technique if someone doesn’t want to know his/ her identification. I have learned also that double encryption is the doings where you can send a message to someone without knowing who you are.

But then this kind of device can cause some distraction, especially to those people that are busy with their lives.

Integrative question:

1. What is gatekeeper postbox?
2. What does IPCI means?
3. What does PMS means?
4. Where does national drug safety system developed?
5. When did database collection started?

Book Review Chapter: Written on the Body: Biometrics and Identity

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “Discussion of these technologies tend often to miss precisely this level of analysis”
-Irma van der Ploeg

Learning expectation:

I intend to learn the meaning of biometrics and identity.

Review:

Biometrics is often described as `the next big thing in information technology’. Rather than IT rendering the body irrelevant to identity – a mistaken idea to begin with – the coupling of biometrics with IT unequivocally puts the body center stage. The question to be raised about biometrics is how bodies will become related to identity, and what the normative and political ramifications of this coupling will be. Unlike the body rendered knowable in the biomedical sciences, biometrics generates a readable body: it transforms the body’s surfaces and characteristics into digital codes and ciphers to be `read’ by a machine.

Your iris is read, in the same way that your voice can be printed, and your fingerprint can be read”, by computers that, in turn, have become touch-sensitive and endowed with seeing and hearing capacities. Thus transformed into readable text, the meaning and significance of the biometric body will be contingent upon context, and the relations established with other texts. These metaphors open up ways to investigate the different meanings that will become attached to the biometric body and the ways in which it will be tied to identity. This paper reports on an analysis of plans and practices surrounding the Eurodac’ project, a European Union initiative to use biometrics (specif. fingerprinting) in controlling illegal immigration and border crossings by asylum seekers.
Biometrics is often described as `the next big thing in information technology’. Rather than IT rendering the body irrelevant to identity – a mistaken idea to begin with – the coupling of biometrics with IT unequivocally puts the body center stage. The question to be raised about biometrics is how bodies will become related to identity, and what the normative and political ramifications of this coupling will be. Unlike the body rendered knowable in the biomedical sciences, biometrics generates a readable body: it transforms the body’s surfaces and characteristics into digital codes and ciphers to be read by a machine.

What I have learned:

Since in this chapter is about anonymizing in sending mail, I learned that double encryption was really amazing technique to send any email or documents to someone without revealing the identity of the sender.

Gatekeeper was also a hi-tech thing that they invented, it only removes the envelope with the sender’s address and delivers the bare floppy disk with anonymized data to central data bases.

Integrative question:

1. What does ATM mean?
2. What is the description for biometrics?
3. What project does the Department of Public Aid launched?
4. What is a gatekeeper?
5. What is the Eurodac?

Book Review: Ethical Considerations for the Information Professions

Book: Cyberethics

Library References: None

Amazon.com References:

Quote: “Ethics is the study of morality; the study of what we do. Morality could exist
without ethics but there cannot be ethics without morality. Morality is like eating;
it is an crucial to living a good life but it is not an inevitable part of living or an
activity engaged in by all”
– Elizabeth A. Buchanan

Learning expectation:

I expect to learn what was ethical consideration is.

Review:

This chapter discussed ethical concerns of information science professionals from two viewpoints: concerns of practitioners and the information industry, including a prototype for ethical contexts and principles for ethical actions; and concerns of theoreticians and researchers, including system principles and ideological, political, and social frameworks. Codes of ethics are also discussed.

An accounting firm expanding on the Internet will likely explore several different strategies. They range from offering only selected accounting services, to providing a complete line of the firm’s services to clients online. Alternatively, a firm may simply want clients to be able to receive information from the firm’s website. In between these extremes fall such activities as marketing, instruction, referral, and chat rooms or bulletin boards.

Providing services online enables practitioners to serve customers remotely; however, it also creates the potential for both intentional and inadvertent abuse. Only limited regulatory or professional standards specifically address online service providers. In addition, most professional codes of conduct fail to address Internet delivery of services. As a result, CPAs are left with little ethical guidance when problems unique to the Internet arise. Professionals may not be fully aware of the ethical issues that could arise or how their codes apply on the Internet.

One place to start is with the guidelines adopted by the medical and counseling professions that specifically address Internet practice. The following sections identify differences occurring in an online service environment, discuss ethical issues raised, and propose guidelines for an online code of ethics for business and financial professionals.

What I have learned:

In this chapter that I have read, I learned that these issues can have far-reaching and potentially crippling consequences for uninformed online business providers. While the Internet’s rapid expansion has enabled an equally rapid expansion of web based professional services, it has not been matched by the consideration and understanding of the related ethical implications. The growth of new opportunities is accompanied by equal, if not greater, growth in ethical issues for businesses seeking to expand their offerings via the Internet. These issues include the quality of services and information, privacy and security, nature of relationship, forms of delivery, contractual considerations, and regulation and enforcement.

Integrative question:

1. What is generally defined as philosophical study of moral behavior?
2. What refers to the sense of conscience?
3. What are the identified three major realms of ethics?
4. What does NTIA mean?
5. What does ALA’s mean?

Book Review: Software Engineering Code of Ethics: Approved!

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “Ethical tensions can be best addressed by thoughtful consideration of fundamental principles, rather than blind reliance on detailed regulations. These principles should influence software engineers to consider broadly who is affected by their work; to examine if they and their colleagues are treating other human beings with due respect; to consider how the least empowered will be affected by their decisions; and to consider whether their acts would be judged worthy of the idea professional working as a software engineer”
-Don Gottenbarn, Keith Miller and Simon Rogerson

Learning expectation:

In this chapter I expect to learn software engineering code.

Review:

Computers have a central and growing role in commerce, industry, government, medicine, education, entertainment and society at large. Software engineers are those who contribute by direct participation or by teaching, to the analysis, specification, design, development, certification, maintenance and testing of software systems. Because of their roles in developing software systems, software engineers have significant opportunities to do good or cause harm, to enable others to do good or cause harm, or to influence others to do good or cause harm.

To ensure, as much as possible, that their efforts will be used for good, software engineers must commit themselves to making software engineering a beneficial and respected profession. In accordance with that commitment, software engineers shall adhere to the following Code of Ethics and Professional Practice.

The Code contains eight Principles related to the behavior of and decisions made by professional software engineers, including practitioners, educators, managers, supervisors and policy makers, as well as trainees and students of the profession. The Principles identify the ethically responsible relationships in which individuals, groups, and organizations participate and the primary obligations within these relationships.

The Clauses of each Principle are illustrations of some of the obligations included in these relationships. These obligations are founded in the software engineer’s humanity, in special care owed to people affected by the work of software engineers, and in the unique elements of the practice of software engineering. The Code prescribes these as obligations of anyone claiming to be or aspiring to be a software engineer.

What I have learned:

I have learned that ethical tensions can best be addressed by thoughtful consideration of fundamental principles, rather than blind reliance on detailed regulations. The dynamic and demanding context of software engineering requires a code that is adaptable and relevant to new situations as they occur. However, even in this generality, the Code provides support for software engineers and managers of software engineers who need to take positive action in a specific case by documenting the ethical stance of the profession.

Integrative question:

1. Who contributes by direct participation or by teaching?
2. What are the eight principles that software engineer shall adhere?
3. What is not a simple ethical algorithm?
4. What can be addressed by thoughtful consideration of fundamental principles?
5. What is the first principle of the code?

Book Review: No, PAPA: Why Incomplete Codes of Ethics Are Worse Than None at All

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “Attempting to derive a code o0f ethics or any similar kind of any practical ethical guidance from fundamental ethical principles is of little practical help, because there is often more dispute about fundamental ethical principles that there is about what moral thing to do in a particular situation might be.”
-Ben Fairwether

Learning expectation:

I expect to learn why this chapter entitling No, PAPA: Why Incomplete Codes of Ethics Are Worse than None at All, and what are the issues that inside this chapter. I also expect to learn what PAPA means.

Review:

Here is current interest in Mason’s 1986 article “Four Ethical Issues of the Information Age”. In it Mason states that “The ethical issues involved are many and varied”, before claiming that “it is helpful to focus on just four. There are good reasons for moral consideration of the ‘PAPA’ issues. Immorality in those areas can destroy some lives.

The problem is that by focusing on these four areas of concern, attention may be taken away from other, potentially more important, moral issues. Not all important moral issues in information technology can be put under those headings. Yet focussing on four areas gives the erroneous impression that adherence to the moral requirements in those areas alone could ensure moral rectitude.

The same considerations are highly likely to apply to any moral code that is developed. Authors of incomplete moral codes risk encouraging others to act in immoral ways with the author’s apparent sanction. Related, broader, questions are considered, and it is advocated that there should always be acknowledgment of the existence of ‘external’, potentially more important, moral issues.

It has been argued that it is in the best interests of IT professionals, to adopt and enforce professional codes in the work place. But there is no code for usability engineers, unless one accepts that it is a branch of software engineering. The new joint ACM/IEEE-CS Software Engineering Code of Ethics is applied to actual usability cases. This enables usability engineers to interpret this code in their profession. This is achieved by utilizing four case studies both directly in terms of the ethical issues involved and in the light of the code and also examined are the short-comings of the code for the domain of usability engineering, and suggestions are made for enhancements for future revisions of the code.

What I have learned:

I learned in this chapter that in most countries of the world, the “information revolution” has altered many aspects of life significantly: commerce, employment, medicine, security, transportation, entertainment, and so on. Consequently, information and communication technology (ICT) has affected in both good ways and bad ways community life, family life, human relationships, education, careers, freedom, and democracy.

Integrative question:

1. What does PAPA mean?
2. What are the ethical issues in PAPA?
3. What is the important telework issue?
4. What is Richard Mason’s article title?
5. What does ACM mean?

Book Review: Subsumption Ethics

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon.com Reference:

Quote: “The different between computers and simple machines is the extent to which computer systems subsume design and development decisions over which users have little or no control”
– David H. Gleason

Learning expectation:

I intend to know in this chapter the meaning of subsumption ethics.

Review:

The right to privacy is similarly guaranteed by article 8 of the ECHR. Data protection comes within the scope of the protection of private life guaranteed under this article. Derogations to the principles of data protection and to article 8 of the ECHR must be in accordance with the law and must respect the principle of proportionality. Equally limits to freedom of expression, such as the ones that might derive from the application of data protection principles, must also be in accordance with the law and respect the principle of proportionality.

However the two fundamental rights must not be seen as inherently conflicting. In the absence of adequate safeguards for privacy individuals may be reluctant to freely express their ideas. Similarly identification and profiling of readers and users of information services is likely to reduce the willingness of individuals to receive and impart information.

Subsumption ethics is the process by which decisions become incorporated into the operation of information technology (IT) systems, and subsequently forgotten. There are four axioms of subsumption ethics: A. Information systems subsume design, policy and implementation decisions in programming code and content; B. Subsumed objects have determinate moral value; C. Subsumed objects have a high “invisibility factor;” and D. Subsumptive complexity increases over time. These axioms can be applied to practical problems in IT by using them in conjunction with established ethical frameworks.

Information systems subsume design, policy and implementation decisions in programming code.

What I have learned:

I have learned that subsumption ethics is the process by which decisions and describes four axioms of subsumptions ethics. I also learned that design and implementation decisions dictate structure and operation of systems.

Design decisions often have ethical components, whether or not the designer implicitly aware of them.

Integrative question:

1. What is subsumption ethics?
2. What does IT mean?
3. What are the four ethical principles that have roots in antiquity?
4. What do we call the third ethical principle?
5. What part of an ancient Hindu Text called Mahabharata?

Book Review: Ethical Issues in Business Computing

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “Essentially, computers are used in business to solve problems. An individual manager, focused on use of a computer for the task in hand, may understandably lack specialist awareness of wider ethical issues”
-Duncan Langford

Learning expectation:

I expect to learn how computer become useful in a business.

Review:

One important element that emerges from the current legislative situation in the Member States is that the media, or at least the press, are bound to respect certain rules which although not part of data protection legislation in a proper sense contribute to the protection of the privacy of individuals. Such legislation and the often rich case-law on the matter confer specific forms of redress which are sometimes considered a substitute for the lack of preventive remedies under data protection law.

The right to reply and the possibility to have false information corrected, the professional obligations of journalists and the special self-regulatory procedures attached to them, together with the law protecting honour (criminal and civil provisions concerning libel) must be taken into consideration when evaluating how privacy is protected in relation to the media.

Business, Legal and Ethical Issues is the first of the core subjects undertaken by Computer Professional Education Program (CPeP) students in their ongoing professional development. Professionalism is a risk management strategy and in this subject the emphasis is on applying professionalism in the business context.

Because of our new hi-tech technology, computer nowadays was very useful in many ways. It can also used in business. That is why there are so many businessmen that have the newest model of computer to use for their businesses.

What I have learned:

I learned that all companies of whatever size, should consider their use of computer systems. If a policy on computer use has not already developed, it is not just sensible but essential that urgent consideration is given to the ways in which systems are currently being used.

Integrative question:

1. What is the smallest scale of business computing?
2. Where business organization is larger?
3. What level is a business large enough to employ a designated computer specialist?
4. What level will there be at least one team of computer specialist?
5. What is the use by business computer systems falls into two distinct and equally important?

Book Review: The Practitioner from Within: Revisiting the Virtues

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “It is difficult to get from youth up a right training for virtue if one has not been brought up under right laws; for to live temperately and hardily is not pleasant to most people especially when they are young. For this reason their nurture and occupation should be fix by law”
– Frances S. Grodzinsky

Learning expectation:

I intend to learn in this chapter all the information where is its title is all about.

Review:

Traditionally the study of computer ethics involves taking students who are not philosophically trained, exposing them to action-guiding theories, presenting them with the codes of ethics of several companies and professional organizations and asking them to make ethical decisions in scenario-based cases. This approach is deliberately action-based and focuses on doing. “What would you do?” is the traditional question we ask our students. While this pedagogical methodology forces them to examine situations and argue from a particular point of view, it does little to influence their character. They see the utilitarian or deontologist as someone other than themselves.

There seems to be very little internalization of these action-based theories. Virtue Ethics offers character-forming theory that has been more successful with my students than the action-based theories of computer ethics texts. Why? Virtue Ethics is directed toward character development. The focus is on being rather than doing. It presents a good heuristic or approach to the problem of moral agency. Virtue ethics offers a way of teaching self-reflection through narratives that focus on core values, heroes and moral exemplars.
It is grounded in practical wisdom. It is experiential, learning to care about the self, others, the community, living the good life, flourishing and striving for moral excellence. It offers a model for the development of character and personal ethics which will lead to professional ethics. Yet, the strict Virtue Ethics espoused by Aristotle has its limitations. This paper will explore the need for a more integrative approach to contemporary moral theory, one that may be found by revisiting the virtues through the works of Aristotle and Kant. It will offer insight into translating theory into practice for students of computer science and information technology.

What I have learned:

I have learned that much of the data that is mined is public or semi-public in nature what we purchase at the supermarket, where we surf the Web, where we work, and our salary. This data can be used to construct profiles and customer categories that can be used to target advertising. In addition to data privacy issues, data mining raises other social concerns. For example, Danna and Gandy (2002) argue that data mining and the use of consumer profiles can actually exclude groups of customers from full participation in the marketplace and limit their access to information. Thus, there are major ethical and social issues that arise from the practice of data mining.

Integrative question:

1. What ethics offers character-forming theory?
2. What are Sherman’s books of discussion?
3. What does ICT mean?
4. What does Louden states about ethics?
5. Who asserts that carrying out rules is a sole concern of ethics?

Book Review: Ethical Issues in Business Computing

Book: Cyber Ethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “Knowing the truth about the code of ethics and to implement some other way in how to use this ethical ways in other people.”

Learning Expectations:

I expect to learn the following:
Establishing the factors about the code of ethics
Know the different types of code of ethics in computer and others
Create a new vision about code of ethics

Review:

The values of equality, tolerance, respect for others, and the principles of equal justice govern this imperative. Discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, age, disability, national origin, or other such factors is an explicit violation of ACM policy and will not be tolerated.

Inequities between different groups of people may result from the use or misuse of information and technology. In a fair society,all individuals would have equal opportunity to participate in, or benefit from, the use of computer resources regardless of race, sex, religion, age, disability, national origin or other such similar factors. However, these ideals do not justify unauthorized use of computer resources nor do they provide an adequate basis for violation of any other ethical imperatives of this code.

Violation of copyrights, patents, trade secrets and the terms of license agreements is prohibited by law in most circumstances. Even when software is not so protected, such violations are contrary to professional behavior. Copies of software should be made only with proper authorization. Unauthorized duplication of materials must not be condoned.

Computing professionals are obligated to protect the integrity of intellectual property. Specifically, one must not take credit for other’s ideas or work, even in cases where the work has not been explicitly protected by copyright, patent, etc.

What I have Learned

In this chapter I’ve learned different aspects of code of ethics. Knowing the values and responsibilities of the professional.

Integrative Questions:

1. What is the professional code of ethics?
2. Explain briefly the code of ethics in Computer?
3. What are the major contributions of code of ethics in IT?
4. What are the possible attributions of code of ethics to the people?
5. Discussed the part of code of ethics?

Book Review: The Practitioner From Within: Revisiting the Virtues

Book: Cyberethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “If one’s superiors do not act to curtail or mitigate such dangers, it may be necessary to “blow the whistle” to help correct the problem or reduce the risk. However, capricious or misguided reporting of violations can, itself, be harmful. Before reporting violations, all relevant aspects of the incident must be thoroughly assessed. In particular, the assessment of risk and responsibility must be credible. It is suggested that advice be sought from other computing professionals.”

Learning Expectations:

Awareness in the code of ethics and its uses to the individuals.

Review:

Honoring one’s commitments is a matter of integrity and honesty. For the computer professional this includes ensuring that system elements perform as intended. Also, when one contracts for work with another party, one has an obligation to keep that party properly informed about progress toward completing that work.

A computing professional has a responsibility to request a change in any assignment that he or she feels cannot be completed as defined. Only after serious consideration and with full disclosure of risks and concerns to the employer or client, should one accept the assignment. The major underlying principle here is the obligation to accept personal accountability for professional work. On some occasions other ethical principles may take greater priority.

A judgment that a specific assignment should not be performed may not be accepted. Having clearly identified one’s concerns and reasons for that judgment, but failing to procure a change in that assignment, one may yet be obligated, by contract or by law, to proceed as directed. The computing professional’s ethical judgment should be the final guide in deciding whether or not to proceed. Regardless of the decision, one must accept the responsibility for the consequences.

However, performing assignments “against one’s own judgment” does not relieve the professional of responsibility for any negative consequences.
Computing professionals have a responsibility to share technical knowledge with the public by encouraging understanding of computing, including the impacts of computer systems and their limitations. This imperative implies an obligation to counter any false views related to computing.

Trespassing and unauthorized use of a computer or communication system is addressed by this imperative. Trespassing includes accessing communication networks and computer systems, or accounts and/or files associated with those systems, without explicit authorization to do so. Individuals and organizations have the right to restrict access to their systems so long as they do not violate the discrimination principle No one should enter or use another’s computer system, software, or data files without permission. One must always have appropriate approval before using system resources, including communication ports, file space, other system peripherals, and computer time.

What I have learned:

In reviewing this chapter, I learned so much from the article about the different aspects of code of ethics and its possible relation to the people.

Integrative Questions:

1. What is code of ethics?
2. What are the different views of code of ethics?
3. Do code of ethics important?
4. Do you aware about code of ethics?
5. Do you have any ideas about code of ethics?

Posted by: angelia13 | April 19, 2009

BOP 6

Book Review: Chapter 6 (Development as Social Transformation)

Book: The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “One of the common problems for those at the BOP is that they have no
“identity”. Often they are at the fringe of society and do not have a “legal identity”, including voter registration, driver’s license, or birth certificate. The instruments of legal identity that we take for granted—be it a passport or a Social Security number—are denied to them.”
-C.K. Prahalad

Learning Expectation:

In this chapter, I want to learn about development as social transformation. I also want to learn how BOP markets gain access to knowledge. Of course, from the quotation I took from the context, I am expecting how those in BOP, gain it identity. More importantly, I am expecting to learn how C.K. Prahalad has morphed the pyramid into a diamond, relating to the topic.

Review:

Development as a social transformation is an idea which I would consider as a crucial thought one must learn or know. I consider it as crucial because it had made three transitions in our thinking. Development as a social transformation actually thought us that the BOP, the poor are the ideal target market. The second is that the only way to serve a BOP market is through innovation. The third is that these innovations should come with increased TGC.

The first lesson that development as a social transformation thought made me realize that a lot of us have a misconception that we can never earn money in the BOP markets when in fact, most money will come from them. From the second lesson, I have come to the realization that innovation is the key to serving the BOP market. This, base on my understanding, means that we need to use different innovation strategies in order to get to the BOP markets and make a great impact. The third lesson of development as a social transformation is that these innovations should come with an increased TGC which I agree with. Innovation strategies should be innovations that reduces risk and ensures the market more trust.

What I Learned:

Generally speaking, I only discussed the idea of development as a social transformation because I consider it as the most crucial part of this chapter and so, I would say that I learned about the idea of development as a social transformation and I have also found out how the author have defended this idea through well explanation.

Integrative Questions:

1. How do those at the BOP gain access to knowledge?
2. How do those at the BOP gain identity?
3. How did C.K. Prahalad morphed the pyramid into a diamond? (The poor morphed into the middle class)
4. Why did C.K. Prahalad say that those at the BOP do not have an identity or a legal identity?
5. Why does C.K. Prahalad consider development as social transformation?

Posted by: angelia13 | April 19, 2009

BOP 5

Book Review: Chapter 5 (Reducing Corruption: Transaction Governance Capacity)

Book: The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “Most developing countries do not fully recognize the real costs of corruption and
its impact on private-sector development and poverty alleviation. The capacity to
facilitate commercial transactions through a system of laws fairly enforced is critical
to the development of the private sector.”
-C.K. Prahalad

Learning Expectation:

For this chapter, I would like to learn if the poor are really poor and I also want to learn about the ultimate paradox. I also want to learn about TGC. Other than this, upon scanning the contents, by the end of this chapter I expect to learn about the Andhra Pradesh e-Governance Story.

Review:

The first thing in this chapter that I have noticed was the discussion with the header “Are the Poor Poor?” This title is very interesting and the question was stuck in my head. Are the poor really poor? It is stated that the poor are poor because they lack resources. I agree with this. People are indeed poor but not only because they lack financial resource. People are poor because they also lack in other resources that could aid them in improving their situation. Based on my understanding, this is only one of the assumptions that people have because they think that knowing this would help in poverty reduction by aiding them.

In my point of view, even if I agree with the statement that the poor are poor because they lack resources, there are still other possible reasons as to why they are poor and it can also be dependent in the way that their minds run. Some poor people think that they are born poor and will die poor no matter how hard they try so they don’t try at all.
Aside from this, another thing that I have noticed in this chapter is the part about building TCGs. TCGs are about creating transparency and eliminating uncertainty and risk in commercial transactions. This is quite interesting because it is said that it is more than laws or regulations. By the way, TCGs stand for transaction governance capacity. It consists of laws, regulations, social norms and institutions. For me, it is good that people came up with such an idea as the TCG. If you eliminate uncertainty and risk in commercial transactions, it makes people believe it is safe and gain more trust. Another is the lessons from the Andhra Pradesh Experiment. The most important lesson here I think the equation wherein the cost of being inside the system when divided by the cost of being outside the system is less than or equal to one. In my understanding, the benefits of being inside the system are much greater than outside the system’s.

What I Learned:

By the end of this chapter, I learned about the transaction governance capacity. I have also learned about the different assumptions that people have with regard to whether the poor are indeed poor. Another is the conclusion that came up in relation to the said assumptions. Of course, I also learned about the Andhra Pradesh Experiment.

Integrative Questions:

1. What is the ultimate paradox C.K. Prahalad was referring to?
2. What is TGC all about?
3. What is the significance of the Andhra Pradesh e-Governance Story?
4. What are the lessons from the Andhra Pradesh experiment?
5. What is the significant role of TGC?

Posted by: angelia13 | April 19, 2009

BOP 4

Book Review: Chapter 4 (The Ecosystem for Wealth Creation)

Book: The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “A market-based ecosystem is a framework that allows private sectors and social
actors, often with different traditions and motivations, and of different sizes and
areas of influence, to act together and create wealth in a symbiotic relationship.”
-C.K. Prahalad

Learning Expectation:

In this chapter, I want to learn about market-oriented ecosystem and ecosystems for a developing country. Also, I want to learn about the sanctity of contracts, and of course, reducing inequities in contracts.

Review:

A market-based ecosystem is a framework that allows private sector and social actors, often with different traditions and motivations, and of different sizes and areas of influence, to act together and create wealth in a symbiotic relationship, C.K. Prahalad stated on this book. I took this out from the book because this is one of the most important things I learned in the entire book, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid.

Anyway, another thing I learned from this book is the ecosystems in a developing country. Based on how I understood this, this refers to ecosystems in a BOP country or market. Here I learned about HLL, the largest FMCG firm in India which is subsidiary of the corporation Unilever. Aside from this, I also learned about fast-moving consumer goods or also known as FMCG.

Honestly speaking, although this chapter was very short it was very clear and made its point well. I really like this chapter because it is detailed and well-explained which I think is quite hard to do considering that the topic and issue discussed is quite heavy.

What I Learned:

By the end of this chapter, I learned that about the ecosystems in a developing country and about market-based ecosystem. I also learned about reducing inequities in contracts and of course building governance capabilities among the poor.

Integrative Questions:

1. What is a market-oriented ecosystem?
2. What is the role of cooperatives?
3. How do you build governance capabilities among the poor?
4. What are the steps in the evolution of SHGs?
5. What is ITC?

Posted by: angelia13 | April 19, 2009

BOP 3

Book Review: Chapter 3 (BOP: A Global Opportunity)

Book: The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “BOP markets can collapse the time frames taken for products, technologies,
and concepts to diffuse in the system. Many of the drivers of change and market
growth—deregulation, involvement of the private sector in BOP markets, digitization, ubiquitous connectivity and the attendant change in the aspirations of people,
favorable demographics (a young population), and access to credit—are
simultaneously present in BOP markets.”
-C.K. Prahalad

Learning Expectation:

For this chapter, I would like to learn about the BOP solutions for developed markets. I also want to learn about the concept of capital intensity and of course, I also expect to learn in this chapter how to live in a network of relationships.

Review:

The part of this chapter that caught my attention was the lessons for MNC from BOP Markets. These lessons are the capital intensity which according to the text is a critical element of success in the BOP markets.

The next lesson is sustainable development which means knowing how the said product or service would be affecting the BOP markets such as if they would be benefitting from it or not. Aside from that, sustainable development refers also to BOP markets being a great source of experimentation for this idea. A lot of things can be improved in the BOP markets and so, there are a lot of possibilities for sustainable growth and development. Another lesson is innovation because it forces new set of disciplines such as focusing on price performance instead of focusing on how you would earn a lot of money.
Basically, these lessons are related to the principles of innovation for BOP markets discussed earlier in chapter two of the same book. Anyway, another part of this chapter that caught my attention was the part about learning to live in a network of relationships. According to the author, MNCs working at the BOP must learn to live with a variety of relationships with large institutions. I agree with this very much because in order to be able to get to the BOP, you first have to truly understand its nature and the best way to understand this is by building a strong relationship with them.

What I Learned:

By the end of this chapter, I learned that there are lessons addressed to the multinational corporations or MNCs from the BOP markets which I did not really expect at the beginning to happen. Aside from that, I also learned that MNCs must learn to live in a network of relationships in order for them to be more effective.

Integrative Questions:

1. What are the BOP solutions for developed markets?
2. What are the lessons for MNCs from BOP markets?
3. What is capital intensity?
4. What are the costs of managing?
5. What is the basic unit of analysis?

Posted by: angelia13 | April 19, 2009

BOP 2

Book Review: Chapter 2 (Products and Services for the BOP)

Book: The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “Addressing the market opportunity at the BOP requires that we start with a
radically new understanding of the price-performance relationship compared to that currently employed in developed markets. This is not about lowering prices. It is about altering the price-performance envelope.”
-C.K. Prahalad

Learning Expectation:

I hope to learn by the end of this chapter, the explanation to the quotation I have taken from the chapter because it interests me very much. Aside from this, I also want to learn the twelve principles of innovation for BOP markets. I also want to learn about how we can make the said principles.

Review:

This chapter primarily revolves around the twelve principles of innovation for BOP markets. These so-called principles are based on my understanding building blocks of a philosophy of innovation for the BOP markets.

The first principle is price performance. As C.K. Prahalad stated, price is an important part of the basis for growth in the BOP market. Price performance according to him not only focuses on the lowering prices. It is about creating a new price-performance envelope. In my opinion, this is quite a good principle because the BOP market is supposed to be businesses’ target market since they are many in number. The lower the price is, the more that they would buy, after all, the BOP market can also afford whatever the rich can afford, the only difference or question is when they will be able to get it.

The next principles are innovation: hybrids and scale of operations. I honestly do not get the whole idea of hybrids in innovation but based on how I understood it, the hybrids of innovation means making use of different innovation strategies to gain money and to approach the market. On the other hand, scale of operations means that solutions developed should be scalable and transportable across countries, cultures and languages since BOP markets are large.

The fourth and fifth principles are sustainable development: eco-friendly and identifying functionality. As named, eco-friendly, it means identifying if your business is eco-friendly or helps in the betterment of the environment. It means considering how our product or service will affect the environment. On the other hand, identifying functionality means identifying the difference between the BOP market and the developed market. By knowing this, on my opinion, would help in knowing what kind of products and services would be appropriate only for BOP market or developed market and what would be appropriate or suitable for both markets.

The sixth is process innovation and the seventh is deskilling of work. I do not really understand process innovation that much so I would not be able to explain it well enough while deskilling of work means not requiring that much from the BOP markets because there is a shortage of talent in the BOP market as stated by the author.

Education of customers and products must work in hostile environments are the next principles. Education of customers means having to educate customers in the product or service you offer in order for them to have an idea as to how it will benefit them and how they would be using these. Products must work in hostile environments because the BOP markets are usually located in such environments so obviously, it would be recommended to provide products that would be able to work in such conditions.

Research, innovations must reach consumers and product developers must focus on the broad architecture of the system. Research refers to studying things about BOP markets in order to know them better and to know how to deal with them and know what products and services you can offer to them. Sadly, I do not understand the last two innovation principles so I cannot explain it at all.

What I Learned:

By the end of this chapter, I learned that there are twelve innovation principles for BOP markets. I also learned how these principles would be able to help me know how to interface with the BOP market.

Integrative Questions:

1. What are the 12 principle of innovation for BOP markets?
2. How can we make the innovation principles happen?
3. What is deskilling of work?
4. What is scale of operations?
5. How is BOP different from developed markets?

Posted by: angelia13 | April 19, 2009

BOP 1

Book Review: Chapter 1 (The Market at the Bottom of the Pyramid)

Book: The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference:

Quote: “All of us are prisoners of our own socialization. The lenses through which we
perceive the world are colored by our own ideology, experiences and established management practices. Each one of the groups that is focusing on poverty alleviation—the World Bank, rich countries providing aid, charitable organizations, national governments, and the private sector—is conditioned by its own dominant logic.”
-C.K. Prahalad

Learning Expectation:

In this chapter, I am expecting to learn who the markets at the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) are, referring to the title of the said chapter. Aside from this, I also want to know what the power of dominant logic is. I also want to know about the nature of the BOP markets and the concept of the market development imperative. Hopefully, by the end of this chapter, I will indeed achieve the knowledge I expect to gain from this.

Review:

Based on how I understood what I have read, the bottom of the pyramid refers to the poor people. If this is indeed the case, then I can think of the bottom of the pyramid as some kind of social structure wherein the rich people are on top, the middle-class are in the middle and the poor are in the bottom. It is like saying that the rich are the most powerful and ideal people to target as customers since they have the most capability to afford whatever we may have to offer. In my opinion, these three types of people should either be in equal positions or the poor should be on top of the pyramid. Aside from this, the reason why the poor are in the bottom of the pyramid is that they dominate the rich and the middle-class in number which I would very much agree on.
The poor outnumbers the rich people and the middle-class people. Among all of the topics I have read in this chapter, I would like to focus on the dominant logic which basically refers to the assumption in relation to the bottom of the pyramid. In dominant logic, there are 5 different assumptions that people have in relation to the bottom of the pyramid.

The first assumption states that we conclude that the poor are not our target customers for the reason that they would not be able to afford our products and services. In my opinion this would be a very wrong assumption and the reason why I say this is the structure of the pyramid itself. It is wrong because the poor outnumbers the rich people so one can have more opportunities to earn more money if they focus on the bottom of the pyramid instead of focusing on the few people at the top of the said structure whom they assume have the most capability to afford anything.

The second assumption is that the poor do not have any use for products sold in developed countries. This is also a wrong assumption in my opinion because it does not mean that these people are poor, they do not have use for items sold in developed countries. The only difference between the rich people and the poor people is the fact that the rich people lives a more fancied life and has more money while the poor work do not have that much money. Other than that, there is really not that much difference about these people, both of them has the same necessities, both are people and both have money no matter how much money they have.

Only developed countries appreciate and pay for technological innovations is the third assumption. I do not agree with this assumption. Based on observation, the poor have just as much interest in technology as a reach person or even more. On what I have observed, poor people are more engrossed to text messaging, surfing the Web, listening to mp4s, mp3 and gadgets alike. I think that is enough proof that the poor take up as much interest or even more in technological innovations as the rich people.

The next assumption is that the bottom of the pyramid markets is not critical for long-term growth and vitality of MNCs or multinational corporations. Again, I disagree with this because I believe that the BOP markets are most necessary for a corporation’s growth and vitality since they dominate the pyramid or in other words, they outnumber the rich and the middle-class in the structure of the pyramid.

The last assumption which I consider wrong is that intellectual excitement can only be found in developed markets and it is hard to recruit managers from the bottom of the pyramid. I consider this wrong too because in my point of view, finding a manager is not all about intellectuality, it is more on a person’s skill. A person from a developed market can be more intellectual that a BOP person but a person from the BOP market can be more skilful than a developed market person. To simply put it, we can never conclude that the people from developed markets are always better than those from the BOP market.

What I Learned:

By the end of this chapter, I learned that there are five different assumptions about the BOP markets and I have actually disagreed with all of these assumptions because it all says that there is no money in the bottom of the pyramid. Actually I think that most money can be found in the BOP and a lot of people fail to understand this sadly.

Integrative Questions:

1. What is the power of dominant logic?
2. What is the nature of the BOP markets?
3. What is the market development imperative?
4. Why did C.K. Prahalad say that trust is a prerequisite?
5. Why is it said that there is money at the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP)?

Posted by: angelia13 | April 19, 2009

Handbook of Ethics 27

Book Review Chapter 27

Book: Intercultural Information Ethics

Library Reference: None

Amazon Reference: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Information-Computer-Ethics/dp/0471799599/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239782484&sr=8-1

Quote:“Digital information technology has at first sight changed the horizon of human thinking and action in such a way that we have to deal with many problems for which classic ethical theories do not have only any answers but they cannot even provide a sufficient basis to deal with them.”

Learning expectation:

I expect learn the issues and discussion about intercultural information ethics

Review:

Our present life-world is shaped by information technology. The Oxford philosopher Luciano Floridi has coined the term “infosphere” to capture this point (Floridi 1999). I use instead the term digital ontology in the sense that this world view of the digital embraces today all dimensions of our being-in-the-world (Capurro 2001). This predominant digital world view is not the cyberspace or “the new home of mind” proclaimed by John Perry Barlow in 1996 (Barlow 1996) but the intersection of the digital with the ecological, political, economic, and cultural spheres. Intercultural information ethics addresses questions concerning these intersections such as: How far is the Internet changing local cultural values and traditional ways of life? How far do these changes affect the life and culture of future societies in a global and local sense? Put another way, how far do traditional cultures and their moral values communicate and transform themselves under the impact of the digital “infosphere” in general and of the Internet in particular? In other words, intercultural information ethics can be conceived as a field of research where moral questions of the “infosphere” are reflected in a comparative manner on the basis of different cultural traditions. The Internet has become a challenge not only to international but also to intercultural information ethics as I will show in the second part of this paper. But, indeed, intercultural information ethics suggests a paradigm shift not only within traditional (Western) ethics but also within (Western) philosophy itself to which I will first briefly refer.
This dialogue is thus not only an inner one but also an intercultural and finally a transcultural one that goes beyond the local tradition of Western philosophy as well as beyond any mono-cultural foundation of philosophy but remaining attached to it at the same time in the different voices that articulate it. When Heidegger states that we can only get into a historical or creative dialogue with the original Greek experience, “we” is then of course not restricted to Europeans who must overcome their own tradition starting with an inner-cultural dialogue. This dialogue changes the meaning of the word “we” that is to say, the matter of philosophy.

What I have learned:

I have learned that there are at least three major global or spherical projects in European history. The first one is the globalisation of reason in Greek philosophy. Reason conceives itself – from Aristotle until Hegel – as global thinking that goes beyond nature into the realm of the divine as the eternal, infinite or metaphysical sphere. Such a sphere bursts with the rise of modern science. Metaphysical claims are criticised by modern empirical science. In this unequal fight, David, modern empirical science, is the winner over the metaphysics of Goliath. The second globalisation is the earthly one. It begins in Europe in the 15th Century and bursts in the 20th Century. The idea of a spherical earth and the attempts to circumnavigate it are indeed older, but the totalitarian ambitions of modern subjectivity are paid off, at least for a while. The third globalisation is the digital one with predecessors in the late middle Ages as well as in Modernity. Today we are confronted with the digital formatting of mankind. The digital globalisation not only reinforces and expands upon the divide between the digital haves and have-nots but also makes more explicit and even deepens existing inequalities.

Integrative question:
1. What is virtual reality?
2. What is computer simulation?
3. What does VR mean?
4. What is behavior in single-user VR?
5. What is virtual child pornography?

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