Ethics, privacy, and Security

Computers and Privacy

Intellectual property rights

Truth in art and journalism

The threats to computers and communications systems

Security issues relating to computers and communications
Computers and Privacy
Users of information technology must weights standards of
behaviors and conduct in several areas. One important area
relates to ethics and personal privacy. Information about people
that is stored in databases must be protected from misuses, and
electronic spying must be controlled.

Some of the computer related privacy issues involve the use of


Electronic networks
Enactment of rules and laws
Databases

Database
This invasion of privacy raises three issues:
How do you feel about personal information being spread without
your consent?
How do you feel about the spread of inaccurate information?
How do you feel about anonymous individuals and large companies
profiting from the personal activities that make up your life?


Electronic networks
Many people believed that , a nation linked by electronic mail , there
has to be fundamental protection against other people reading or
censoring messages or talking action because of their consent.
Intellectual Property Rights
Information technology has presented legislators and lawyers
with some new ethical matters regarding to intellectual
property.
Intellectual property consists of the products of the human
mind, tangible or intangible. There are three methods of
protecting intellectual property.

They are:

Patents

Trade secrets

Copyrights


1.Copyrights

A copyrights is a body of law that prohibits copying of
intellectual property without permission of the copyright
holder. The law protects books, articles, music, art, drawings,
movies, and other expressions of ideas. It also protects computer
software. The copyright protects the expression of an idea but
not the idea itself. Copyright protection is automatic and lasts a
minimum of 50 years.
Three copyright-related matters deserve our attention:

Software and network piracy

Plagiarism

Ownership of images and sounds


2.Truth in art and journalism

Ethics also concerns the matter of altering sound and visual
originals without making it clear that this has been done.
The ability to manipulate digitized images and sounds has been
brought a new cool to art but a big new problem to journalism.
To evaluate what were seeing or hearing is the truth or not? We will
consider the following:
Manipulate of sound

Manipulate of photos

Manipulate of video

3.The threats to computers and communications systems

Information technology can be disabled by a number of occurrences. It
may be harmed by people, procedural, and software errors; by
electromechanical problems and by dirty data. It may be harmed by
natural hazards and by civil strife and terrorism.
Here we will highlight the following threats to computers and
communications systems:
Errors and accidents

Natural and other hazards

Crimes against information technology

Crimes using information technology

Viruses



Errors and accidents
In general, errors and accidents in computer systems may be
classified as :
People errors
Procedural errors
Software errors
Electromechanical errors

Dirty data problems



Natural and other hazards
Some disasters can wreck the entire system. Examples are:
Natural hazards
Civil strife and terrorism
Crimes against information technology

Theft of hardware

Theft of software

Theft of information

Crimes of malice and destruction

Theft of time and services



Computer Criminals

Employees

Outside users

Hackers

Crackers

Professional criminals
Identification and access

The systems try to authenticate your identity by determining
What you have cards, keys, signatures, badges: Credit cards, debit
cards, and cash-machine cards all have magnetic strips or built-in
computer chips that identify you to the machine.

What you know PINs, passwords, and digital signatures. A PIN or
personal identification number, is the security number known only
to you that is required to access the system. Credit cards use a PIN.

A password is a special word, code, or symbol that is required to
access a computer system.

Who you are physical traits: Some forms of identification cant be
easily faked such as your physical traits.

Encryption
Encryption, or encrypting is the altering of data so that it is not usable
unless the changes are undone .In other words, the data is transformed so
as to be unreadable to anyone without a secret decryption key, usually
mathematical algorithm.
Encryption is clearly useful for some organizations, especially those
concerned with trade secrets, military matters, and other sensitive data.

Protection of software and data

Organizations go to tremendous lengths to protect their programs
and data.
Other security procedures include the following:

Control of access: Access to online files is restricted only to those
who have a legitimate right to access.

Audit controls: Many networks have audit controls, which track
which programs and servers were used, which files opened, and so
on.

People controls: Because people are the greatest threat to a
computer system, security precautions begin with screening of job
applicants. That is, resumes are checked to see if people did what
they said they did.