Contemporary Practices in Information Technology
7WCM0005/7WCM0006 (SDL)
Case Study - Coursework 1
The morality of hacking - Gary McKinnon – Did he break the British
Computer Society Code of Conduct?
Gary McKinnon was a Scottish Systems Administrator who in 2002 was accused of carrying out the
“biggest military computer hack of all time”. McKinnon claimed that he was merely looking for
evidence of a cover-up of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO) activities.
The US authorities claimed that McKinnon deleted files from US military operating systems which led
to a shut-down of military computers. Some sources claim that what McKinnon did was a harmless
incident whereas others regard it as a serious attack on US computer systems.
Coursework
Research the case of Garry McKinnon and present your arguments for and against the hacking
activities of Gary McKinnon following the three sections below. Give your own conclusion as to
whether Gary McKinnon acted ethically or not and whether he broke the BCS code of conduct.
Our methodology for the evaluation of moral problems in Unit One of the module was to evaluate a
moral problem from the point of view of Kantianism, Act Utilitarianism, Rule Utilitarianism, and
Social Contract theory. (For example in the Case Study from page 78-79.) Another way to evaluate
information technology-related moral problems is to make use of a software code of ethics and
professional practice as dealt with in Unit 2 in the module. From page 363 in the recommended text
book a three step process is put forward as a way of evaluating a moral problem using a professional
code of ethics, the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM). For this coursework you are asked
to use the BCS code of conduct to analyse the Gary McKinnon case (as he is a British Citizen). For the
coursework you are required to:Section One – 20%
Evaluate the actions of Gary McKinnon from the point of view of Kantianism, Act Utilitarianism,
Rule Utilitarianism and Social Contract Theory.
Section Two – 60%
a) Consult the list of fundamental principles of the BCS code of conduct and identify those that
are relevant to the moral and ethical problem brought up by the Gary McKinnon case.
b) Search the list of items in each section of the BCS code to see which are most directly related
to the Gary McKinnon case.
c) Determine whether the actions of Gary McKinnon align with or contradict the statements in
the BCS code. If the action is in agreement with all of the items in a section of the BCS code
that provides strong evidence that the action is moral. If the action is in disagreement with
all of the items in a section of the BCS code, it is safe to say the action is immoral.
Section Three - 20% - Reach a conclusion about the morality of Gary McKinnon’s actions and
whether he broke the British Computer Society code of conduct.
(Notes. Usually the contemplated action will be supported by some clauses in the code and opposed
by others. When this happens, we must use our judgment to determine which of the clauses are
most important before we can reach a conclusion about the morality of the contemplated actions.
The chapter on Professional Ethics in the recommended text book (pages 363-369 ) contains a
methodology for the evaluation of moral problems and this methodology is applied to four case
studies. You should use these case studies for guidance and also refer to the content of Unit 2 of the
module on StudyNet. You will also need to do some further research on the Garry McKinnon’s case.
To submit
You are required to hand in a presentation with slides and slide notes. (Explanatory notes should be
added in the notes section of each slide.) Submit the presentation on StudyNet. It should be no
longer than 10 slides with notes.
This goes forward as 40% of the mark for the module.
Marks are awarded for: the content, structure and argument presented, evidence of research and
background reading from the recommended text and other sources, definition of the key issues with
appropriate examples in the slides. A well-structured argument throughout and an appropriate
conclusion.