Lesson 12 Ethics A young man arrives at work and uses his company’s computer to check his personal email. He has also bid on several items on eBay, so he takes time now to check them. The young man works for an hour and then chats with friends online. Throughout the day, he only puts in five hours of work and is paid for eight hours. If you are the young man, you might say, “So what! Everyone in the office is doing this.” Now, if you were the owner of the company, how would you feel? You are paying people to work, and they aren’t working. What would you say? What would you do? These are ethical issues people face every day. Ethical issues not just in the computer world but for everyday living on and off the computer! Learning Outcomes 12.1 Understand the ethical issues of societies’ use of computing at work, school, government, home, and in social interaction. 12.2 Understand the legal issues when using computers. 12.3 Consider options to protect identity online: personal firewalls, cookies, virus and spyware protection, updating programs, and operating systems. 12.4 Investigate the purpose of ergonomics with monitors, computer mice, chair settings, lighting, and posture. 12.1: Ethical Issues Understand the ethical issues of societies’ use of computing at: work, school, government, home, and in social interaction. The information age we live in raises all sorts of questions. What can you do on a company’s computer while at work? Is making copies of music, software, or DVDs legal? What about school assignments? If someone has posted his or her ideas on the Internet, does that mean you can use that information any way you want? Some questions raised in the computer age are an issue of ethics, while others are an issue of law. Ethics is defined in the dictionary as “a standard of right and wrong; a system of conduct or behavior, moral principles” (Geddes & Grosset, 2002).It is vital that you understand both the law and the ethical standards relating to computer use, because not understanding them can get you in trouble. Take a look at this scenario: Two friends go to a music store and they both find a CD they really like. They decide that to save money, they will split the cost of buying the CD and then just make a copy so they can both have one. What do you think is wrong here? Having trouble deciding? You are not alone! The right decision would be to save your money so both of you could buy your own copy of the CD. Rob Pegoraro wrote an article called “Sound Ethics: What to Do with Music CDs after Ripping Them?” Click on the link below to read the article: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2009/03/sound_ethics_what_to_do_with_m.html As you can see, even adults have trouble making the right decisions! The right decision for the adults would be to destroy the CDs that are no longer being used. Let’s look at another scenario: A busy college student gets behind in her studies. She is working part time and simply does not have time to write an English paper that is due the next day. As she is looking online, she finds an article that goes right along with the topic her professor assigned. She is able to save hours by simply copying the information and using it word for word in her paper. She submits the paper without giving credit to the original author. These three scenarios are examples of either breaking the law or displaying low ethical standards, the consequences of which can be serious. Advances in technology force society to consider new legal and ethical questions. This lesson is designed to help you answer some of the questions that we currently face in the information age. 12.2: Legal Issues Understand the legal issues when using computers. Copyright Laws The US Constitution grants Congress the power to enact laws that protect the rights of inventors, musicians, authors, scientists, and so forth. Congress first used this power in 1790 when it passed the first copyright laws designed to protect the rights of those who wrote books and created maps. The two sets of laws that are the most applicable to us today are the Copyright Act of 1976 and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. Fig. 12.1. The Constitution allows congress to enact copyright laws. Courtesy of Wikipedia The Copyright Act of 1976 The Copyright Act of 1976 is a law that protects the intellectual property of others from being used without permission. Intellectual property is defined as any creative work that a person develops. It could be the written word, as in a book or magazine article; it can be visual, as in photographs, paintings, drawings, and sketches; it can be music, as in CDs and sheet music; or it can be a combination of these, as in movies and plays. When you buy a book, CD, or DVD there is usually a notice on it that looks like the one in figure 12.2. Notice the statement “all rights reserved.” This means the owner of the copyright has the following rights: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. the right to reproduce the work the right to create derivative works based on an original work the right to distribute (sell, rent, or lease) copies of the work to the public the right to perform the work publicly the right to display the work publicly the right to broadcast the work publicly Fig. 12.2. Copyright on a DVD case Think about the scenario where two friends buy one CD and make a copy to save some money. If you look at the first item in the list, under copyright law you will notice that copying a CD is illegal. If a high school wanted to put on a play but not pay the royalty fees, could they just change the script a little and call it their own work? What if they do not pay the royalty fees and put the play on for free? Both could be considered illegal. As you can see from the list above, copyright laws can be violated even if money is not involved. Why is this important today? Imagine for a moment that you are an aspiring author. You make many sacrifices, researching and working for years on your first book until it’s finished. The publisher raves about how great it is and how many copies you will sell. You think you are going to be rich. However, before it is even on sale, a copy of your book gets stolen and another company prints it and begins selling it. Now all the money you were going to bring in is going to someone else who did not even work for it! Would you be motivated to write another book? Probably not! One purpose of copyright laws is to help give motivation and financial incentives for people to create music, books, plays, paintings, and so forth. Knowing their creations will be protected reassures authors and inventors that they will be given credit for their hard work. Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 New technologies brought with them new questions about copyright. As music began to be shared over the Internet, and companies like Napster were created to allow users to upload and download their favorite music files for free, it became clear that these new questions needed to be resolved. But since the Copyright Act of 1976 did not cover music shared over the Internet, Napster and businesses like it were not technically violating any copyright laws, so they quickly became popular. At the same time, two new problems caught the attention of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). While screening first-run movies, unethical people would secretly record the movie. These illegally made copies were then placed on the Internet for anyone to download and watch free of charge. The other problem the MPAA detected was that encryption codes on commercially distributed DVDs had been cracked. Encryption codes are small software programs at the beginning of music CDs and movie DVDs that prevent people from copying the media. Encryption did not work because people were able to create software programs to crack and disable the encryption codes. Finally, computer software companies, such as Microsoft, noticed that their software CDs were being copied and distributed without permission. Because the Copyright Act of 1976 did not include these issues, they had no way to protect their products legally or to take offenders to court for stealing their products. This free flow of traditionally copyrighted materials cost software companies, artists, and producers millions of dollars. Questions were raised: Who owned the work put out on the Internet? Was anyone in violation of copyright laws? If so, was it the person who uploaded the file, the person or company who stored the file, or the person who downloaded the file? Did the Copyright Act even apply to intellectual property placed on the Internet? Companies needed the law to be changed in order to continue making a profit from their copyrighted material, so they worked to help lawmakers create what became the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This law defines more clearly that the rights of copyright holders extend to the Internet. It also put in place stiff penalties for violations of these laws. For example, downloading copyrighted material from peer-to-peer networks can now result in fines ranging from $30,000 to $150,000.1 (Copyright.gov) The Digital Millennium Copyright Act also made it illegal to bypass encryption codes and to distribute software designed to crack security codes on CDs, DVDs, and software. As a result of the new law, the courts ordered Napster to remove all copyrighted songs in their databases. Since then, Napster (now part of Rhapsody), Pandora, and other businesses like it can only distribute media over the Internet for a fee. This fee is then paid to the recording artists. Fig. 12.3. The Fair Use Act allows people to use small portions of other's work without violating copyright. The Fair Use Act I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal” (King, 1963) Great men and women say many profound things. How sad it would be if we only heard great things once. As you write research papers and speeches, quoting someone as powerful as Dr. King can add substance and interest to your work. The Fair Use Act is a law that allows people to use small portions of someone else’s work for the purposes of “criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research” (Copyright.gov, 2015.) Teachers and students frequently apply the Fair Use Act when reproducing a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson or assignment. This use is not an infringement of copyright as long as the quote or idea is appropriately cited. The doctrine of fair use applies if the material quoted is being used for nonprofit purposes and if only a small portion of the work is used. Additionally, the use of the material cannot affect the ability of the copyright owner to market the material. 3 Not all intellectual property has a copyright on it. In some cases, individuals and businesses choose to allow more access to their materials than traditional copyrights would allow. These different options are discussed below. Freeware Freeware is classified as software that is distributed for free and that can be used as long as you want. However, there are some limitations about how freeware can be used, which vary from program to program. Some popular examples of freeware include Mozilla Firefox, iTunes, and Windows Live Messenger. Shareware Unlike freeware, shareware is only temporarily free. A creator of shareware will allow you to use the software free of charge for a trial period, such as thirty days. After the trial period, you are asked to pay for the software if you want to keep using it. Most shareware will stop working after the trial period. This is done to encourage you to buy the software. Many computer games are offered in shareware versions so you can try them out before buying them. Public Domain Intellectual property that is not protected by copyright law is considered to be “in the public domain,” which means that anyone may use it. Copyright law only protects works for seventy years after the death of their creator, so work that was done before 1945 is now available to anyone. More recent work also enters public domain if it is published by the US government or if the creator cannot prove that he or she created the material and when it was created. You must always give credit to the sources of works you use, even if the work is in the public domain. Open Source When the Microsoft Windows operating system came on the scene, there were no programs available to run on Windows. Microsoft had to publish some of its operating system code as an open source. This allowed collaborating groups (other companies) to use that source code to develop application software to run on Windows. This is still how other companies develop computer games that run in Windows. There are many examples of open source work, but the common definition is that it is code shared for the purpose of collaborating on software projects. This idea has now expanded to sites like Wikipedia that are the result of many people contributing information to a single project. Employee Productivity As helpful as computers and technology may be, they also bring with them some serious challenges for businesses. For example, increased access to the Internet and all of the diversions it offers has hurt the productivity of some businesses. Work productivity decreases during big events, such as the Olympics, Christmastime, the presidential election, and so on because workers easily get distracted and surf the Internet. Remember the story at the beginning of this lesson about the young man who spent his work time playing on the Internet? Unfortunately, that scenario has become very common in the work place. At Christmastime, employees spend a lot of time shopping for Christmas gifts online; during the Super Bowl, employee productivity drops to an alltime low as seen in the headlines below; just before Valentine’s Day, employees often order candy and flowers from their computers at work. All this adds up to lost productivity, or in other words, lost money for a company. Check out this article from the Orlando Business Journal called “How much productivity is really lost the Monday after Super Bowl? It is written by Megan Ribbens and dated February 4, 2013: http://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/morning_call/2013/02/how-much-productivity-is-really-lost.html Company Resources Resources are the consumable goods that a company needs to function, such as paper, printer toner (ink), copy machine paper, copier ink, paper clips, pencils, and tape. These are just a few of the resources lost each year as a result of employee theft. Stolen paper clips might not seem like a serious problem, but let’s say that your company has fifty employees. Each week forty employees take a pencil home. Some employees take the pencil because they think the company owes it to them. Some employees take the pencil home by mistake. At any rate, forty pencils go missing each week. Over the course of a year this begins to add up: 40 pencils × 52 weeks = 2,080 pencils per year That’s a lot of pencils! Now add a similar loss of paper, toner, photocopies, paper clips, sticky notes, and so on and very soon the dollar amount lost is staggering. Also remember that company resources include the computer systems, like e-mail and Internet access. Surfing the Internet for pornography, online gambling, online games, chatting, and online dating during company time takes an employee away from his or her work and can tie up the company’s resources and prevent others from being able to complete their work. Piracy Piracy is the unauthorized and illegal reproduction, sale, and distribution of any copyrighted work. In some cases, a company could be held legally responsible if one of its employees used company resources for piracy. Hacking Hacking is breaking into another person’s or another company’s computer system. In the world today, ideas and information can mean big money. If an unethical employee steals those ideas or information, the company can suffer financially. Each year a news story appears where a student hacked into a university’s computer system to change his or her grades. This is illegal! Consequences range from getting kicked out of school (expelled) to going to jail and paying restitution (money). Acceptable Use Policies As a good student, employee, and citizen, you will be expected to maintain a high code of ethics as you use technology. Remember that ethics are defined as “a standard of right and wrong; a system of conduct or behavior, moral principles.” Schools and companies almost always set the ethical standards and policies for their organization by creating some form of an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). In most places that you work or before you are given access to any kind of computer system, you are required to sign an AUP. This policy is a guideline or code of conduct for students or employees. Simply stated, the policy is a list of rules of what you can and cannot do with school or company resources. Although your teacher may not have called it an acceptable use policy, you have probably seen one. Teachers often present a disclosure document or a syllabus at the beginning of class each semester which details the rules and the grading methods for the course. This is one form of an AUP. This sample AUP shows my rules for computer use in my classroom. No pornography. No gambling. No online shopping, selling, trading, or dating. No Internet surfing unless it is part of a specific learning assignment. No music or music videos at any time. No games unless they are part of a specific learning assignment such as learning to create software called programming. No personal e-mail such as Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL mail, etc. Although each organization has its own specific set of standards and policies, there are usually some common elements to an AUP. 1. a general statement about the purpose of providing access to the computer network or to the Internet 2. a statement about etiquette (called netiquette) on the Internet and e-mail; policies about being courteous in communications, avoiding illegal online activities, not using the system for personal activities, and so forth 3. a section that emphasizes the importance of not violating copyright law 4. a statement about the consequences of violating the AUP; depending on the organization, consequences may range from suspension of computer privileges to expulsion from school or being fired from a job The AUP protects the student or employee and also the school or company. One way it does this is by making the rules clear and fair for everyone. Some companies do not mind if employees use their computers for personal use, and in other companies it is a serious offense. One role of an AUP is to clearly state what can and cannot be done with company resources. This helps students and employees because they are not left wondering what is and is not allowed. Fig. 12.4. Excerpt from the Bill of Rights Privacy How does the amendment above apply today? Could a company that tracks your shopping habits be violating your rights? How do privacy rights apply at school and work? When discussing privacy, we are actually talking about two issues; privacy at home, and privacy at work and school. Privacy at Home You have the right to keep certain types of personal information about yourself private. One example is your finances. When you go to your family doctor, you do not want him to know exactly how much money you have in your bank account before he will treat you. What if you do not have enough money to pay for his services? When you apply for a job, you may not want your future employer to know that you race motorcycles on weekends. What if your future employer thinks this activity will cause injuries that will prevent you from coming to work and therefore does not hire you? This type of personal information is protected by law and you are not required to reveal it. But not all information about you is protected. When you shop online at Walmart for example, Target may end up knowing what you bought. Every day, data is collected about our surfing habits, shopping habits, eating habits, and so forth. Most of this data is collected without our knowledge. This is called consumer profiling. There is nothing you can do legally to stop people from collecting this type of information about you. Their right to collect data is protected under the First Amendment. Privacy at Work and School Suppose it is after work hours and you decide to stay late and surf the Internet, maybe do a little shopping, put something up for sale on eBay, chat with friends, and check an online dating website. Your company’s AUP states that doing this is against policy, but it’s after hours, and you figure no one will know. The next day you are called into your boss’s office and given a warning. How did your boss know, and isn’t this a violation of your privacy since it was after hours? On your own computer at home, you can do those types of things, but it is a different story at work. As discussed above, the loss of productivity due to employees using the Internet for personal reasons is staggering and costly. Schools and businesses could also face legal action if you get into pornography or commit a crime using company or school resources. “That’s not fair,” you say. You don’t get into any of those things. The AUP makes the rules fair for everyone by insisting that everyone follows the rules. And since the computer equipment is owned by the company, the company has the right to set the rules. The employees don’t! Monitoring The Bill of Rights does not prevent an employer from keeping tabs on what employees are up to. Employers can monitor telephone calls, e-mail usage (both company e-mail and private e-mail if you access your private email using company equipment), what is on your computer screen, and the documents you create. Deleting your personal emails, phone messages, or Internet history does not always mean they are not available to your employer or school administrator. Employers can monitor employees through electronic devices, cameras, and sound equipment. They are also able to restore deleted items if they need to and use network services to trace where you have been online. Being monitored helps employees and students stay on task. Remember that whether you are at school or work, almost nothing is private! Cookies One way information is gathered about you is through something called cookies. This is a small software program that is installed on your computer through the Internet. Most of the time, you do not even know that it is there. It sits quietly working, tracking your every move. Data is gathered about where you work, how much you earn, traffic tickets you receive, your education, insurance, property ownership, medical and hospital information, where you bank, your family history, your favorite hobby or sport, and so much more. This data is then sold to others who use it to send you junk mail, increase the number of pop-ups you see when browsing the Internet, or send you to web pages you really did not want to go to. Whether or not this is legal depends on the types of information being gathered and also the reasons, or intentions, for which it will be used. It is quite possible to have hundreds of cookies on your computer. One or more from every website you have visited. Intent The question of whether or not collecting data is legal comes down to intent. How will your personal data be used? If the intent is to try to sell you something, or to sell your information to someone else, then collecting your personal data is legal. However, if the intent of data collection is to steal your identity or some other malicious intent, then personal data collection is illegal. 12.3: Identity Theft Consider options to protect identity online: personal firewalls, cookies, virus and spyware protection, updating programs, and operating systems. You are identified not only by your first, middle, and last name, but also by your social security number. This is a number that was assigned to you shortly after your birth. Your social security number is very valuable and should be protected. Do not give your social security number to just anyone. If someone asks you for your social security number, talk to your parents and let them help you make the decision about giving your number out. There are a number of ways your identity can be stolen. By stealing your bank account or credit card numbers, people can spend money in your name and leave you to pay the bill. Information about you can be found on bank statements, credit card applications, medical bills, and other mail that has been sent to you. An additional danger comes in the form of “free” offers. These often appear in small windows known as pop-ups. These free offers promise everything from ringtones to a trip on a cruise ship but require you to buy several other products to receive your “free” gift. Even when you buy these other products, companies often make it difficult to claim your prize. The danger here comes when they are not interested in the money from having you buy their products, but they really just want your personal information. This is a perfect setup to take your personal information since in a business transaction, you are often asked to reveal personal information such as your name, address, phone number, and credit card number. Remember, do your online shopping only on secure websites. What steps can you take to prevent identity theft? 1. Guard your personal information such as your social security number and medical insurance information. Keep cards with these numbers on them in a safe place. 2. Before throwing away documents with your personal information on them, use a paper shredder to shred the documents. 3. Use passwords on all your accounts, including your credit card accounts, and your bank and phone accounts. Experts advise that to be truly secure, a password should be unpredictable and never written down. For computer passwords, many recommend a minimum of eight characters, with at least one capital letter, one number, and one symbol. Use the password tips you used in lesson 4. 4. Memorize your computer logins and do not share them with others. 5. Memorize your PINs and passwords to bank accounts and ATM machines. Do not carry them in your purse or wallet. 6. When shopping online, use a secure website. As you are submitting your purchase information, look for a lock icon on the browser’s status bar to ensure the information you provide is secure during transmission. This is a computer industry standard indicating the website is a secure site for using your credit card. If you do not see the lock, check the URL box. If the address begins with https://, it is a secure website. The s in the http indicates that your information will be encrypted before sending it on the Internet. Remember, the encryption means that the information is broken up and coded before sending. Anyone intercepting the packet of information will not be able to read the coded information. Only the authorized receiving computer can remove the encryption and put the information together into readable form again. 7. Avoid scams where you receive unsolicited e-mail asking for your personal information. This is known as phishing. There are many websites with excellent information on how to prevent identity theft. I have given you the URLs for some that I think are very good. However, no one is 100 percent safe these days. Learn what to watch for and stay vigilant! And remember, websites move or are removed from the Internet. So if these links do not work, use your search skills to find other articles. How to Prevent Identity Theft http://creditidentitysafe.com/identity-theft-prevention How to Prevent Identity Theft http://www.wikihow.com/Prevent-Identity-Theft Steps to Prevent Identity Theft, and What to Do If It Happens http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/02/your-money/identitytheft/02idtheftprimer.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 How to Prevent Identity Theft http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-to-prevent-identity-theft/