Chapter Sumary: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

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Privacy

Q1. What is the right of privacy and what is the basis for the protection of an individual's privacy under the law?

A1. As a legal concept, the right to privacy has four aspects: protection from unreasonable intrusion upon one's isolation, protection from appropriation of one's name or likeness, protection from unreasonable publicity given to one's private life, and protection from publicity that unreasonably places one in a false light before the public.

A number of legislative actions have been taken over the past 40 years that affect an individual's privacy; most of these actions address invasion of privacy by the government rathern than by private industry. In addition, there is no overarching national data privacy policy, so current legislation is sometimes inconsistent and even conflicting. This legislation includes The Communications Act of 1934, The Freedom of Information Act of 1966, The Privacy Act of 1974, The Electronic Privacy Act of 1986, the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, The Telecommunications Deregulation and Reform Act of 1996, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, The European Community Directive 95/46/EC of 1998, the 1998 Gramm-Leach-Biley Act, and the 2001 Patriot Act.

Q2.What are the two fundamental forms of data encryption and how does each work?

A2. Data encryption is an essential tool for ensuring confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity of messages and business transactions.

Q3. What are the various strategies for consumer profiling and what re the associated privacy issues?

A3.

Q4. What must an organization do to treat consumer data responsibly?

A4.

Q5. Why and how are employers increasingly implementing workplace monitoring?

A5.

Q6. What are the capabilities of the Carnivore system and other advanced surveillance technologies, and what privacy issues are raised by these technologies?

A6.

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Freedom of Expression

Q1. What are the legal basis for the protection of our freedom of speech and what types of speech are not protected under the law?


A1. The first amendment protects the right to freedom of religion and freedom of expression from government interference. Numerous court decisions have broadened the definition of speech to include non-verbal, visual, and symbolic forms of expressions. Sometimes the "speech" at issue is unpopular or highly offensive to the majority of people; however, the Bill of Rights provides protection for the views of the minority. The Supreme Court has also rules that the First Amendment protects the right to speak anonymously as part of the guarantee of free speech. The following types of speech are not protected by the First Amendment and may be totally forbidden by the government: obscene speech, defamation, incitement of panic, incitement to crime, "fighting words", and sedition.


Q2. In what ways does the Internet present new challenges in the area of freedom of expression?


A2. The Internet enables a worldwide exchange of news, ideas, opinions, rumors, and information. Its broad accessibility, open-minded discussions, and anonymity make it an ideal communications medium. Individuals must often make ethical decisions in regard to how they will use such remarkable freedom and power. Organizations and governments have attempted to establish policies and laws to help guide individuals as well as protect their own interests. Business organizations, in particular, have sought to conserve corporate network capacity, avoid legal liability, and improve worker productivity by limiting the non-business use of information technology resources.

Q3. What are the key freedom of speech issues that must be addressed in considering the use of information technology?


A3. Confronting access to Internet information is one key issue. Although there are clear and convincing arguments to support freedom of speech on the Internet, the issue becomes problematic when one considers the ease with which children can access the Internet. The conundrum is that it is difficult to restrict Internet access by children without at the same time rstricting access by adults. The United States government has passed several laws in an attempt to address this issue, and software manufacturers have invented special software whose goal is to block access to objectionable material.

Anonymous communication is another key issue. Business organizations must be on the alert to protect against the expression of opinions detrimental to their reputation or the public sharing of company confidential information. When such attacks are launched via anonymous individuals over the Internet, the potential for widescale sharing of harmful information is enormous. Business go to great lengths to identify the individuals involved and put a stop to their actions. Internet users wishing to remain anonymous can send e-mail to an anonymous remailer service, but whether what is communicated is ethical is up to the person sending the e-mail.

The spread of defamation and hate speech is another key issue, especially for ISPs. In the United States, Internet "speech" that is merely annoying, critical, demeaning, or offensive enjoys protection under the First Amendment. Legal recourse is possible only when hate speech turns into clear threats and intimidation against specific individuals. ISPs have, from time to time, voluntarily agreed to prohibit their subscribers from sending hate messages using their services. Because such prohibitions can be included in the service contracts between a private company (the ISP) and its subscribers and do not involve the federal government, they do not violate the subscribers 'First Amendment rights. After an ISP implements such a prohibition, it must monitor the use of its service to ensure that the regulations are followed. When a violation occurs, the ISP must take action to prevent it from happening again.

The use of information technology to access, store, and distribute pornogrpahy in the workplace is another key issue. Organizaitons must exercise great care in how they deal with this issue. As long as they can show that they were taking reasonable steps to prevent it, they have a valid defense if they are subject to a sexual harrassment lawsuit. This means establishing a computer usagge policy that prohibits access to pornography sites, identifying those who violate the policy, and taking aciton against those individuals--no matter how embarrasing it is for the individuals or harmful it might be for the company.

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Intellectual Property

Q1. What does the term "intellectual property" encompass and why are companies so concerned about protecting it?

A1. Intellectual property is a term used to describe works of the mind, such as art, books, films, formulae, inventions, music, and processes that are distinct and that re "owned" or created by a single entity. Copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets provide a complex body of law regarding the ownership of intellectual property. Intellectual property represents a large adn valuable asset to most companies. If not protected, it is possible for other companies to copy or steal these assets, resulting in significant loss of revenue and loss of competitive advantage.

Q2. What are the strengths and limitations of using copyrights, patents, and trade secret laws to protect intellectual property?

A2. A copyright grants the author of an original work the exclusive right to distribute, display, perform, or reproduce the work in copies, prepare derivative works based upon the work, and grant the exclusive right to do any of these actions to others. Copyright law has proven to be extremely flexible in covering new technologies: software, videogames, multimedia works, and Web pages can all be protected by copyright. However, evaluation of the originality of a work can be problematic and has given rise to much litigation.

A patent enables the inventor to take legal action against those who, without the inventor's permission, manufacture, use, or sell the invention during the period of time the patent is in force. Not only does a patent prevent copying, but is also prevents independent creation (an allowable defense to a copyright infringement claim). Unlike copyright infringement, for which monetary penalties are limited, if the court determines that patent infringement exists and is intentional, up to triple the amount of the damages claimed by the patent holder can be awarded.

To qualify as a trade secret, a piece of information must have economic value and must not be readily ascertainable. In addition, the trade secret owner must have taken steps to maintain its secrecy. Trade secret law doesn't prevent someone from using the same idea if it was arrived at independently or from analyzing an end product to figure out the trade secret behind it. However, there are three key advantages that trade secret law has over the use of patents and copyrights in protecting companies from losing control of their intellectual property: there are no time limitations on the protection of trade secrets, such as exist with patents and copyrights; there is no need to file any application or otherwise disclose a trade secret to outsiders to gain protection; and there is no risk that a trade secret might be found to be invalid in court.

Q3. What is reverse engineering and what are the issues associated with applying this technique to uncover the trade secrets of a competitor's software program?

A3. Reverse engineering is the process of breaking something down in order to understand it, build a copy of it, or improve it. Reverse engineering was originally applied to computer hardware but is now commonly applied to software. In some situations, it can be considered unethical because it provides a means to gain access to information that another organization may have copyrighted or classified as a trade secret. Recent court rulings, shirnkwrap license agreements for software that forbid reverse engineering a riskier proposition in the United States.

Q4.What is the purpose of the UCITA and what is its potential future impact on software licensing?

A4. UCITA is a controversial model act that would apply uniform legislation to software licensing issues. The UCITA defines a software license as a conduct that grants permission to access or use information subject to conditions set forth in the license. Supporters claim that UCITA will bring a needed uniformity to licensing laws and improve the mass market distribution of electronic information across the United States. Opponents argue that UCITA will increase software and information costs to companies, give consumers less protection against poorly designated software, and increase the power of software vendors.

Q5.What is the essential difference between competitive intelligence and industrial espionage, and what are several sources of competitive intelligence information?

A5. Competitive intelligence is not industrial espionage, which employs illegal means to obtain business information not readily available to the general public. In the United States, industrial espionage is a serious crime that carries heavy penalties. Almost all the data needed for competitive intelligence can be collected from careful examination of published information sources or interviews.
Competitive intelligence analysts must use care and avoid doing anything that is blatantly unethical or illegal, including lying, misrepresenting, stealing, bribing, or eavesdropping with illegal devices.

Q6.What strategy should be used to protect an organization from cybersquatting?

A6. The main tactic used by organizations to circumvent cybersquatting is to protect a trademark by registering, as soon as the organization knows it wants to develop a Web presence, numerous domain names that reflect its possible variations. In addition, trademark owners to whom non-English speaking customers are important should register their names in multilingual form as well

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Software Development

Q1.Why is there a need for quality software in business systems. Industrial process control systems, and consumer products?

A1. High-quality software systems are needed because they are easy to learn and easy to use, perform the functions that meet users' needs in a quick and efficient manner, operates safely and dependably, and have a high degree of availability so that unexpected downtime is kept to a minimum.

Such high-quality software has long been required to support air traffic control systems, nuclear power plant operations, automobile safety systems, health care systems, military and defense systems, and space exploration technology. Now that the use of computers and software has become an integral part of many of our lives, more and more users are demanding high quality in teir softwre. They cannot longer afford to use software that results in crashed systems, lost work, lower productivity, and secuirty holes through which intruders can spread viruses, steal data, and shut down Web sites.

Q2. What are the ethical issues that software manufacturers face in making trade-offs between project schedule, project cost, ad software quality?

A2. Software manufacturers are under extreme perssure to reduce the time to market of their products. They are driven by the need to beat the competition in delivering new finctionality to end users. They are also driven by the need to begin generating revenue to recover the cost of development of the produt and to show a profit for shareholders. The resources and time budgeted to ensure the quality of the product are often cut under the intense pressure to get the new product shipped. When forced to make a choice between adding desirable end-user features or doing more software testing, most software development managers decide in favor of adding more features. After all, they reason, the defects can always be patched in the next release. This will give the customers an automatic incentive upgradet. The additional features in this release will make it more useful and therefore easier to sell to customers.Many customers challenge whether the decision to "cut quality" is ethical.


Q3. What are the four most common types of software product liability claims and what actions must plaintiffs and defendants take to be successful?

A3. Software product liability claims are frequently based in strict liability, negligence, breach of warranty, or misrepresentation. Strict liability means that the defendant is responsible for injuring another person regardless of negligence or intent. The plaintiff must prove only that the software product is defective or unreasonably dangerous and that the defect caused the injury. When sued for negligence, a software supplier is not being held responsible for every product defect that causes customer or third-party loss. Instead, responsibility is limited to just those harmful defects that could have been detected and corrected through "reasonable" software development practices. If the product fails to meet its warranty, the buyer of lessee can sue the seller or lessor for breach of warranty. The plaintiff must have a valid contract that the supplier did not fulfill in order to win a breach of warranty claim. International misrepresentation occurs when a seller or lessor either misrepresents the quality of a product or conceals a defect in it. Most software manufacturers use limited warranties and disclaimers to avoid any claim of misrepresentation.

Q4. What are the essential components of a software development methodology and what benefits can be derived from its use?

A4. A software development methodology defines the activities in the software development process and the individual and group responsibilities for accomplishing these activities; recommends the specific techniques for accomplishing the activities, and offers guidelines for managing the quality of the products produced during the various stages of the software development life cycle.

The use of an effective software development methodology enables a software manufacturer to produce high-quality software, forecast project completion milestones, and reduce the overall cost to develop and support software. It also protects software manufacturers from legal liability for defective software in two ways: it reduces the number of software errors that could potentially cause damage and it makes more difficult to prove negligence.

Q5. How can the Capability Maturity Model for Software (SW-CMM) improve an organization's software development process?

A5. The SW-CMM defines five levels of software development process maturity and identifies issues most crtical to software quality and process improvement. Its use can improve an organization's ability to predict and control quality schedule, costs, cycle time, and productivity when acquiring, building, or enhancing software systems. It also helps softwre engineers to analyze, predict, and control selected properties of softwre systems.

Q6. What is a safety-critical and what specific actions must be taken during the development of such a system?

A6. A safety-critical system is one whose failure may ause injury or death to human beings. In the development of safety-critical sytems, a key assumption is that safety will not automatically result from following an organization's standard software development methodology. Safety-critical software must go through a much more rigorous and time-consuming development and testing process than other kinds of software; the appointment of a project safety engineer and the use of a hazard log and risk analysis are common.

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Employee/Employer Issues

Q1.What are the contingent workers and how are they frequently employed in the IT industry?

A1. The contingent workforce includes independent contractors; individuals brought in through employment agencies; on-call or day laborers; and workers on-site whose services are provided by contract firms. Employers hire contingent workers to obtain essential technical skills or knowledge that is relatively unique and not readily found in the United States or to meet temporary shortages of needed skills. Some people contend that employers exploit contingent workers, especially H-1B foreign workers, to obtain skilled workers at lower than the going cost.

Q2. What are some of the key ethical issues associated with the use of contingent workers, including H-1B and offshore outsourcing companies?

A2. The use of contingent workers enables the firm to meet its staffing needs more efficiently, lower its labor costs, and respond more quickly to changing market conditions. Facing a likely long-term shortage of trained and experienced workers, employers will increasingly turn to non-traditional sources to find the IT workers with the skills required to meet their needs. They will need to make ethical decisions in terms of deciding whether to recruit new and more skilled workers from these sources or to spend the time and money to develop their current staff to meet the needs of their business. The workers affected by these decisions will demand that they be treated in a manner that they see as fair and equitable.

The use of contingent workers can raise ethical and legal issues about the relationship between the staffing firm, its employees and its customers, including the potential liability of the customer for the withholding of payroll taxes, payment of employee retirement benefits and health insurance premiums, and administration of workman's compensation of the staffing firm's employees.

Q3. What is whistle-blowing and what are some of the ethical issues associated with this action?

A3. Whistle blowing is an employee's effort to attract the attention of others outside of the employee's company to a negligent, illegal, unethical, abusive, or dangerous ad by the company that threatens the public interest.

There are many ethical implications that a potential whistle-blower must consider: whether the high price of whistle-blowing is worth it; whether all means of dealing with the problem have been exhausted before resorting to whistle-blowing; whether whistle-blowing violates the obligation of loyalty that employees owe to employers; and whether public exposure of the problem will actually correct the underlying cause of the problem and protect others from harm.

Q4. What is an effective whistle-blowing process?

A4. There is an eight-stage process for effective whistle-blowing: 1) assess if this is a potential whistle-blowing incident, 2) attempt to address the situation internally, 3) begin documentation, 4) consider escalating the situation within the company, 5) assess the implications of becoming a whistle-blower, 6) use experienced resources to develop an action plan, 7) execute your action plan, 8) live with the consequences.

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