Ethics, Privacy, and Hacking 2

[CajunCenturion]

We've seen over the past several weeks quite a few statements regarding the importance of the "right to privacy" and the "right to anonymity". Understandably, violations of privacy are deemed to be unethical.

We've also seen a few people adopt the position that there is nothing ethically wrong with benignly hacking into another's system.

Can we reconcile these two positions? Can it be okay to ethically hack into someone's system and at the same time, not unethically violate their right to privacy?

Or is there a heirarchy of these ethical conumdrums? and if so, what is the order of precendence and why?

Good Luck
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As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[CajunCenturion]

PCLine - I did not retract my steal example. I acknowledge that it was not the best example because at you got caught up in the legal aspects rather than the intended ethical aspects of the arguement. The following slapping example more clearly indicates that what I can do ethically to myself does not allow you to ethically slap me.

And yes, you have made it clear that you judge your actions to be ethical by you own standards, without regard to the standards of others. And whereas that it an understandable position, and it a clear example of TheVampire's idea of personal responsibility going to hell in a handbasket. You position frees you from having the deal with the ethical responsibility of dealing with how your actions impact others. In short, that allows you to justify any behavior which is not illegal. And that, unfortunately, is not what ethics is about.

Good Luck
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As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[PCLine]

As per usual, a well grounded counter-argument!

Yes, I accept you didn't retract your "stealing" example, you replaced it with one that was more approriate to the point you were making.

Your last paragraph "leaps" to some, forgive me for saying "non sequitur conclusions".

Your Statement: "And yes, you have made it clear that you judge your actions to be ethical by you own standards, without regard to the standards of others." ~ It does not follow that because I hold my "set of values" higher than yours that I have no regard for your values. Because I am open minded (he says ;-) ) I may well take on board your values.

Your Statement: " And whereas that it an understandable position, and it a clear example of TheVampire's idea of personal responsibility going to hell in a handbasket" ~ As this statement is based on the flawed assumption of the previous statement, so too is it flawed.

Your Statement: "You position frees you from having the deal with the ethical responsibility of dealing with how your actions impact others." ~ Again, you draw a conclusion that is not sound. It is still based on your flawed assumption that I disregard the impact my ethical viewpoint may have on others. But as I highlighted earlier, "I might shoot the good samaritan". That does not free me from anything. I would have to deal with it. Ethically, I may vindicate my actions ;-) but I still have to deal with the consequences of those actions "when I get it wrong", which may include recriminations and a reorientation of my views etc. etc.

Your Statment: "In short, that allows you to justify any behavior which is not illegal." ~ Again, another leap. You are drawing conclusions of my comments from your own "examples". You are putting me in hypothetical situations and applying what you assert my position is. My position does not "justify any (by which you surely mean all) behaviour that is not illegal". I will not bore you with examples, lol...

Your Statement: " And that, unfortunately, is not what ethics is about." ~ This statement seems to be why the other statement's were constructed. And though this last statement is true, it is based on the flawed conclusions you drew in the lead up to it.

A pleasure as usual,

Kind regards.

 

[Stevehewitt]

Wow, I really shouldn't of put email notification on this forum! The replies are manic!!! ;-)

Honey pots used in the correct way are fine IMO. If I have a sneaky suspicion that somebody is trying to get into my system and manages to get past the firewall level I don't really want to install fancy software to track them on my DC, DNS, SQL, Exchange servers! I'd rather do it on a old Workstation with Win2k Server installed and call it "Private" or "Confidential Server" etc. Thats hardly unfair! The only people that would know about it is people who have broken past the firewall, meaning they already have commited an offence. They have tried to get around the security settings. By a hacker going to a honey pot I may have software setup that will log their IP and do a traceroute, tell the other servers in my network to block the IP and also inform the firewall to block it. It may also send me a SMS informing me of a hack attempt. Its hardly a open invitation saying "HACK ME!" to all people on the internet. If you can see the server then you have compromised the security and gone beyond the security permission that I have set.
Now thats not ethical!

Steve Hewitt
Systems Manager

 

[skiflyer]

My comment on the relativeness of ethics as defined in this forum...

It's been claimed that majority rules defines ethics, and I simply cannot agree to such a theory. I'm not so well read or informed as several of you are on the topic, but I'm well read enough to know that when an individual makes an ethical argument they never say, "Cause the vote came out 75/25 on the topic"

Yes, I believe it's true that in general societies base their laws on what they believe is good and ethical, and hence majorities interpret ethics to determine laws.

At the same time, when ethicists are writing their papers they argue for why a particular idea is ethical or devoid of ethics or anti-ethical. In the tradition of "truth" is relative, I agree ethics are relative. In the tradition of 2+2=4, I believe that there are core ethics which are not relative no matter what the greater soceties think.

As it stands, our world doesn't have a unified agreement on what the bases should be for the arguments which define ethics, hence they're not completely defined, nor is it necessarily possible to come to a conclusive agreement on whether something is ethical or not. However, if an ethicist were to lay out his set of givens which we agreed upon, then proceed with a formal logic proof, it would be difficult to disagree, regardless of what him and I felt in our "guts" (We're the society here in this group of two).

So basically, I'm not so sure ethics are as relative as this "majority" rules attitude allows for them to be, and I certainlly don't believe if there is a higher power she's going to let people pass on an ignorance is bliss or a "but everyone else said it was ok" argument.

I don't know if I got my point across... I tend to post poorly this time of the week...

-Rob

 

[PCLine]

Hey CajunCenturion,

He's rumbled to your loaded quesions, lol.

skiflyer, you make your point very well.

All the best.

 

[Tarwn]

I don't see how societies' ethics can be anything but the sum of their parts.

If a society as a whole can have a code of ethics, it can only be a sum of it's parts, that code must come from somewhere. If a societies code of ethics is not defined by it's parts and the people in that society merely choose to live by it, then someone with a deviant set of ethics is not only deviant as far as ethics is concerned but also no longer a part of the group that we are defining, because that group has one set of ethics that is not based on a majority of views. There is also no ethical arguments in this group because that would mean their was disagreement concerning what is ethical and unethical, leading to a majority in one direction or the other supporting the ethics of this scoeity that is not defined by a majority. Paradox.

There is no magical core of ethics that is part of some universal truth. Ethics is something defined by an individual by both definition and reality. Believing in a core of ethics that all people should be able to agree to merely displays the individualitic definitions of ethics. It is also wrongly taking a superior position to others who do not believe in this core set of ethics as you do by catagorizing them as unethical rather than just different.


Concerning sitting down with an ethicist and coming up with a core set of ethics all people would agree too:
This is a group of two, as was mentioned. You intend to compare ethics until you come up with a list that you agree upon as the core set of ethics.
In other words, the ethics that both of you agree upon will be part of the core set in your group, the ones that you don't will not be. How is this not a majority decision within the group, albeit a bit more openly than generally happens?
This also does not take into account that the society you intend to push this set of ethics on may disagree with them completely, or in part, instead of automatically accepting them. Again, we have majorites defining ethics.

Note: When I speak of majoities I don't mean we can go and look at the 42 people out of 50 that believe exactly like the group as a hole, only that each individual entry is considered ethical by a majority, but not necessarally a majority of the same composition for each item.

And no, no one says this act is right because 42/50 people sat it is ethical, they say it is right because it is ethical, but since that very person defines their own ethics than only they can say what is ethical or unethical from their viewpoint, while others can say whatever they want from their own viewpoints.

-Tarwn

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[PCLine]

"Individual ethics" or "social ethics";

Social ethics are needed (to maintain order ~ call it the rule of law if you want to, but that is not what I am saying before someone accuses me of being "confused". You can have order without law) when individual ethics give rise to conflict.

Signing off on an interesting debate,

All the best.

 

[CajunCenturion]

PCLine - I would not assume that your system of ethics is higher than mine, nor would I assume that mine are higher than yours. I will agree that they are different.

The statement that you made earlier - "I would say that ethically people would see nothing wrong with treating you in the same manner you treat yourself", and, as you say, reinforced by your comments on the examples presented, is the basis for the statement that you do not consider there to be an ethical difference between intra-personal behavior and inter-personal behavior. By not considering that a difference exists, with respect to ethical behavor, based on the relationship of the parties, you then must rely solely on your own standards, without regard for the other person in assessing your behavior. I do not see how that rates anyone's ethical standards as higher or lower, and whereas you may see that position as being open-minded, I am leaning in the opposite direction as you are not open to the possibilities of where the other person is coming from. With that explanation on what you considered the "flawed assumption", which you based all of your position statements, perhaps we can have a better understanding of each other's position.

Good Luck
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As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[manarth]

Now, all we need to do is start referring back to IT at some stage

<marc>

 

[PCLine]

Hi CajunCenturion,

There are few people in the world that can draw me back somewhere after I have said I am leaving. Please take it as a compliment that I come back to your point.

You have made it clear how you drew your conclusion and in that matter I have to agree that your logic was sound.

The problem lies with me. I let your &quot;slapping&quot; example stand to make your point, I didn't qualify my position in relation to it, other than to draw attention to it by stating;

&quot;And yet you choose another &quot;odd&quot; example, but I'd rather not pursue it&quot;

Before I answer, I would re-iterate I would rather not pursue it. You changed your example from one of &quot;crime against property&quot; to one of &quot;crime against the person&quot;. That is why I said &quot;odd&quot;. You changed the goalposts, but I let you get away with ~ quite clearly I shouldn't have, because it is now back to &quot;haunt me&quot;, lol.

People will often view acts that you commit against your own property as being the green light to do likewise. In business it is certainly true. &quot;The boss always takes home the free laptop&quot; ~ so you take home a calculator (because you need one ;-) ). &quot;He always throws bricks through his windows&quot; ~ don't be surprised when everyone else takes up the same hobby.

Crimes against the person are an altogether separate issue and as I said I would rather not pursue it.

Kind regards.

 

[CajunCenturion]

PCLine - I understand what you're saying, but I respectfully disagree. I think we've all agreed that legality and ethics are in fact different. You have referenced both of my examples as crimes against the person/property. It is exactly why, especially in the first case, that I acknowledged that is was not the best example, because of the difficulty in separating the legal asepcts of the event from the ethical aspects of the event. It was my hope that we could investigate these events emphasizing on the ethics, and not on the legalities. I was not very successful in that.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on the sentiment as you expressed &quot;People will often view acts that you commit against your own property as being the green light to do likewise.&quot; This is what I (and others) mean when we state that ethics are internalized. I have a sense of right and wrong, what is and is not ethical. I am not going to adjust my behavior based solely on the actions of others. I am not going to allow peer pressure to redefine my ethics.

Take Care.

Good Luck
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As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein