Computer Ethics Flashcards
has special importance for the new groups of professionals emerging with computer technology
Computer Ethics
have become the technological backbone of society. Their degree of complexity, range of applications, and sheer numbers continue to increase.
Computers
He was a psychologist who had wide interests in the newly emerging computer technology.
J. C. R. LICKLIDER
In ______, Licklider conceived of a ________ in which the powers of humans and computers were mutually enhancing
1960, human-computer symbiosis
The breadth of Licklider’s vision, together with his administrative skills, led to his appointment a few years later as the director of the _______ of the U.S. Department of Defense.
Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA)
In _____, ARPA funded projects in universities and corporations that created an ARPA network called as _____.
1969, ARPANET
1980’s. Some universities developed their own communications networks, and their eventual merging with _______ became the Internet, which is now a global network of networks, initially using the infrastructure of the telephone system and now carried by many telecommunication systems by wire, fiber, or wireless systems.
ARPANET
In early 1990’s, the ____ was opened to business, e-mail, and other uses that continue to expand
Web
One set of issues centers on _____ including control of obscene forms of pornography, hate speech, spam (unwanted commercial speech), and libel.
free speech
It is pornography that is immoral or illegal in many countries, and is not protected in the United States by the First Amendment rights to free speech.
Obscene pornography
Two types of control of pornography and hate speech have been attempted:
top-down control by governments, and bottom-up controls by individuals and groups in the marketplace.
have been attempted by both Democrats and Republicans
Top-down controls
For example, Congress passed the Communications Decency Act, signed by President Clinton in 1996, which forbade transmitting indecent and patently offensive material to minors.
top-down control by governments
Parents who purchase blocking or filtering software .
bottom-up controls by individuals and groups
In 1960’s and 1970’s, they became alarmed at the prospect that computers would concentrate power in a few centralize
bureaucracies of big government and big business.
Social critics
In the early stages of _______, there were two good reasons for believing that computers would inevitably tend to centralize power.
computer development
The development and proliferation of microcomputers changed all this.________ became increasingly powerful and economically competitive with larger models.
Small computers
are powerful tools that do not by themselves generate power shifts
Computers
Computers have led and will continue to lead to the elimination of some jobs
Job Elimination
There are questions about the public accountability of businesses using computer-based services. It can be either very difficult or relatively simple for a consumer to notice and correct computer errors or computer printed errors.
Customer Relation
In addition to computer hardware there is software, and programs can quite easily be biased, as can any form of communication or way of doing things.
Biased Software
Programmed trading is the automatic, hands-off, computer trading of stocks, futures, and options on the stock market.
Stock Trading
Military officials have often supported autonomous weapons that can be aimed and fired by onboard computers that make all necessary decisions, including enemy identification.
Military Weapons
The most troublesome issues about property and computers fall under two general headings. The first is the use of computers in embezzlement and other forms of stealing money or financial assets.
Property
It refers to a form of white-collar crime in which a person or entity misappropriates the assets entrusted to
them. In this type of fraud, the embezzler attains the assets lawfully and has the right to possess them, but the assets
are then used for unintended purposes.
Embezzlement
It refers to information stored in a computer, whether the information expresses facts or falsehoods.
Data
refers to programs that direct an electronic machine (hardware) to perform certain tasks, typically tasks involving problem solving.
Software
Storage, retrieval, and transmission of information using computers as data processors has revolutionized communication.
Privacy
Imagine that you are arrested for a serious crime you did not commit—for example, murder or grand theft. Records of the arrest, any subsequent criminal charges, and information about you gathered for the trial proceedings might be placed on computer tapes easily accessible to any law enforcement officer in the country.
Inappropriate Access
minority of computer enthusiasts sometimes called “crackers
Hackers
They sometimes employ a more extreme rationale in
defending their activities. They contend that all information
ought to be freely available, that no one should be allowed to own information.
Hackers
The potential abuses of information about us are unlimited and become more likely with the proliferation of access to that information.
Legal Response
The __________________extended this right of inspection and
error correction to federal government files. It also prohibited the
information contained in government files from being used for
purposes beyond those for which it was originally gathered unless
such use was explicitly agreed to by the person whose file it is.
Privacy Act of 1974
Failures can occur because of errors in
hardware or software.
Computer Failure
errors do not occur often, and
when they do they usually do so quite obviously.
Hardware errors
Intel’s highly touted ______,introduced in 1993.
Pentium chip
can occur because of faulty logic in the design formulation, or they can be introduced in coding the machine instructions
Errors
A changeover to a new computer system should never
be attempted without having the old system still operational
Computer Implementation
Engineers who supervise computer personnel or design computer terminals should check that ergonomic considerations are in effect.
Health Condition
