Today, in the century of well-developed technologies, all people tend to use electronic devices, particularly computers. Computers play one of the main parts of our everyday life. We got used to do everything with the help of computers. They have changed our lives completely. They can be used for a range of purposes. We work, study, listen to music, browse the Internet, contact with our friends, play games, watch and even make films using computers. Moreover, nowadays, we even do shopping staying at home. We search for the things from the Internet and easily can order it without going to the shop. It is the best option to simplify all our works, which are so time-consuming, and it helps us to save our time. We can easily find any information on the Internet just using a computer. Every year the number of people, who connect the Internet, is increasing rapidly, and in our days, in the age of computers, we cannot find people, who do not know what the Internet is. It even became a part of our life, which we cannot be separated. We cannot imagine our life without Internet, and now we access or store information using the Internet is our everyday habit. It is used all over the world and in any field of daily life. Apparently, people got used to spend all their time behind monitors. As there are no time and place limits, you can easily keep in touch with your friends from all over the world. However, we can face some ethical computing issues, such as copyright, privacy, security, and property.
Secondly, the most common computing issue is privacy. Using the Internet influences the privacy rights of a person. It also generates a lot of personal information. Everyone has rights to privacy. For example, some social networking sites provide users with protection of their personal information. They have some special settings of privacy, which give you an opportunity to block certain people from seeing your page or limit them from seeing your personal photos and videos. It is people’s right to limit others from seeing you profile. It is considered Internet privacy, which is a security level of personal information shared on the Internet. Moreover, strong passwords help us to protect our personal information from other users and keep them private. Before signing up is some sites like forums, we must be careful and deliberately read the privacy terms. Internet privacy is also known as online privacy. For users who spend a lot of time for using social networking sites, shopping online or playing online game, Internet privacy can be one of the main problems in a number of ways. That is why there are Privacy Commissioners who deals with such kinds of problems. They usually handle complaints of people, whose privacy rights have been breached, assist special governments regarding the issues related with the privacy. They also provide information or give advice about people’s privacy rights.
Furthermore, one of the most important aspects of using Internet is security. There are millions of web sites that we browse every day. However, we are not sure if all of them are reliable. Checking email, watching films, forum sites, all chat rooms and even shopping can be harmful. Sometimes they do outwardly harmless acts like just penetrating into a computer and observing but at the same time they damage system. We usually do not pay more attention to such things and do not take them into consideration. There can be different document files that can harm your personal computer. We usually call them viruses, Trojan or others and use different anti-viruses. Virus is the software that harms and damages our computers. One of the common ways to protect your personal computer against attack is to develop security practices. In my own opinion, it is only user who can protect his computer from different damages. I think that users must be ethically able to use their computers correctly.
Finally, property is considered as one of the most significant issues of using Internet. I think it is one of the complex ethical computing issues that we face using Internet. In order to protect some owners’ property there are established certain rights. Those rights for protection of people’s property are usually based on patent, trademark and copyright laws. Patent is the law given to protect material possessions, while copyright is the law to protect different forms of written works, like books, articles and music. Trademark protects the name of the owner’s product. Thus, the special rights allow people to create new works and protect them according to the law.
In conclusion, I can say that quick development of the new technology, namely Internet, gives us not only good opportunity to be educated and well-informed, but it also came with the bad sides. On the other hand, they limit the security of the web by different ways of violation and they make great damage to your computer. However, I think that all these things help us to obtain new knowledge proper to our time, the century of new technologies. It is the best way to develop your skills and keep the track of all events.
Reference
Bowyer, Kevin. Ethics and Computing Living Responsibly in a Computerized World. California, USA: IEEE Computer Society Press, 1996.
Moor, James. What is Computer Ethics? 1985. 16/4: 266–75
Moor, James. Ethics of Privacy Protection. 1990. Library Trends, 39/1 & 2: 69–82.
Johnson, Deborah. Computer Ethics. 2nd Edition. Prentice Hall, Inc. 1994
