There are numerous social issues and legal aspects of technology that is vested in the collective endeavor. It is critical to underline the facts behind the use of technology and also understand the issue that pertains to its usage. In the contemporary world, technology has become part of human life and continues to play a critical role in enhancing people’s lives by making it easy to accomplish certain tasks (Baase, 2013). It is important to outline that ethical issue and legal issues form part of the technology in the society.
Consider out in class definition of integrity. By that definition, do you believe that a serial killer is a person of integrity? Briefly justify your choice.
Integrity is often considered to be the aptitude of possessing morals and righteousness in behavior. A serial killer is regarded as an individual that apparently lacks morals and does not have the right mentality towards the social togetherness. An individual cannot have many people lose their lives through his acts of intolerance and inhuman behavior thus creating the culture of impunity. It is important to underline that society is a composition of varied personalities hence needs morality (Baase, 2013). However, a serial killer has inflicted so much pain on the people by taking away the lives of the loved ones thus showing a lack of moral values in them. It is this reason that makes them lack integrity.
Describe an action that would be illegal yet ethical, and an action that would be legal yet unethical. For each case, justify your determination of legality
The legal aspect of human behavior embodies actions within the confines of the law. Human behavior is normally controlled by the law. Hence, a set of regulations describe what is virtually allowed and can be executed as part of legality despite their impacts on the people. However, morality comprises on behavior that is accepted by the society for the betterment of lives. It is important to note that human behavior can be a serious threat to societal virtues.
Legal but ethical issues
Cyber security enforcers monitoring spying on online activities
The law allows security enforcers to intrude into the internet and monitor how people use the internet for various purposes and classify their actions. However, it is unethical to spy information as it is against the moral values such as privacy and confidentiality. Therefore, the fact that the law permits the action does not
Illegal yet ethical action
Police searching computer without order from court but with permission to the user
Sometimes a law enforcer might see suspicious behavior when someone is using the computer. In this regard, they can identify themselves as the officer and ask the owner to let them have a look at what they are doing. By allowing them to view the work, it is ethical as it is done by permission of the user. However, such acts are not permissible for the law as it requires that an officer should have an order allowing them to execute the action.
Differentiate between the Virtue Ethics Approach and the common Good Approach to decision-making?
Common good are actions that are deemed to benefit the community or society rather than have individual benefits from the decision. It is important to members of the society to make actions that benefit the group and not individuals. On the other hand, virtue ethics entails decisions in which moral actions are the solution to the problem thus every decision made should have moral values in them.
People commonly over times their right to freedom of expression under the first Amendment. The first Amendment speaks directly to the prohibition of a particular action, and by prohibiting that action it protects your right to properly express yourself. What is that action?
Obscene speech and speeches that violate rights of others is not covered by the laws. The first Amendment does not offer protection for the obscene language. There are standards of morality that are expected of every person that enjoys their right to speak. However, if the action is considered to infringe another’s rights, then it is prohibited. Use of obscene language against others is seen as illegal.
Describe the fundamental differences between public key and private key encryption?
Public keys are normally cryptography tools used to decrypt the message at the recipient point and encrypt it at the sender end (Baase, 2013). The encryption of messages incorporates use of private keys to decrypt the message upon receipt and use of public key to encrypt it. The recipient is given the private key they will use to access the information.
b. If you designed a new and better encryption scheme, would you put a magic/backdoor key into the system that would allow you to decrypt any message? Justify your decision for an ethical standpoint.
Putting the key would be unethical. It is important to observe certain ethical values as a developer. Creating a scheme does not give moral authority to have access to unauthorized information (Baase, 2013). It is against the integrity of such messages thus; it would only be appropriate to access it under the permission of the owner.
Reference
Baase, S. (2013). Gift of Fire. Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues in Computing Technology, 4th Edition. Retrieved March 9, 2016.
