Information Ethics: A Social Responsibility

We know that our world has become globalize; technologies developed in one country quickly spread around the world. As computers become central to our lives, much writing and thinking has been done about the ethical dimension of Information. Technology. Themes such as privacy, intellectual property, and the digital divide have been studied for years. Information Ethics is the field that investigates the ethical issues arising from the development and application of information technologies.This paper draws a light on some current issues and ethical dilemmas with refference to Cyber Crimes, Unethical Hacking in Information Technology that is related to major issues like privacy, security, environmental issues moral issues and community responsibility.

1. Introduction: Information ethics is the field that investigates the ethical issues arising from the development and application of information technologies. It provides a critical framework for considering moral issues concerning informational privacy, moral agency (e.g. whether artificial agents may be moral), new environmental issues (especially how agents should one behave in the infosphere), problems arising from the life-cycle (creation, collection, recording, distribution, processing, etc.) of information (especially ownership and copyright, digital divide). Information Ethics is related to the fields of computer ethics and the philosophy of information.
Dilemmas regarding the life of information are becoming increasingly important in a society that is defined as "the information society". Information transmission and literacy are essential concerns in establishing an ethical foundation that promotes fair, equitable, and responsible practices. Information ethics broadly examines issues related to ownership, access, privacy, security, and community. Information technology affects fundamental rights involving copyright protection, intellectual freedom, accountability, and security.
2. Ethics and Cyber Crime: One has to be very careful and alert while Surfing, Sending and Receiving Mails, Instant Messaging/Chatting, Playing Contests, etc. Cyber Criminals don’t care who their victims are, they don’t bother of stuffs like Humanity, Care, Dignity, etc. they are the most self centered individuals who just consider enjoying life and proving their abilities by exhibiting their wicked abilities over common users just for the sake of their private and secured information, like passwords, credit card details, etc.
Cyber Crime today is not just limited to resource hacking and cracking. Cyber World is now being used as an active weapon for anonymous crimes like Cyber Squatting, Misleading individuals in various aspects, Black Mailing, and all sorts of conventional crimes which used to be carried out through conventional media like telephone, letters, etc. but through conventional media like telephone and letters, it was easy to trace criminals, whereas it’s too difficult to trace a cyber criminal since anonymity is the most important armor used by them. Since they use Fake addresses and names, it’s next to impossible to trap them; though the authorities try their level best to nab them, many even get caught.
The Cybercitizen Awareness Program educates children and young adults on the dangers and consequences of cyber crime. By reaching out to parents and teachers, the program is designed to establish a broad sense of responsibility and community in an effort to develop smart, ethical and socially conscious online behavior in young people. People who communicate over the Internet are called "cybercitizens." It's important to learn the rules of the Internet before you log on, so that you can be a "good cybercitizen.
3. Hacking Issues and Hacker’s Ethic: People practicing unethical hacking, generally tend to steal personal information, change a corporation’s financial data, break security codes to gain unauthorized network access, or conduct other destructive activities. There are two kinds of people who indulge in computer hacking, namely those who develop an interest in computer hacking out of simple intellectual curiosity, and others with less noble motives. But the common traits amongst all hackers are that they possess technological savvy, are willing to take the risks and are passionate about various programming languages.
Computer hacking invariably involves some degree of infringement on the privacy of others, breaching the network security, and thus causing damage to confidential files, web pages or software. It may also involve downloading or alteration of files through unauthorized access, and the impact resulting from such activities will vary from being simply inquisitive to being illegal. However, many big shot companies often hire a team of hackers, in order to probe into their own loopholes. These individuals use their skills to find flaws in the company’s security system, and to prevent them from getting discovered by unethical hackers. In most cases, ethical hacking helps to prevent identity theft and other serious computer-related crimes.
Depending on the domain of their work, there are basically three types of hackers. A white hat hacker is the one who breaks security for non-malicious purposes. These purposes may range from testing the security system, to finding the major loopholes in the network. Such people normally follow the legitimate ways and work within the precincts of cyber laws. The second category includes the black hat hackers, who generally subvert computer security without authorization, with the help of viruses and various other hacking tools. These hackers use technology for vandalism, credit card fraud or identity theft. The third category includes grey hat hackers, whose domain of work lies mid-way between black hat and white hat hackers. They are of ambiguous ethics and work on the borderline of legality.
Levy believes that access gives hackers the opportunity to take things apart, fix, or improve upon them and to learn and understand how they work. This gives them the knowledge to create new and even more interesting things (Levy, 1984:226).[5] Access aids the expansion of technology.
All information should be free. Linking directly with access, information needs to be free for hackers to fix, improve, and reinvent systems. A free exchange of information allows for greater overall creativity. In the hacker viewpoint, any system could benefit from an easy flow of information, a concept known as transparency in the social sciences. As Stallman notes, "free" refers to unrestricted access; it does not refer to price.[8]
The best way to promote the free exchange of information is to have an open system that presents no boundaries between a hacker and a piece of information or an item of equipment that he needs in his quest for knowledge, improvement, and time on-line.
Hackers should deeply appreciate innovative techniques which allow programs to perform complicated tasks with few instructions.
A program's code is considered to hold a beauty of its own, having been carefully composed and artfully arranged.
Hackers should feel that computers had enriched their lives, given their lives focus, and made their lives adventurous. Hackers should regard computers as Aladdin's lamps that they could control. They should believe that everyone in society could benefit from experiencing such power and that if everyone could interact with computers in the way that hackers did, then the Hacker Ethic might spread through society and computers would improve the world.
4. Privacy Issues and Technology: With the development of new information and communication technologies, the ability of the state and the private sector to collect, record personal information has grown exponentially. There are two types of Privacy: One is the Physical Privacy and the other is the Psychological Privacy. As technology has advanced, the way in which privacy is protected and violated has changed with it. In the case of some technologies, such as the printing press or the Internet, the increased ability to share information can lead to new ways in which privacy can be breached. New technologies can also create new ways to gather private information.
5. The Environmental Issues: The IT and Environment Initiative is a consortium engaging in research and dissemination activities to improve understanding and awareness of Information Technology as it affects environmental issues and sustainability. The research draws especially on Industrial Ecology, Life Cycle Assessment and Earth Systems Engineering and Management.
As access to information over the Internet has become more global, ownership of the asset pool has become much less concentrated in developed nations. Near-ubiquitous connectivity and access to information has empowered people to contribute to the world’s knowledge base from every corner of the world. Harnessing this global human capital represents our best chance to address critical issues such as climate change.
But this ever-expanding digital universe is not a panacea: It has had environmental consequences. It consumes large amounts of resources to build out data centers and server farms, and it’s driving higher demands for energy. Yet many of these resources are being wasted. The average utilization rate for servers ranges from 5 percent to 15 percent and for non-networked storage, 20 percent to 40 percent. That means many companies are paying the energy costs to run data centers at 100 percent capacity, but are only using 5 percent to 15 percent of that capacity—a tremendous waste.
The IT industry must minimize the environmental impact of rapid information growth by attaining higher levels of efficiency. Three key technology initiatives support this goal:
a. Virtualization and Consolidation are essential to energy conservation in the data center, where IT managers have installed more and more systems to enhance performance, redundancy, and availability, but without a focus on power or cooling efficiency. Virtualization addresses these inefficiencies by separating software from the underlying hardware, so that a single computer can run multiple operating systems and applications. In turn, better utilization of servers and storage means deployment of fewer machines—thereby using less electricity for power and cooling.
b .Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) is based on the premise that the value of information changes over time. ILM uses automatic intelligence to store information in the most appropriate and energy-efficient storage device at every point in its lifecycle. For example, business-critical and real-time information requires systems that offer the highest reliability and performance—and therefore demand more resources and power. When that information reaches a less critical state, ILM migrates it to storage that consumes less energy.
c. De-Duplication vastly reduces the amount of stored backup data that results from users storing multiple copies and variations of the same file in many places across the network. De-duplication stops runaway duplication by transforming data files into data segments that can be stored and re-used in multiple files. The original file is saved and backed up just once to a central server. When file edits are sent to the server, they’re in the form of new and unique sub-file data segments associated with the original, and only those new segments are backed up. De-duplication can reduce network bandwidth and backup storage by a factor of 300.
Beyond reducing the environmental impact of the information explosion, IT has a larger role to play as a vehicle through which information about environmental sustainability can be shared, enabling people to come together around the world to devise new approaches and solutions.
A new, global platform for collaboration—enabled by blogs, wikis, and social networks—has given rise to virtual communities, where everyone can contribute to a global dialogue by uploading their own ideas, content, and products for wide dissemination and comment. This is fundamentally changing the flow of information gathering, distribution, innovation, political mobilization, and more. And the United Nations Global Alliance for ICT and Development (UN-GAID) itself has been using these technologies to collaborate across its global network.
However, a global collaborative effort on a vastly larger scale is needed to advance environmental sustainability. As the number of connections between people and organizations increases, so the ability to combine and recombine ideas accelerates. Knowledge sharing also builds social capital and trust, and emboldens people and groups to stand more forcefully and vocally behind their positions. Creating environmental sustainability is a massive undertaking. It will demand global collaboration and cooperation among the largest and most influential stakeholders. It will require a combination of incentives, standards, grants, continued research, and imagination and innovation to drive the global changes needed in what is a shrinking timetable. IT is positioned to play a critical and central part in this urgent task.
Manufacturing computers is materials intensive; the total fossil fuels used to make one desktop computer weigh over 240 kilograms, some 10 times the weight of the computer itself. This is very high compared to many other goods: For an automobile or refrigerator, for example, the weight of fossil fuels used for production is roughly equal to their weights. Also, substantial quantities of chemicals (22 kg), and water (1,500 kg) are also used. The environmental impacts associated with using fossil fuels (e.g. climate change), chemicals (e.g. possible health effects on microchip production workers) and water (e.g. scarcity in some areas) are significant and deserve attention.
The environmental benefits and economic costs of recycling computers under the European Union legislation WEEE depend very much on how the system is implemented. Recycling managed by a monopolist concern, whose main interest is meeting simple recycling targets for a fixed fee, could result in an expensive system with relatively small environmental benefit. A multilateral concern aimed at maximizing profit and reuse across the life cycle presents a more promising picture.
Decisions by consumers on how PCs are used and disposed of have an enormous effect on environmental impacts. Extending the usable life is very effective for reducing all types of burdens, but relatively few older PCs are being resold, refurbished or recycled – most are stored in warehouses, basements, or closets and eventually end up in landfills. Awareness building and incentives are needed so that consumers will consider environmental issues when buying, using and finally disposing of a computer.
6. The Social Responsibility of IT: The Social Responsibility in the Information Age track includes all aspects of social issues that are impacted by information technology affecting organizations and inter-organizational structures. This track provides an outlet for scholarship in the changes information resource management, information technology, and information systems have effected on society. The term “society” here refers to the world at large, nations, cultures within nations, and interaction among peoples. The scholarship examines who is affected, why, how, and where, and what effects those changes make in society. The topics in the track are expected to be varied. This would include the conceptualization of specific social issues and their associated constructs, proposed designs and infrastructures, empirical validation of social models, and case studies illustrating socialization success and failures.
a. Ethical Issues: Codes of conduct and practice, Confidentiality agreements, Intellectual property rights, Electronic monitoring of employees, Impartiality of data utilization, Morality in information systems.
b. Cultural Issues: Politics, Assimilation of emerging technologies, Developing trust , Management structures, Power asymmetry, Social barriers, Policy implementation, Social environments, Cultural customs, Social capital.
c. Relationship Issues: Development partnerships, Virtual teams, Group cohesiveness, Collaboration, Group facilitation, Networking, Buyer-supplier linkages.
d. Human Interaction Issues: Recruitment and retention, Assessment and evaluation, Motivation, Social presence, Asynchronous learning networks, Leadership, Organizational champions.
e. Security Issues: Misuse of data, Virus/worm creation, Internet abuse, Data protection, Misrepresentation in digital media, Government and policy concerns, Fraud with systems use, Standards, laws, and regulations, IS Security design and management methods, Security risk analysis, Behavioral issues in IS security, IS security culture and awareness issues, Social, legal and ethical aspects of IS Security, Organizational issues in IS security, Strategic management issues in IS security, Trust issues in IS Security.
f. Design Issues: Distributed projects, Process changes, Soft-side development, Modeling techniques, Social network knowledge.
g. Building Relationships: Relationships between the information systems area and other academic disciplines, Development of information systems subspecialties, Contributions from information systems to the development of other academic disciplines, Reporting new developments in other reference disciplines, Research between the IS system areas and other established fields.
h. Diversity in the IT Workforce: Diversity in virtual IT teams, Educational initiatives for increased diversity in the IT workforce, Diverse perspectives in the IT workforce, The Digital Divide, Information Technology as a Means for Increasing Social Capital, Gender, Race, Sexual
Orientation, Age, Education, and Socio-Economic Differences.
7 References:
1.    Ruediger Kuehr, German T. Velasquez, Eric Williams, Computers and the Environment: An Introduction to Understanding and Managing their Impacts.
2.    H. Scott Matthews and Deanna H. Matthews, Information Technology Products and the Environment Environmental Impacts in the Production of Personal Computers Eric Williams.
3.    Klaus Hieronymi and Axel Schneider, How the European Union’s WEEE Directive Will Change the Market for Electronic Equipment.
4.    Reinhard Höhn and Anne Brinkley, IBM’s Environmental Management of Product Aspects Environmental Management at Fujitsu Siemens Computers.
5.    Harald Podratzky, Energy Consumption and Personal Computers.
6.    Danielle Cole, PCs and Consumers—A Look at Green Demand, Use, and Disposal Mohamed Saied and German T. Velasquez.
7.    Eric Williams and Yukihiro Sasaki, Strategizing the End-of-life Handling of Personal Computers: Resell, Upgrade, Recycle. 
8.    Eric Williams and Ruediger Kuehr, Today’s Markets for Used PCs—And Ways to Enhance Them.
9.    Stefan Klatt, Recycling Personal Computers.
10.    Joseph Sarkis, Operations of a Computer Equipment Resource Recovery Facility.
11.    Ruediger Kuehr, Managing PCs through Policy: Review and Ways to Extend Lifespan.