Have a look at the links below:
Where do you stand on these issues? What are the ethical ramifications of EFF's "call to action?" Are there any potential problems posed by encouraging this response from the programming community?
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Ethical Implications
We have been discussing, and continue to discuss the process of establishing sets of personal, as well as profession-wide, ethical guidelines for Web Developers and Programmers.
Have a look at the links below:
Where do you stand on these issues? What are the ethical ramifications of EFF's "call to action?" Are there any potential problems posed by encouraging this response from the programming community?
Have a look at the links below:
Where do you stand on these issues? What are the ethical ramifications of EFF's "call to action?" Are there any potential problems posed by encouraging this response from the programming community?
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The EFF is only doing what is right. They are making what is already public knowledge, even more public knowledge. The EFF is using it's right to free speech in order to bring more light to a dark issue. The desired response from the EFF is to wake people up to realize that their information isn't truly private, that their speech might not always be free, so they need to fight to protect it. Now how they fight and what lengths they go to fight is not detailed by the EFF. That choice is up to the community and it can not be predicted or controlled. The world will have to wait to see what happens. I agree with the EFF's stand on freedom of speech, and freedom of communication, and freedom to use the internet. There are bad people who will do bad things with access to the internet, but there are good people who will do good things too. Everyone has a right to speak, and everyone has a right to agree or disagree, but no one has the right to silence someone just because they don't agree.
ReplyDeleteWhat the EFF is trying to do here is ethical. They are doing what they need to help the citizens maintain their freedom online while staying safe in the process. If the government and other organizations are going to try and intercept and censor the medias that are broadcast, they are the unethical parties. This is similar to the extremes that Egypt is going to at the present moment. They are trying to eliminate the ability for people to use the most wide spread, powerful and threatening method to protest and speak their mind. The Internet. Taking it down even for businesses and government officials has created an uproar and caused the citizens to now revert to old widespread, powerful and threatening methods.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the EFF is trying to implement a lot of good things the counter actions are eliminating their attempts for example asking common media sites to use secure HTTP protocols. This unforunetally secure method of transferring data is being brought down so citizens have to go back to non secure transfer protocols.
Programmers in the community need to find other ways to secure the sites and find ways to get data from client to server safely where the government and other unethical parties cannot get to them.
-Matt
Once I got on to the EFF site, I jumped to the about section to see how they wanted to be viewed. They state that the EFF helps "to confront cutting-edge issues defending free speech, privacy, innovation, and consumer rights today." This seems like the most ethical thing the EFF could be doing. Representing people that have been brought down certain restrictions where there should not be restrictions put up. After exploring that section I bounced over to the our work link. Here they show free speech, innovation, intellectual property, international, privacy, and transparency. Within all of these sections they have sections of certain rights they are trying to protect. Under innovation I found the link to coder's rights protected. Once inside there I checked out the link to https://www.eff.org/cases/mbta-v-anderson. This listed a case where 3 students at "MIT were ordered by a federal court to stop a scheduled presentation at DEFCON about vulnerabilities in Boston's transit fare payment system." EFF took on the case and effectively settled the case. After diving into the site and looking at the examples listed above, I can say that I believe that the EFF is doing what is ethically correct. It offers help to those in need and allows for individuals to express themselves freely.
ReplyDeleteI think the EFF is doing the right thing in this situation. They are are protecting the Tunisian citizens from their own government by giving them technical tips to more safely use the Internet. The EFF is not affiliated with any government so I can't see any serious ramifications. All they did was encourage secure Internet browsing and blocking malicious software. The only negative response I could see targeting the programming community might be a loss of business or the Tunisian government perhaps redirecting their attacks toward those websites that the EFF mentioned.
ReplyDeleteThe EFF certainly has been ethical in their recent attempts. They are working towards educating the Tunisians through online safety advice dealing with freedom of speech. The government has been invading their citizens’ privacy, especially those using their freedom of speech, and the EFF is helping protect these people who would be lost without some help. Their advice is fairly simple, but useful for these citizens who have to protect themselves from their government’s unethical actions.
ReplyDeleteAs I read the EFF I liked the sounds of what they are trying to do. I like the fact they try to educate their users in what are recommended ways to try to talk privately and the potential ways it can be found out. I also like their section on using the TOR network and the bridges they use to try to avoid detection of using the TOR network.
ReplyDeleteI also like the fact they are telling users ways they can protect their own viewing habits from prying eyes. Like the https uses and stuff are good things for every user to know about, not those just trying to sneak in or out data. Its great to protect data like bank info.
As programmers, well, I think it is important to realize that security and privacy may need to be considered when people are trying to use or access your created works and applications on the web or in a network.
It is unfortunate that web users must operate under the assumption that their Internet activity is monitored by others and that individuals often face severe consequences resulting from the interception of these activities, whether by government officials or other third-parties. This situation exists under authoritarian regimes but also to some degree in the United States.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that the EFF is acting unethically in providing information on the amount of security involved in different methods of communication and the amount of privacy users can expect from their use. The organization offers recommendations for how to make communication more private but makes a point to note that while the suggestions are legal under the laws of the United States, their legality depends upon the country in which users use the technology. This leaves the ethical decision about which security methods to use up to the informed user.
Asking Facebook, Google, and Yahoo to help protect the privacy of its users and encouraging Tunisian citizens to use HTTPS when logging into websites is neither unethical or illegal. Secure protocols are part of the Internet and intended to be used when users seek to keep personal information out of the hands of others, whether the hands belong to the government or your next-door neighbor.