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Muaath Alaraj
Ethics Paper
CST 300
February 10, 2018

The Internet & Privacy: Ethics of Cyber Surveillance

The internet is a powerful tool that is intricately laced into just about every facet of our

lives. The internet is a source that stretches beyond national borders and politics; people from all

around the world on a daily basis connect and share ideas. It is a liberating force for many

individuals seeking community and self-empowerment. Humans throughout history, received

information from different central information sources over time. Newspapers then the radio,

then the television were central sources of information for years; the past methods of obtaining

information were centralized and easily controlled by a few parties. The television, radio and

newspapers were controlled and dominated by powerful institutions that centralized the

distribution of information. A new decentralized form of informational consumption emerged

with the internet. The internet is essentially a melting-pot of information that not a single nation

can replicate with its own society; the internet is a source the stretches beyond national borders

and politics. Without it, the world as we know it cannot function; our personal, social, and

professional lives all depend on cyberspace. It is the decentralized platform of information that

connects us with the world at the click of a button and is the database that stores all personal,

business, federal information and transaction history. While this is a source of good and is of

extreme convenience to us, it also enables many forms of crime to be carried out easily. A simple

security breach in a confidential database could prove to be disastrous and can ruin the lives of

many. Thus arose the issue of cyber security, in which society came to recognize that there needs
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to be a form of intervention to protect users from the many forms of cyber crime, or crime that is

enabled with the use of the internet. While cyber security and surveillance is a recognized need,

it also presents the question of the invasion of privacy and constant surveillance of one’s online

activity and history. In this paper, we will use several ethical frameworks to analyze the effects

of ad trackers on privacy, cyber surveillance and its benefits to society, the ethical challenges it

presents to the average citizen who wishes to protect his or her freedoms of privacy and

expression using VPNs, and ways in which the government seeks to centralize the information

available to users on the world wide web by repealing net neutrality.

Before assessing the situation at hand, we need to introduce the ethical

frameworks that will be used in this analysis. There are three main ways of approaching ethics.

The top-down approach seeks to apply an ethical judgement the same way every time no matter

the situation; in certain situation we assume that lying is ok but a top-down approach would state

that it no matter the consequence of that action. A bottom-up approach makes an ethical

judgement when the situation of case is analyzed; the culture and environment in which the

action was made has an impact on ethically judging the action. An integrated approach

acknowledge that ethical frameworks are not a finished product and are more of process; testing

a balance of ethical frameworks is key in achieving a revised ethical understanding and

judgement. The integrated model is far more demanding but is not absolutist in its decision

making. The other two approaches are absolutist either from the top or bottom.

The ethical frameworks used in this paper are as follows. Virtue Ethical Theory founded

by Aristotle judges a person by their character. If the individual involved in a crime has a history

of wrongdoing that person will be punished harshly in order to stop their sinful ways. If an
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individual has been a relatively good reputation and has deviated with a mistake, their

punishment will not be as harsh. This is the most basic of all frameworks, the origin of ethics

could be traced back to this primitive idea that still holds value today. The virtue theory can be

seen as a bottom-up approach taking into account the individuals personal track record before

making an ethical decision. A utilitarian theory championed by Jeremy Bentham and altered by

John Stuart Mill, argues that an ethical decision is solely one made to produce the most utility or

in other words happiness. Mill stresses that the quality of that pleasure is important implying that

a murderers pleasure is not a morally ethical one. Deontology Theory supported by Immanuel

Kant, suggests that the type of action is what matters rather than consequences of that action. The

type of action decides whether or not the action is ethical. Kant’s approach takes a very

top-down approach; many times an intended positive action may lead to a negative consequence,

the negative consequence should not determine the morality of that action. Kant stresses that it is

one's duty to act morally no matter the intended consequence. A consequentialist theory comes in

contrast to Kant’s ethical framework. Consequentialism will solely judge the consequence of an

action. The end result is what judges if the act is ethical or moral.

Privacy on the internet is a very controversial issue. There are stakeholders on both sides

of the privacy argument. Privacy is the ability to seclude oneself from the public eyes and the

ability to hide certain acts/events from public eyes or judgement. “Information privacy, defined

as the ability of the individual to control when, how, and to what extent his or her personal

information is communicated to others,”(Hong, 2013). Every individual has a private life that

they would like to keep hidden from the public. The extent of that privacy is determined by the

individual. The internet can be considered a time and space of privacy when the individual is not
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interacting directly with other people. That is not true however, ad trackers that collect data

about your browsing habits due so in order to gauge your preferences. These browsing habits

assist companies in getting better advertisements suited towards you. This information that is

collected is technically sold to other companies try to reach out to you. “amongst the hordes of

data Zuckerberg and Co. are constantly collecting about you in order ​to better serve up ads​ is ​an

inference about how liberal, moderate, or conservative you might be​.,”(McGauley, 2018).

Facebook has algorithms to detect your social and political preferences. Facebook ads are

curtailed in a way that interests you. While this benefits the companies in getting more effective

advertisements and potentially boosts their revenue, this is a privacy concern. The information

that is collected is obviously not anonymous. As suggested by Hong the data collected is very

personal and makes the individuals involved vulnerable, “On one hand, personalized web

services and business intelligence software require the collection and mining of unprecedented

amounts of personally identifying information,”(Hong, 2013). Kant’s approach suggests that

invasion of privacy is still a problem no matter the consequence. These ads track the use of

individuals and collect their private information.

While these ads do invade the privacy of individuals many would argue that it helps

commerce. Consequentialists would argue that the consequence of these ads is very minor, a few

ads curtailed to interest you is not that bad of a problem. Advertising companies would suggest

that, “It’s completely irrelevant to their calculations and the intended use of the data for targeting

that is so objectionable to a lot of users, he explains,” (Hill, 2015). These advertisements may be

curtailed to your interests and preferences using anonymous algorithms that only trace your

browsing history and do not necessarily attach your name to it. There is so much data and so
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many users that it would be difficult or impossible to filter through who is browsing for what.

These advertisements can benefit the user and keep them interested/engaged in what is being

advertised to them. Companies advertising online in turn reach the niche or group they are

attempting to contact.

Many use Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) in hopes to avoid such tracking or

surveillance. When someone is being watched they act differently than when alone, being alone

provides a sense of comfort. Despite that need for privacy in everyone’s life, there are crimes

being committed on the internet that need to be tracked down. The dark web is a place where

illegal things are sold and bought. You can find drugs, guns, stolen account information and

numerous other illegal transactions. Law enforcement is usually tracking these criminals online

but struggles to do so because of anonymity tools like VPNs and Proxies. While the vast

majority of the users use VPNs for privacy or for petty crimes like illegally streaming content or

downloading copyright material. Some users use it to mask themselves while using the dark web.

The Tor project aims to give users privacy through proxy servers and every website visited goes

through numerous proxies to hide the identity of the users.

The Tor network is a group of ​volunteer​-operated servers that allows people to improve their

privacy and security on the Internet. Tor's users employ this network by connecting through a

series of virtual tunnels rather than making a direct connection, thus allowing both organizations

and individuals to share information over public networks without compromising their privacy

(Tor Project, 2018).

The Tor project also claims that sting operations used by law enforcement depend on the

Tor Browser as well. It’s main goals as an organization is to provide privacy and security for
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users. They suggest that using Tor keeps individuals safe from sophisticated attackers that use

your IP Address as a method to attack the individual when revealed. Privacy and Security are

dependant of each other. Without security there is no such thing as privacy. VPN’s give users

the ability to take back their privacy. “​The use of encrypted VPN tunnels is a highly effective

way to thwart attempts at mass surveillance by governments (often acting at the behest of

powerful anti-piracy lobbies), as long as no logs are kept by the VPN provider,”(Crawford,

2013). VPN companies combat government intervention by not logging any of the browsing

history their customers make. If nothing is being tracked than nothing can be traced. The use of

VPNs is also a protective measure to ensure that the regular user is not extorted, blackmailed or

impersonated. Using the framework of Utilitarianism we see that keeping the privacy for the vast

majority does equate to the most happiness in society. The crimes of a few should not justify

invasion of privacy for most users. However consequentialists understand that if we do not patrol

the web these criminals could be getting away with harmful acts on others. There are

stakeholders on both sides of the spectrum. Companies want to advertise at an efficient rate to

increase revenue. While individuals want their privacy to stay intact, the information collected

about them can be used by the NSA or criminals to snoop on them.

The issue of Net Neutrality has made headlines recently. Net Neutrality ensures that all

web traffic is treated equally and bandwidth from all websites are maintained to be the same.

Many state that if Net Neutrality is taken away smaller websites with less traffic will be cut off

from being accessed; or they may be effect in a way that traffic to the site will be too slow. This

will affect small website owners dramatically and they could see traffic to their website dwindle.
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This directly affects the freedom of expression on the internet and will favor mainstream

expression to be the only avenue. Journalism and Political dissent will be filtered in favor for

mainstream ideas as well. This helps keep the population in control for the government but filters

the true potential of society. Opponents to Net Neutrality state that some users use way more

bandwidth than others and this is a way to charge them more. Obviously this is a statement made

by Internet Service Providers. Many in favor of Net Neutrality fear that internet packages may

look similar to television packages that allow you to only use certain channels or websites. In

order to access other sites you may need to pay additional fees. Once again the framework of

Utilitarianism suggests that limiting the internet in such a way is not ethical. According to a poll

conducted by the University of Maryland the overwhelming majority of people opposed the FCC

repeal of Net Neutrality. “​At the conclusion, 83% opposed repealing net neutrality, including

75% of Republicans, as well as 89% of Democrats and 86% of independents,”​ (​University of

Maryland, 2017). Since the overwhelming majority are in support of Net Neutrality, there may

not be much reason to oppose it; Internet Service Providers are seeking more lucrative ways to

package the internet.

Consequentialists would look at internet privacy as not such a large problem. As long as

criminals are getting caught and you aren't doing anything terribly wrong privacy is something

that can be compromised; Consequentialism takes a bottom-up approach to morality. Bottom-up

approach seeks to assess every situation on a case to case basis; the ethics of a situation is

decided by the consequence. The virtue ethical framework will suggest that even if someone

were to commit a petty crime on the internet their track record will be used to judge the crime; if

the individual has a bad record of internet usage their punishment should be harder. Kantian
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beliefs would suggest that invasion of privacy is wrong no matter the consequence; it takes a

somewhat top-down approach to morality. Top-down approach looks at the action committed

and not the consequence; if the action invades privacy than it should not be down no matter the

consequence I believe it is important to approach everything using an integrated model, testing

and revision are necessary to take an ethical approach to forever changing society. An ethical

balance must be taken because all of these frameworks are a process and not finished products.

Both law enforcement and the average joe need to be kept in mind to maximize happiness. This

integrated approach to the Utilitarian framework in the case of internet privacy is essential.

Internet privacy is a serious concern on both sides of the spectrum. To protect the

democratic process freedom of expression on the internet must be maintained. We should not

limit and alter the ability of our citizens to surf the web and retrieve the information they desire.

There are limits to these freedoms however, criminals should be sought out and stopped; just not

at the cost of everyone else. As the FBI suggests their work is very important in keeping vitals

systems up. “The collective impact is staggering. Billions of dollars are lost every year repairing

systems hit by such attacks. Some take down vital systems, disrupting and sometimes disabling

the work of hospitals, banks, and 9-1-1 services around the country,” (FBI, 2018). Law

enforcement should have the ability to track cyber crime down but should not invade the privacy

of all citizens. A surveillance state is one attempting to keep its power from the people and the

political process. Slowly we are inching closer to the nightmare in George Orwell's 1984. Big

brother will be watching our every step. The actions of the few should not justify such

surveillance. Net Neutrality should be maintained and limiting freedom of expression would be

another detriment to our society.

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The internet is a beautiful exchange of information, goods and services. We need to keep

this incredible melting pot of ideas and cultures neutral. VPNs protect internet users from not just

snooping government eyes but also criminals seeking to blackmail, extort or impersonate the

user. There are multiple stakeholders in the involved in cyber security and net neutrality.

Companies that seek to maximize profits use methods of surveillance and regulation to track

consumer data. The government uses methods of surveillance to maintain power and security.

Individuals use VPNs and proxies to stay hidden from the public. Internet Service Providers are

seeking to find ways in which to maximize profits. We need a way to ensure that the necessities

of all these stakeholders are granted and that we do not subjugate one parties will onto the other.

The internet is a decentralized platform and we need to ensure that it stays that way.

Governments should have too much power over the surfing habits of individuals. All parties

involved need a system of checks and balances to ensure that one party does not leave its

jurisdiction in favor of weakening the other. A decentralized platform is a fantastic way to

express dissent which is usually not given a chance in the real world. People can be as powerful

as the government on the internet. It is our means of entertainment, of learning and research, of

communication and virtual interaction, the means through which we obtain information, trade

thoughts, currency, and ideas. It is the medium used for trade, to buy and sell, to advertise.

Stores all of our personal information, the medium we use to interact with others via messages,

emails, and video calls, the first tool we refer to in order to search and retrieve any type of

information, check our bank accounts and receive personal messages from acquaintances.We

must protect the integrity of the internet and ensure all parties that use it do not infringe on the

rights of its other users.

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References

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