Security and Ethical Challenges

Shivani Parikh
IT Security, Ethics, and Society
Information technology has both beneficial and detrimental effects on
society and people
Manage work activities to minimize the detrimental effects of
information technology
Optimize the beneficial effects

Business Ethics
Ethics questions that managers confront as part of their daily business
decision making include
Equity
Rights
Honesty
Exercise of corporate power

Categories of Ethical Business Issues
Example: Temple in Calcutta - movie
Corporate Social Responsibility Theories
Stockholder Theory
Managers are agents of the stockholders
Their only ethical responsibility is to increase the profits of the
business without violating the law or engaging in fraudulent practices

Social Contract Theory
Companies have ethical responsibilities to all members of society, who
allow corporations to exist

Corporate Social Responsibility Theories
Stakeholder Theory
Managers have an ethical responsibility to manage a firm for the
benefit of all its stakeholders (e.g. Enron)
Stakeholders are all individuals and groups that have a stake in, or
claim on, a company

Ethics Case Studies - KFC in INDIA
KFC was founded by Harland Sanders in the early 1930s
he started cooking and serving food for hungry travellers who stopped by his
service station in Corbin, Kentucky, US
served people on his own dining table in the living quarters of his service station
His chicken delicacies became popular and people started coming just for food
Soon, Sanders moved across the street to a motel-cum-restaurant
Over the next nine years, he perfected his secret blend of 11 herbs and spices
he was given the title Kentucky Colonel by the state Governor
Sanders' restaurant business witnessed an unexpected halt in the early 1950s,
when a new interstate highway was planned bypassing the town of Corbin
Sanders started franchising his chicken business in 1952 called it KFC
By 1964, Sanders franchised more than 600 chicken outlets in the US and
Canada
Foreign fast food companies were allowed to enter India during the early 1990s
due to the economic liberalization policy of the Indian Government
Ethics Case Studies - KFC in INDIA
On receiving permission to open 30 new outlets across the country, KFC opened
its first fast-food outlet in Bangalore in June 1995
Bangalore was chosen as the launch pad because it had a substantial upper
middle class population, with a trend of families eating out
PepsiCo planned to open 60 KFC and Pizza Hut outlets in the country in the next
seven years
From the very first day of opening its restaurant, KFC faced problems in the
form of protests by angry farmers led by the Karnataka Rajya Ryota Sangha
(KRRS)
The farmers leader, Nanjundaswamy, who led these protests, vehemently
condemned KFC's entry into India, saying that it was unethical to promote
highly processed 'junk food' in a poor country like India with severe malnutrition
problems
growing number of foreign fast food chains would deplete India's livestock,
which would adversely affect its agriculture and the environment
Ethics Case Studies - KFC in INDIA
He argued that non-vegetarian fast-food restaurants like KFC would encourage
Indian farmers to shift from production of basic crops to more lucrative varieties
like animal feed and meat leaving poorer sections of society with no affordable
food
PETA further intensified its campaign against the cruel treatment meted out to
chickens by KFC through protests at regular intervals
Chicken they serve is full of chemicals (3 times more MSG than the permissible
limits)


Questions:
Do you think in light of fierce competition, it is justified for business
organizations not to give importance to ethical values at cost of making profits?
Why or why not?

Microsoft
Netscape Navigator was a proprietary web browser that was popular in the
1990s and had to be bought as a pack. It was the flagship product of the
Netscape Communications Corporation and the dominant web browser in terms
of usage share
Microsoft was a late entrant into the Internet software market. Subsequently, it
adopted aggressive marketing tactics to catch up with the early entrant,
Netscape Communications.
Microsoft was that it was distributing its Internet browser software, Internet
Explorer (IE), free of cost along with its Windows Operating System.
Bundling them together is alleged to have been responsible for Microsoft's
victory in the browser wars as every Windows user had a copy of Internet
Explorer
Netscape icon was not placed on the desktop
Also apart from IE any other browser was slow on Windows OS
As a result of which IE gained prominence over Netscape

Microsoft
Netscape Corporation filed a suit against Microsoft and its main contention was
that Microsoft was a monopoly, which had used its monopoly power to suppress
competition and gain an unfair advantage
Microsoft's aggressive pricing of products, its offers of free software to grab
market share and its attempts to inflate bills of some corporate customers
Another charge against Microsoft was that it apparently made misleading
statements and claims. The company often announced its products before they
were launched in order to freeze buyers' decisions.
Microsoft had succeeded in the PC software industry by using this strategy and it
seemed to be using this strategy in the non-PC businesses also.
For instance, in late 1998, Microsoft told the press that its electronic billing
system was the world's first "end-to-end billing service.
However, CheckFree, Atlanta, had been offering such a service for almost a year
before Microsoft made its claim.
Microsoft, however, argued that CheckFree also issued some paper checks and
so it was not totally electronic


Microsoftcontd 1
Microsoft's 'Enterprise licensing' enabled clients to get unlimited use of Windows
NT, Office and BackOffice, as well as its upgrades for a single price. This tied
down the customer to other Microsoft products.
In June 2000, the US District Court gave its ruling that Microsoft had violated
the US antitrust laws by abusing its monopoly power in computer operating
systems
Jackson ordered that the company be split into two smaller companies, one for
the Windows operating system, and another for its Internet and other
businesses, to prevent it from violating state and federal antitrust laws in the
future.
This decision was later overruled and Microsoft was left with a penalty
Baazee.com
Avnish Bajaj Passout IIT Kanpur
joined Apple Computer as a Software Engineer then did MBA from Harvard
Business School
In late 1999 he was living in the U.S. and noticed the success of thennascent
eBay.
He returned to India that year to start a similar Internet auction site called
Baazee.com
Baazee grew into a healthy business in spite of the turbulent market, and
ultimately sold to eBay in 2004 for $55 million
A porn clip involving DPS school students was sold on Baazee.com 8 copies were
sold for 125/- Rs each
Avnish Bajaj the CEO of Baazee.com was arrested by Police under Section 67 of
the Information Technology Act. (The act prohibits the use of the internet to
distribute obscene or pornographic material)
Questions: Was his arrest correct?
What steps should an auction site take when illegal content is sold on the site
Coke
Dr. John Pemberton, an Atlanta-based pharmacist, developed the original
formula of Coke in 1886
The ingredients were refined to create a refreshing carbonated soda.
Coke went on sale for the first time in the Joe Jacobs Drug Store
The product slowly gained acceptance after a heavy outpouring of free sample
drinks.
In 1888, after Pemberton's death, Asa Candler, Pemberton's friend and a
wholesaler druggist purchased a stake in the company. Coke sales soared even
without much advertising .
By 1891, Candler had complete control of Coke for $2,300 he formed 'The Coca-
Cola Company' .
Pepsi Cola emerged as a major competitor to Coke in the 1930s
In the 1970s, Coke faced stiff competition from Pepsi. Pepsi's advertising budget
exceeded that of Coke. In 1978, figures also revealed that Pepsi had beaten
Coke in terms of supermarket sales with its dominance of the vending machine
and fountain outlets

Coke
Coke also faced problems in the 1970s when the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) ruled that saccharin, an important ingredient in Coke, was harmful and a
potential source of cancer.
The controversy intensified further when a district administrator4 of Coke in
Colorado Springs, Colorado, sent a memo to all the school principals in the
district. The memo asked the principals to encourage the sale of Coke products
because the district risked failing to meet its contractual obligation to sell at
least 70,000 cases of Coke products.
Falling short of target would significantly reduce payments from Coke to these
schools over the next seven years.
The exclusive school contracts allowed Coke exclusive rights to sell its products -
soda, juices, and bottled water - in all the public schools of a district
Under the plan, the schools got $350,000 as an "up front" money and a
percentage which ranged from 50 percent to 65 percent of total sales.
The exclusive contract with Coke represented one of the fastest growing areas of
commercialism of schoolhouses
Critics said that these contracts represented the growing trend of
commercialization on school campuses.
When students saw products advertised in their schools, they frequently thought
that it was something that the schools were endorsing.
By displaying its logos prominently in public schools, Coke hoped to re-establish
brand loyalty and brand recognition.
A study found that the average American teenager could identify some 1,000
corporate logos, but could not name even ten plants and animals in the area
where he or she lived.
Parents were concerned about the proliferation of logos on school scoreboards,
walls, buses and textbooks.
Some groups opposed the commercialization in schools saying that it was
unethical, immoral and exploitative.
They criticized the education community for encouraging commercialization in
schools.
Health experts expressed concerns about the increase in consumption of soft
drinks by young people consume
Coke
Teenagers today drank twice as much soda as milk
Vending machines in schools created a preference for soda over milk, juice, and
water."
overweight children tend to consume more calories from soda than those who
were not.
Childhood obesity rates in the US had increased by 100 percent in the past 20
years.
Studies had also shown the negative effect of caffeine on children, an additive
present in most of the cola drinks.
Analysts concluded that soft drink makers were encouraging teenagers to
consume more drinks, which would cause serious health problems for a whole
generation.
If the schools must have vending machines, they should concentrate on healthy
choices, like bottled water
Coke

Questions:
Is Coke ethical in their marketing strategy of having exclusive contracts with
schools?

Principles of Technology Ethics
Proportionality
The good achieved by the technology must outweigh the harm or risk;
there must be no alternative that achieves the same or
comparable benefits with less harm or risk
Informed Consent
Those affected by the technology should understand and accept the
risks
Justice
The benefits and burdens of the technology should be distributed
fairly.
Those who benefit should bear their fair share of the risks, and those
who do not benefit should not suffer a significant increase in risk
Minimized Risk
Even if judged acceptable by the other three guidelines, the
technology must be implemented so as to avoid all unnecessary risk

Responsible Professional Guidelines
A responsible professional
Acts with integrity
Increases personal competence
Sets high standards of personal performance
Accepts responsibility for his/her work
Advances the health, privacy, and general welfare of the public

Computer Crime
Computer crime includes
Unauthorized use, access, modification, or destruction of hardware,
software, data, or network resources
The unauthorized release of information
The unauthorized copying of software
Denying an end user access to his/her own hardware, software, data,
or network resources
Using or conspiring to use computer or network resources illegally to
obtain information or tangible property

Examples: phishing at ICICI bank

Hacking
Hacking is
The obsessive use of computers
The unauthorized access and use of networked computer systems

Electronic Breaking and Entering
Hacking into a computer system and reading files, but neither stealing
nor damaging anything

Cracker
A malicious or criminal hacker who maintains knowledge of the
vulnerabilities found for private advantage

Unauthorized Use at Work
Unauthorized use of computer systems and networks is time and resource
theft
Doing private consulting
Doing personal finances
Playing video games
Unauthorized use of the Internet or company networks

Internet Abuses in the Workplace
General email abuses
Unauthorized usage and access
Copyright infringement/plagiarism
Newsgroup postings
Transmission of confidential data
Pornography
Hacking
Non-work-related download/upload
Leisure use of the Internet
Use of external ISPs
Moonlighting

Software Piracy
Software Piracy
Unauthorized copying of computer programs

Licensing
Purchasing software is really a payment for a license for fair use
Site license allows a certain number of copies

A third of the software industrys revenues are lost to piracy
Viruses and Worms
A virus is a program that cannot work without being inserted into another
program
A worm can run unaided

These programs copy annoying or destructive routines into networked
computers
Copy routines spread the virus

Commonly transmitted through
The Internet and online services
Email and file attachments
Disks from contaminated computers
Shareware

The Cost of Viruses, Trojans, Worms
Cost of the top five virus families
Nearly 115 million computers in 200 countries were infected in 2004
Up to 11 million computers are believed to be permanently infected
In 2004, total economic damage from virus proliferation was $166 to
$202 billion
Average damage per computer is between $277 and $366

Privacy Issues
The power of information technology to store and retrieve information can
have a negative effect on every individuals right to privacy
Personal information is collected with every visit to a Web site
Confidential information stored by credit bureaus, credit card
companies, and the government has been stolen or misused
Opt-in Versus Opt-out
Opt-In
You explicitly consent to allow data to be compiled about you
This is the default in Europe

Opt-Out
Data can be compiled about you unless you specifically request it not
be
This is the default in the U.S.

Cyberlaw
Laws intended to regulate activities over the Internet or via electronic
communication devices
Encompasses a wide variety of legal and political issues
Includes intellectual property, privacy, freedom of expression, and
jurisdiction

The intersection of technology and the law is controversial
Some feel the Internet should not be regulated
Encryption and cryptography make traditional form of regulation difficult
The Internet treats censorship as damage and simply routes around it

Cyberlaw only began to emerge in 1996
Debate continues regarding the applicability of legal principles derived
from issues that had nothing to do with cyberspace

Other Challenges
Employment
IT creates new jobs and increases productivity
It can also cause significant reductions in job opportunities, as well as
requiring new job skills (e.g. SBI when implemented internet banking)
Computer Monitoring
Using computers to monitor the productivity and behavior of employees
as they work
Criticized as unethical because it monitors individuals, not just work,
and is done constantly
Criticized as invasion of privacy because many employees do not know
they are being monitored
Working Conditions
IT has eliminated monotonous or obnoxious tasks
However, some skilled craftsperson jobs have been replaced by jobs
requiring routine, repetitive tasks or standby roles
Other Challenges
Individuality
Dehumanizes and depersonalizes activities because computers eliminate
human relationships
Inflexible systems

Health Issues
Cumulative Trauma Disorders (CTDs)
Disorders suffered by people who sit at a PC or terminal and do fast-
paced repetitive keystroke jobs

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
Painful, crippling ailment of the hand and wrist
Typically requires surgery to cure

Ergonomics
Designing healthy work environments
Safe, comfortable, and pleasant for people to work in
Increases employee morale and productivity
Also called human factors engineering


Protecting Yourself from Cybercrime