Computer Ethics
Computer crime has increased in resent years. The book gives several examples of past computer crimes. Before reading chapter 2 I thought that computer crimes only involved crimes that where associated with hacks. But I learned that a computer crime is a crime that involved a computer in any way. Even if it was just to close a bank account. This chapter gave me a good understanding of what a computer crime is, it also made me think how could I make some money. By reading this chapter I was surprised to learn that most computer crimes are committed by people that don't have an extensive understanding of computers, but by opportunist. In one of the cases I read about, a group of hackers figured out a way to intrude into the bank system but didn't do any damage to the bank. Then they tried to sell their knowledge to the bank and got arrested. It seemed unfair to me that for trying to help the bank they got arrested. In many cases the people accused of computer crime do it without know what they do. As in the example of the 8 year old boy that transferred 1,000,000 dollars to his account "by inserting a envelope with a cartoon of cereal in it and pressing 1 many times". I thought the book made a good point in saying
Most hacks are people that have nothing to do and go through the trashcans of corporations in hopes of finding manuals or passwords of systems or going to Tec fairs to peek over someone shoulder to see if they are dialing in into a remote system and try to get they password and username. In the first example in chapter 7 where the woman died because a miss calculation of a computerized dispensing machine miscalculated the required dosage of a pain relieving drug and as a consequence the woman went into comma a died later on. I think that's a god thing since those penetrations make the system operators aware of their vulnerability of attack by a malicious hacker. As the example given by the authors where computers beat 99% off all chess players still it is not intelligent because it figures out it's plays by brute computational power and not by observation and recognition of past situations. Programmers are often subjected to a lot of stress during their careers since programmers always have a deadline and a problem to solve in front of them. Most of those attacks where not malicious, now hackers have become malicious and most of them don't demonstrate that they are smart nor demonstrate knowledge of a system. I agree with the opinion that hacking has changed in recent years. Its easy to say for programmers like Stallman that are financially sponsored by others, that "software should be for free" he is getting paid, who is going to pay us? I agree with Pamela Samuelson "The existing system of patent laws is still the best vehicle for protecting software". I don't agree with laws that punish hackers that do innocent penetrations into systems. I agree with the point of view of IBM. I don't think those are Database Disasters I think those are Data entry disasters. What if such a system would rule to kill every one that makes a traffic violation and no human could overrule that law? Every human in his life makes a traffic violation without even noticing. In the section where it discusses whether computers are intelligent I agree with the people that say that computers are intelligent. As in the example in chapter 5 in which 22 US service men died because of a radio interference in its computer-based fly-by wire control system.
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