URL:
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2009/10/rand_us_should.html;jsessionid=SMFM5O2F4DCNBQE1GHOSKH4ATMY32JVN

The article talks about the common cyber warfare tools:
denial-of-service attacks, breaking crypto, sniffing network traffic, unleashing malware to run wild and disrupt systems, corrupting data, and so on.

Is it ethical for a country to exploit another country's cyber infrastructure in order to make known certain threats or regulations? What happens to the innocent civilians who are deprived of their resources?

URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/opinion/edit-page/Pay-It-Forward-On-Being-A-Slacktivist/articleshow/5065543.cms

The article talks about the point of view of a slacktivist. A slacktivist's role:

"You don't need to dirty your hands or spend more time than needed to lift your index finger only to click on your mouse to either sign that online petition or to forward an e-mail that could save someone's life. All for a good cause!"

Ethical problem:

These people feel like they are doing something useful even though these online 'petitions' may not be authentic and may be a form of spam. Would slacktivism actually end up being a 'chain letter' nuisance instead and dilute the essence of online political activity?

Would this be considered an unethical abuse of network systems?

URL: http://en.mercopress.com/2009/09/16/lula-da-silva-supports-unrestricted-political-campaigning-in-internet

The article talks about the use of the internet in political campaigns. Brazilian President Lula da Silva commented that "All our lives we have struggled for political freedom, freedom of expression, freedom of communication, freedom of the press and now they are thinking in blocking those basic rights that make to the essence of democracy".

Lula da Silva's comments are part of a national debate in Brazil on the use of internet which triggered the drafting of a restrictive project currently under consideration in Congress.

Right now, the Brazilian Congress has specific sections on internet political information restrictions and a ban to all political publicity in internet.

Ethical Problem:

Do the protectors of free speech have a duty to muffle their own political voices?
However, the real power lies in the means through which the internet campaigns manage to benefit and the social groups that have the power to harness.

URL: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-01-23-bush_x.htm

The US government defends their terrorist surveillance program that monitors international communications of suspected terrorist activity.
However, the nation's No. 2 intelligence officer, Michael Hayden admitted that not every communications that was intercepted had a terrorist link.

If the surveillance had been used before Sept. 11, Hayden said, "we would have detected some of the 9/11 al-Qaeda operatives in the United States."

Ethical problems:
Is it the right of the government to invade the privacy of civilians even though it helps to protect against possible terrorist attacks?

Also, the usage of this surveillance material could be used to gather information about other nations and civilians (the panopticon effect). Is this going against the golden rule?

Story URL:
http://www.somebodythinkofthechildren.com/boys-in-blue-raid-perths-sunday-times/

Summary of the article:

In February, a Sunday Times reporter Paul Lampathakis wrote an article about a 16 million dollar advertising bill for taxpayers to "help" get the WA government re-elected. It also quoted "government sources'' who said the money was to be spent on strategic advertising campaigns ahead of an impending election.

Following his story, the Department of Premier and Cabinet made a complaint and 16 police offers were given a warrant to raid the offices of The Sunday Times in Perth.
The police searched for documents related to the article and interviewed the editor for almost an hour.
The detective in charge of the operation said "It is part of an ongoing investigation in relation to potential breaches of the secrecy provisions of the criminal code,'

This incident is an outrage amongst members of the press, saying that it goes against the code of free press, bringing to mind the rigid control of Cuba or Russia.

Ethical Questions and Problems:

Just to what extent should the press be given freedom of speech, is it not the duty of the journalist to expose such political schemes? (c.f the Fourth Estate)

Is it ethical for the journalist to have misused secret or confidential information that might jeopardise national security?

Hi Karin,

I don't think it would be necessarily bad news for record companies. Some musicians gained popularity only after their music files were passed over the internet. In some ways, it could be a means of social network advertising/promotion.

Perhaps these record companies could take another angle on the boom in file sharing.

URL: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7c03fd14-b011-11dd-a795-0000779fd18c.html

Case Summary: The world of the Internet is slowly becoming dangerous ground to tread on. The onset of viruses, hackers and phishing mails have become part and parcel of the Intenet 'culture', so to speak.

This news article talks about the increasing sophistication of phishing emails. These emails are now slicker, more personalised, and more difficult to distinguish from actual emails sent from corporations and banks.

One example from the article: On October 16, MessageLabs, the online security firm, intercepted 7,000 phishing attacks purporting to be from Bank of America in an attack that took place over two hours. The next day, the BofA phishing e-mails more than doubled to 15,000 and during the weekend reached a total of over 125,000. And that was only 16 per cent of all phishing for the weekend - a total of more than 780,000 e-mails.

These stories of fraud and phishing emails have caused and created much panic and anxiety over internet security.

Ethical Question: Is it ethically right for the consumer to insist that the corporation refund or reimburse him for the loss of information/money caused by the phishing email, even when it is the consumer who carelessly falls victim to the scams? If so, wouldn't the corporation be paying out large sums of money to many clueless victims?

Ethical Problem: Is the onus of protecting yourself from these phishing emails on the CONSUMER (You) or the CORPORATION (eg. the bank) or the GOVERNMENT?