CyberEthics: The Good, the Bad, and the Electronic Presented by: Joan Krone Denison University

What
When	2008-04-02 from 16:30 to 17:30
Where	King 221
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In the middle of the 20th century, the biggest concern people expressed about computers was the worry that computers might take the place of human thinking, subjecting us all to the whims of automated decision making. Half a century later that fear has subsided, but with the introduction of computer technology into our daily lives, other more pressing ethical issues are challenging all of us. Some of those challenges include protection of privacy, philosophical ethics (theory of justice), professional ethics (licensing of software engineers), online ethics (responsibility for what’s on the internet), property (laws about downloading), accountability (violence in games), intellectual property rights (plagiarism), and cyber attacks (viruses). Some experts say that ethics are ethics and that effectively addressing these issues is simply a matter of applying existing ethical standards to cyberspace. Other experts believe that we are currently in a moral vacuum because many of the cyberspace issues introduce new challenges not adequately covered by any existing moral or ethical theories. Congress has made some laws governing the internet, but most members of Congress are not sufficiently computer literate to really understand what some of the issues are. How much technical education is necessary for our population as a whole to enable us to make moral judgments about computing behavior? Who, if anyone, should set policy or write laws to govern the internet? How can such policies and laws be enforced? Whose responsibility is it to do the enforcing? JOIN US FOR REFRESHMENTS PRIOR TO THE TALK at 4:00 in King 223 The Computer Science Office.