BMGT 496 - Week 6 Citations
(Breuninger, 2017)
(Britz, n.d.)
(Cellan-Jones, 2014)
(Davis, 2018)
(Equifax Breach Exposed More Consumer Data Than First Disclosed, 2018)
(Nakashima & Soltani, 2014)
(Romm, 2018)
(Snow, 2018)
(Stjernfelt & Lauritzen, 2019)
(The cost of data security: Are cybersecurity investments worth it?, n.d.)
(Walker, 2017)
Bibliography
Breuninger, K. (2017, December 13). Net neutrality rules are likely doomed, but the debate
isn’t going away. Retrieved April 21, 2021, from CNBC:
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/13/net-neutrality-rules-look-doomed--will-
consumers-pay.html
Britz, J. J. (n.d.). TECHNOLOGY AS A THREAT TO PRIVACY: Ethical Challenges to the
Information Profession. Retrieved April 21, 2021, from Simmons University:
http://web.simmons.edu/~chen/nit/NIT%2796/96-025-Britz.html
Cellan-Jones, R. (2014, May 15). US v Europe - a cultural gap on the right to be forgotten.
Retrieved April 21, 2021, from BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-
27421969
Davis, J. (2018, April 18). FDA medical device plan zeros in on cybersecurity, public-private
partnership. Retrieved April 21, 2021, from Healthcare IT News:
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/fda-medical-device-plan-zeros-
cybersecurity-public-private-partnership
Equifax Breach Exposed More Consumer Data Than First Disclosed. (2018, February 13).
Retrieved April 21, 2021, from Insurance Journal:
https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2018/02/13/480357.htm
Nakashima, E., & Soltani, A. (2014, October 7). The ethics of Hacking 101. Retrieved April
21, 2021, from The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/postlive/the-ethics-of-hacking-
101/2014/10/07/39529518-4014-11e4-b0ea-
8141703bbf6f_story.html?utm_term=.e9c36c86d53a
Romm, T. (2018, June 27). California is on the verge of passing a sweeping new online
privacy law targeting Facebook, Google and other tech giants. Retrieved April 21,
2021, from The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/06/27/california-is-verge-
passing-sweeping-new-online-privacy-law-targeting-facebook-google-other-
tech-giants/
Snow, J. (2018, February 26). Bias already exists in search engine results, and it’s only
going to get worse. Retrieved April 21, 2021, from MIT Technology Review:
https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/02/26/3299/meet-the-woman-who-
searches-out-search-engines-bias-against-women-and-minorities/
Stjernfelt, F., & Lauritzen, A. M. (2019). Chapter 11: Facebook’s Handbook of Content
Removal. In Your Post has been Removed (pp. 115-137). Basel, Switzerland:
Springer, Cham. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25968-6_11
The cost of data security: Are cybersecurity investments worth it? (n.d.). Retrieved April 21,
2021, from CloudMask: https://www.cloudmask.com/blog/the-cost-of-data-
security-are-cybersecurity-investments-worth-it
Walker, M. J. (2017, November). Ethics and advanced medical devices: Do we need a new
approach. Retri ...
1. BMGT 496 - Week 6 Citations
(Breuninger, 2017)
(Britz, n.d.)
(Cellan-Jones, 2014)
(Davis, 2018)
(Equifax Breach Exposed More Consumer Data Than First
Disclosed, 2018)
(Nakashima & Soltani, 2014)
(Romm, 2018)
(Snow, 2018)
(Stjernfelt & Lauritzen, 2019)
(The cost of data security: Are cybersecurity investments worth
it?, n.d.)
(Walker, 2017)
Bibliography
Breuninger, K. (2017, December 13). Net neutrality rules are
likely doomed, but the debate
isn’t going away. Retrieved April 21, 2021, from CNBC:
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/13/net-neutrality-rules-look-
2. doomed--will-
consumers-pay.html
Britz, J. J. (n.d.). TECHNOLOGY AS A THREAT TO
PRIVACY: Ethical Challenges to the
Information Profession. Retrieved April 21, 2021, from
Simmons University:
http://web.simmons.edu/~chen/nit/NIT%2796/96-025-Britz.html
Cellan-Jones, R. (2014, May 15). US v Europe - a cultural gap
on the right to be forgotten.
Retrieved April 21, 2021, from BBC:
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-
27421969
Davis, J. (2018, April 18). FDA medical device plan zeros in on
cybersecurity, public-private
partnership. Retrieved April 21, 2021, from Healthcare IT
News:
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/fda-medical-device-
plan-zeros-
cybersecurity-public-private-partnership
Equifax Breach Exposed More Consumer Data Than First
Disclosed. (2018, February 13).
Retrieved April 21, 2021, from Insurance Journal:
https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2018/02/13/48
0357.htm
Nakashima, E., & Soltani, A. (2014, October 7). The ethics of
Hacking 101. Retrieved April
21, 2021, from The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/postlive/the-ethics-of-
hacking-
3. 101/2014/10/07/39529518-4014-11e4-b0ea-
8141703bbf6f_story.html?utm_term=.e9c36c86d53a
Romm, T. (2018, June 27). California is on the verge of passing
a sweeping new online
privacy law targeting Facebook, Google and other tech giants.
Retrieved April 21,
2021, from The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/06/27/cali for
nia-is-verge-
passing-sweeping-new-online-privacy-law-targeting-facebook-
google-other-
tech-giants/
Snow, J. (2018, February 26). Bias already exists in search
engine results, and it’s only
going to get worse. Retrieved April 21, 2021, from MIT
Technology Review:
https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/02/26/3299/meet-the-
woman-who-
searches-out-search-engines-bias-against-women-and-
minorities/
Stjernfelt, F., & Lauritzen, A. M. (2019). Chapter 11:
Facebook’s Handbook of Content
Removal. In Your Post has been Removed (pp. 115-137). Basel,
Switzerland:
Springer, Cham. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25968-
6_11
The cost of data security: Are cybersecurity investments worth
it? (n.d.). Retrieved April 21,
2021, from CloudMask: https://www.cloudmask.com/blog/the-
cost-of-data-
security-are-cybersecurity-investments-worth-it
4. Walker, M. J. (2017, November). Ethics and advanced medical
devices: Do we need a new
approach. Retrieved April 21, 2021, from Health Voices:
http://healthvoices.org.au/issues/november-2017/ethics-
advanced-medical-
devices-need-new-approach/
4/20/2021 Net neutrality rules look doomed -- will consumers
pay?
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/13/net-neutrality-rules-look-
doomed--will-consumers-pay.html 1/9
KEY POINTS
Kevin Breuninger
@ K E V I N W I L L I A M B
I N T E R N E T
Net neutrality rules are likely doomed, but the debate isn’t
going away
P U B L I S H E D W E D , D E C 1 3 2 0 1 7 • 4 : 0 4 P M
E S T U P D AT E D W E D , D E C 1 3 2 0 1 7 • 7 : 2 5 P M
E S T
Net neutrality advocates say broadband internet providers would
5. charge more for faster speeds without the FCC
protections.
Opponents argue the rules are effectively price controls that
stifle investment and limit consumers’ options.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has
said he wants to repeal the Obama-era rules.
V I D E O 0 6 : 3 3
What is net neutrality?
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6. https://www.cnbc.com/internet/
https://www.cnbc.com/
https://www.cnbc.com/markets/
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4/20/2021 Net neutrality rules look doomed -- will consumers
pay?
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/13/net-neutrality-rules-look-
doomed--will-consumers-pay.html 2/9
Demonstrators, supporting net neutrality, protest a plan by the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to repeal
restrictions on internet service providers during a protest
outside a
Verizon store on December 7, 2017 in Chicago, Illinois.
Getty Images
The Federal Communications Commission’s vote on “net
neutrality” rules, scheduled for Thursday, holds major
implications for
the future of the internet — but it’s not always clear who will
foot the bill.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai says he intends to repeal the rules that
keep internet service providers from treating online content
unequally. The regulations prohibit ISPs, such as , or , from
slowing or censoring traffic to certain websites.
Advocates say net neutrality is a bulwark against ISPs abusing
their power by forcing or prioritizing some online content
against
7. their competitors. Doing so would create an internet that
handicaps smaller businesses and limits customers’ freedom to
access
whatever websites they want.
“Net neutrality is actually what gives people choices,” said
Evan Greer, campaign director for the pro-net neutrality activist
group
Fight for the Future. “If we get rid of net neutrality protections,
it allows the largest, most incumbent web companies to
essentially
pay protection money to ISPs to solidify their monopoly status
and squash competition.”
Crushing that competition, she said, opens the door for fewer
companies with more control to charge higher prices. “It
essentially
amounts to a tax on the entire economy.”
Public opinion, while still largely in favor of the regulations,
has narrowed in recent months. Net neutrality enjoyed strong
bipartisan public support in June, but recent polling shows just
a slim majority of U.S. voters still favor the rules, according to
data
from Morning Consult and Politico.
The apparent public support for net neutrality, opponents say, is
largely a matter of successful branding.
“This is the brilliance of marketing,” said Roslyn Layton, a
scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative
think tank.
“The political left tends to win on net neutrality because the
framing is better,” she said.
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4/20/2021 Net neutrality rules look doomed -- will consumers
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WATCH: Father of net neutrality weighs in on battle over
internet regulations
p y g ,
9. Layton blames what she considers onerous FCC regulations, not
the free market, for creating a costly and unequal internet for
consumers.
In a July report on the consumer impact of the rules, Layton and
AEI argued that “the Open Internet rules against blocking and
throttling, although seemingly consumer-centric, are powerful
price controls and legal tools to compel broadband providers to
deliver traffic regardless of the marginal cost to networks and
frequently at zero price.”
It’s not just the additional costs: A Phoenix Center study
concluded that the threat of reclassifying broadband internet
service
under the FCC’s purview may have reduced investment from the
telecommunications sector between $30 billion and $40 billion
annually from 2011 to 2015.
Net neutrality supporters, however, aren’t buying it. “I think
that’s totally bogus,” Greer said. “If you want to talk about fees
getting passed onto consumers, that’s what is going to happen if
paid prioritization is allowed.”
Disclosure: Comcast is the owner of NBCUniversal, parent
company of CNBC and CNBC.com.
V I D E O 0 3 : 5 0
‘Father of net neutrality’ weighs in on the battle over internet
regulations
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02Final.pdf
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doomed--will-consumers-pay.html 4/9
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4/20/2021 TECHNOLOGY AS A THREAT TO PRIVACY:
Ethical Challenges
web.simmons.edu/~chen/nit/NIT%2796/96-025-Britz.html 1/9
TECHNOLOGY AS A THREAT TO PRIVACY:
Ethical Challenges to the Information Profession
J. J. BRITZ
35. Department of Information Science
University of Pretoria
0002 Pretoria, South Africa
E-mail: [email protected]
The aim of this paper is to assess the impact of technology on
the private lives of people. It is approached
from a socio-ethical perspective with specific emphasis on the
implication for the information profession.
The issues discussed are the concept privacy, he influence of
technology on the processing of personal and
private information, the relevance of this influence for the
information profession, and proposed solutions
to these ethical issues for the information profession.
1. INTRODUCTION
We are currently living in the so-called information age which
can be described as an era were economic
activities are mainly information based (an age of
informationalization). This is due to the development and use
of technology. The main characteristics of this era can be
summarized as a rise in the number of knowledge
workers, a world that has become more open - in the sense of
communication (global village/Gutenberg galaxy)
and internationalization (trans-border flow of data).
This paradigm shift brings new ethical and juridical problems
which are mainly related to issues such as the
right of access to information, the right of privacy which is
threatened by the emphasis on the free flow of
information, and the protection of the economic interest of the
owners of intellectual property.
In this paper the ethical questions related to the right to privacy
36. of the individual which is threatened by the use
of technology will be discussed. Specific attention will be given
to the challenges these ethical problems pose to
the information professional. A number of practical guidelines,
based on ethical norms will be laid down.
2. ETHICS
The ethical actions of a person can be described in general
terms as those actions which are performed within the
criterium of what is regarded as good. It relates thus to the
question of what is good or bad in terms of human
actions. According to Spinello (1995, p. 14) the purpose
of ethics is to help us behave honorably and attain those basic
goods that make us more fully human.
3. THE CONCEPT OF PRIVACY
3.1. Definition of Privacy
Privacy can be defined as an individual condition of life
characterized by exclusion from publicity (Neetling et
al., 1996, p. 36). The concept follows from the right to be left
alone (Stair, 1992, p. 635; Shank, 1986, p. 12)1 .
Shank (1986, p. 13) states that such a perception of privacy set
the course for passing of privacy laws in the
United States for the ninety years that followed. As such
privacy could be regarded as a natural right which
provides the foundation for the legal right. The right to privacy
is therefore protected under private law.
4/20/2021 TECHNOLOGY AS A THREAT TO PRIVACY:
Ethical Challenges
37. web.simmons.edu/~chen/nit/NIT%2796/96-025-Britz.html 2/9
The legal right to privacy is constitutionally protected in most
democratic societies. This constitutional right is
expressed in a variety of legislative forms. Examples include
the Privacy Act (1974) in the USA, the proposed
Open Democracy Act in South Africa (1996) and the Data
Protection Act in England. During 1994 Australia
also accepted a Privacy Charter containing 18 privacy principles
which describe the right of a citizen concerning
personal privacy as effected by handling of information by the
state (Collier, 1994, p. 44-45). The Organization
for Economic and Coordination and Development (OECD) also
accepted in 1980 the Guidelines for the
Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flow of Personal Data
(Collier, 1994, p. 41).
Privacy is an important right because it is a necessary condition
for other rights such as freedom and personal
autonomy. There is thus a relationship between privacy,
freedom and human dignity. Respecting a person's
privacy is to acknowledge such a person's right to freedom and
to recognize that individual as an autonomous
human being.
The duty to respect a person's privacy is furthermore a prima
facie duty. In other words, it is not an absolute duty
that does not allow for exceptions. Two examples can be given.
Firstly, the police may violate a criminal's
privacy by spying or by seizing personal documents (McGarry,
1993, p. 178)2 . A government also has the right
to gather private and personal information from its citizens with
the aim of ensuring order and harmony in
society (Ware, 1993:205). The right to privacy (as an expression
of individual freedom) is thus confined by
38. social responsibility.
3.2. Different Categories of Private Information
Based on the juridical definition of privacy, two important
aspects which are of specific relevance for the
information profession must be emphasized. The first is the fact
that privacy as a concept is closely related to
information - in terms of the definition of Neethling (1996, p.
35) privacy refers to the entirety of facts and
information which is applicable to a person in a state of
isolation. The fact that privacy is expressed by means of
information, implies that it is possible to distinguish different
categories of privacy namely, private
communications, information which relates to the privacy of a
person's body, other personal information, and
information with regard to a person's possessions. Each of these
categories will be briefly dealt with.
� Private communications. This category of privacy concerns
all forms of personal communication which a
person wishes to keep private. The information exchanged
during a reference interview between the user and the
information professional can be seen as an example.
� Privacy of the body (Westin, 1967, p. 351). This normally
refers to medical information and enjoys separate
legal protection (Neethling, 1991, p. 35-36). According to this
legislation a person has the right to be informed
about the nature of an illness as well as the implications
thereof. Such a person further has the right to privacy
about the nature of the illness and can not be forced to make it
known to others. The only exception is when the
health, and possibly the lives of others may be endangered by
the specific illness - such as the case may be
where a person is HIV positive and the chance exists that other
39. people may contract the virus.3 This category of
information is of specific importance for an information
professional working in a medical library.
� Personal information. Personal information refers to those
categories of information which refer to only that
specific person, for example bibliographic (name, address) and
financial information. This type of information is
of relevance to all categories of information professionals.
� Information about one's possessions. This information is
closely related to property right. According to this a
person does have control over the information which relates to
personal possessions in certain instances. For
example, a person may keep private the information about
the place where a wallet is kept.
3.3. The Expressed Will to Privacy
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The following important aspect of privacy is the desire for
privacy (by means of an expressed will) since this
desire is important for the delimitation of privacy. In short, the
desire for privacy implies that privacy will only
be at issue in cases where there is a clear expression of a desire
for privacy. For example, a personal
conversation between two persons will be regarded as private as
long as there is an expressed will to keep it
private. The moment that this will is relinquished the
40. information is no longer regarded as private. The same
applies to the other categories of personal and private
information. If a person makes a private telephone number
(as a form of personal information) known to a company, it is
no longer regarded as private information.
According to the law it can then even be seen as business
information which may legally be traded in. This
expressed will to privacy acts therefore as a very important
guideline for the information professional regarding
the delimitation of privacy.
3.4. The Relationship Between Privacy and Confidentiality
(Secrecy)
It is also important to distinguish between privacy and
confidentiality/secrecy. The confidential treatment of
information is not only applicable to the above-mentioned four
categories of private and personal information -
it may refer to any category of information, such as, inter al ia,
trade secrets.
4. THE INFLUENCE OF TECHNOLOGY ON THE
PROCESSING OF PERSONAL AND PRIVATE
INFORMATION
4.1. Definition of Information Technology
Before the influence of the use of technology in the processing
of personal and private information can be dealt
with, it is important to briefly pay attention to the concept
technology. For the purpose of this paper the
definition of Van Brakel (1989, p. 240) will be used, namely:
the gathering, organizing, storage and distribution
of information in various formats by means of computer and
telecommunications techniques based on micro-
electronics.4
41. 4.2. The Ethical Implications for the Use of Technology in the
Processing of Information
Although technology has a major impact on the gathering,
storage, retrieval and dissemination of information its
main ethical impact relates to accessibility/inaccessibility and
the manipulation of information. It creates the
possibility of wider as well as simultaneous access to
information. By implication, it becomes easier to access a
person's private information by more people. On the other hand,
a person can be excluded from necessary
information in electronic format by means of a variety of
security measures such as passwords.
The technological manipulation of information refers, among
others, to the integration of information (merging
of documents), the repackaging thereof (translations and the
integration of textual and graphical formats) and the
possible altering of information (changing of photographic
images) by electronic means.
The use of technology in the processing of information can
therefore not be seen as ethically neutral. Christians
(199, p. 7) refers to the use of technology as a value laden
process. Kluge (1994, p. 337) even comments that
technology has changed the ontological status of a document
with accompanying ethical implications. By this he
specifically refers to the manipulation of information by means
of technology.
Brown (1990, p. 3) however on the other hand, indicates
correctly that the ethical problems that are caused by
the use of technology do not imply - as he puts it - "...that we
should rethink our moral values".
42. The impact of the use of technology on the privacy of people
manifests itself in a variety of areas. These areas
include, inter alia the following:
� The electronic monitoring of people in the workplace. This
relates to personal information as discussed
earlier. This is done by so-called electronic eyes. The
justification by companies for the use of such
technology is to increase productivity. Stair (1992, p. 655),
however, in the discussion of this practice,
clearly points out the ethical problem pertaining to the use of
these technologies. According to him
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peoples' privacy in the workplace are threatened by these
devices. It can also lead to a feeling of fear and
of all ways being watched - the so-called panopticon
phenomenon.
� The interception and reading of E-mail messages. This poses
an ethical problem which relates to the
private communication of an individual. It is technically
possible to intercept E-mail messages, and the
reading thereof is normally justified by companies because they
firstly see the technology infrastructure
(E-mail) as a resource belonging to the company and not the
individual, and secondly messages are
intercepted to check on people to see whether they use the
facility for private reasons or to do their job.5
43. � The merging of databases which contains personal
information. This is also known as databanking
(Frocht & Thomas, 1994, p. 24). By this is meant the integration
of personal information from a variety of
databases into one central database. The problem here does not
in the first place arise from the integration
of the information as such. The main problems include the fact
that the individual is not aware of personal
information being integrated into a central database, that the
individual does not know the purpose/s for
which the integration is effected, or by whom or for whose
benefit the new database is constructed and
whether the information is accurate.6 In order to counter these
problems relating to privacy and the
merging of databases the American Congress passed the
Computer Matching and Privacy Protection Act
in the 1980s (Benjamin, 1991, p. 11).
� Closely related to the merging of files is the increasing use of
buying cards ("frequent-shopper cards")
by retail stores. Inside such a card a computer chip is buried
that records every item purchased along with
a variety of personal information of the buyer (Branscomb,
1995, p. 19). This information obtained from
the card enables marketing companies to do targeted marketing
to specific individuals because the buying
habits as well as other personal information of people are
known.
� Another major threat to privacy is the raise of so called
hackers and crackers which break into
computer systems (Benjamin, 1991, p. 7). This coincides with
the shift in ethical values and the
emergence of the cyberpunk culture with the motto of
"information wants to be free".
44. � The development of software that makes the decoding of
digital information (which can be private
information) virtually impossible also poses serious legal as
well as ethical questions because it can
protect criminals. A good example is the development of
software called Pretty Good Privacy by P
Zimmerman in 1991. According to an article in the IT Review
(1996, p. 22) he has developed the most
complex algorithm ever invented which makes the decoding of
digital information virtually impossible.
4.3. The Individual and Socio-economical Effect
The use of technology for the processing of personal and other
forms of private information has far reaching
effects on society. The following effects can be distinguished:
� On the individual level: The effect on the individual can be
summarized as a loss of dignity and
spontaneity, as well as a threat to freedom and the right to
privacy. In her research on the impact of
technology on the privacy of the individual, Rosenberg (1994,
p. 228) concluded that: "Technology
continuous to be viewed as a threat to privacy rather than a
possible solution". A survey that was
conducted in 1990 by Equifax (one of the three biggest credit
bureau companies in the USA) on the use of
technology and the threat to the privacy of people, found that
79% of the respondents indicated that they
were weary of the use of technology for the processing of their
personal information (Frocht & Thomas,
1994, p. 24).
� On the economic and social levels the biggest effect is the
growth of large information businesses like
credit bureau and telecommunication companies that specialize
45. in the processing and trade of person-
related information. This brings about a redefinition of the role
of society (big businesses) in the personal
and private lives of the individual (the use of personal
information as a commodity). It also becomes clear
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that the legislation (for example on E-mail) on the protection of
the privacy of the individual is falling
behind due to the rapidly changing world of technology.
5. THE RELEVANCE FOR THE INFORMATION
PROFESSIONAL
The above-mentioned has implications for the information
professional on at least three levels. Firstly, the
information professional works with all four categories of
personal and private information. Secondly, increasing
use is made of technology in the processing thereof. Lastly, a
new profession is emerging in the infopreneur
whose main line of business may be the buying and selling of
person-related and other private information.
5.1. The Main Ethical Issues
In the handling and processing of these different categories of
private and personal
information the information professional is confronted with the
following ethical issues:
46. � Deciding which categories of personal and private
information the information
professional is entitled to gather. This question is of utmost
importance to infopreneurs.
� The confidential treatment of such information. This issue
refers specifically to
information gained from the reference interview. According to
Froehlich (1994), Smith
(1994) and Shaver et al. (1985), the main ethical problems in
this regard (with specific
reference to online searching) are as follows: can personal
details, obtained from the
reference interview, be used for purposes other than for that
which it was specifically
gathered, is it ethically correct to re-use a search strategy
formulated for one user for
anther user?, is it appropriate to discuss the nature of a specific
query with other people?
� The accuracy of information. This issue is of specific
importance in cases where an
information professional is working with personal information
that can have a direct
influence on the life of a person. An example is the processing
of medical information.
� The purposes for which various categories of information
may be used. The question
here is whether an information professional may use any of
these four categories of
private information for any other reasons than the original
reason given for the gathering
thereof. Relating to this is the question whether the person must
be notified about the way
in which personal information is going to be used.
47. � The rights of a person in terms of the use and distribution of
one's personal and private
information. This ethical problem relates to the above-
mentioned questions and boils
down to the question of consent of the user in terms of the use
of personal information.
Related questions are as follows: does a user have the right to
verify any personal and
private information that is being held by an information
professional, and if so, what are
such person's rights regarding the correcting (in cases of the
incorrectness thereof) of
this information, and, does the person have the right to know
who is using that personal
and private information and for what purposes?
5.2. Applicable Ethical Norms
Applicable ethical norms which can act as guidelines as well as
instruments of measurement
must be formulated to address these ethical issues. The
following norms can be distinguished:
truth, freedom and human rights. They will be discussed briefly.
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� Truth. Truth as an ethical norm has a dual ethical application.
Firstly, it serves as norm
for the factual correctness of information. As a norm it thus
guides the information
48. professional regarding the accurate and factually correct
handling of private information.
In the second place truth is an expression of ethical virtues such
as openness, honesty
and trustworthiness.
� Freedom. According to this norm a person has the freedom to
make choices in terms of
freedom of privacy and freedom from intrusion. As norm,
however, it may not become
absolutized. Therefore the choice to privacy from intrusion may
not restrict the freedom
of others.
� Human rights. This norm is closely related to freedom, but
can be regarded as a more
concretely applicable norm. Applied to privacy it means the
juridical acknowledgment
and protection of a persons' right to privacy. As an individual
human right it also protects
the individual from unlawful interference from society (amongst
others the state) in the
private life of an individual.7
5.3. Ethical Guidelines for the Information Professional
Based on these norms, practical guidelines for the information
professional can be formulated. Before the
formulation of these guidelines, two fundamental aspects must
be taken into consideration, namely the
recognition of a persons' autonomy and freedom as well as the
fact that the legal guidelines on privacy do not
offer a complete framework for the ethical actions of the
information professional with regard to the handling of
personal and private information.
49. The concepts of autonomy and freedom has already been dealt
with. With regard to the juridical guidelines the
following comments can be made. Firstly, once a person's
private or personal information has been made known
publicly (disclaim of the implied intention) such information is
no longer, according to the law, viewed as
private. This implies that the information can legally be dealt
with as trade information. There is therefore (from
a juridical perspective) no ethical sensitivity for the autonomy
and freedom of the individual with regard to his
right to privacy. The second remark relates to the content of
legislation itself. As indicated, the immense growth
in and development of information technology give rise to the
fact that the legislators fall behind in the tabling
of appropriate legislation on the protection of personal privacy.
This is especially true in the South African
situation where there is, for example no legislation on the
protection of privacy to provide for information
handled via E-mail.
Bearing in mind these two aspects the following practical
guidelines can be given: (The appropriate norms are
also given)
� As an acknowledgment of the autonomy and freedom of the
individual the information professional
must act on the assumption that the client regards as
confidential all personal and private information that
is handled by the information professional. This implies that the
information professional acknowledges
the right of the client to control to a certain extent any personal
and private information8 - based on the
norm of freedom.
� The client must, on a regular basis have access to all private
and personal information that is held and
50. used by the information professional. The reason for this is to
provide the client the opportunity to verify
the accuracy of the information. It is then the responsibility of
the information professional to see to it that
the necessary corrections are made and again verified by the
client (Fouty, 1993, p. 290) - based on the
norms of freedom and human rights.
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� The merging of personal and other private information of an
individual into a different database than
the one for which it was originally collected must be done with
the necessary caution (Schattuck, 1995, p.
310). This is specifically applicable in situations where the
client is not aware of such merging or the
implications thereof. The appropriate action would not only be
to inform the client about such a merging
and the implications thereof, but also to give the client the right
of access to the information on the central
database, and the opportunity to change the information where
it is incorrect, and the right to know who is
using the information as well as the purpose of such use - based
on the norms of human rights, freedom
and truth.
� The information professional must notify the client explicitly
of the intended purposes9 of the use of all
personal and private information. This implies the client's
permission. Different avenues exist for seeking
such permission. Spinello (1995:122) prefers the method of
51. implicit informed consent. According to this
principle, companies (information professionals) that have
collected information about a person must
diligently inform that person about the various uses of the
information. Clients must then be given an
opportunity to consent to these uses or to withhold their
consent. The burden is on the client to respond,
and a lack of response implies consent. However, the client
must be granted the opportunity to withdraw
consent (Amidon, 1992:67) - based on the norms of freedom and
human rights.
� No unnecessary private information must be gathered. This is
not only for logistic reasons but also to
prevent the unnecessary violation or exposure of a person's
privacy - based on the norm of freedom.
� Personal and other private information that is no longer
necessary for the function for which it was
collected must be destroyed (Branscomb, 1995, p. 71) - based
on the norms of freedom and human rights.
� When the rendering of a specific service or product to a
person is refused on the grounds of personal
information (e.g. creditworthiness), the reason for this denial
must be made known to the person10 - based
on the norms of truth and human rights.
� A person's information must be handled with the necessary
confidentiality. This implies security and
control of access to the information, of the right to use it, as
well as the right to change or add any
information (Fouty, 1993:290) - based on the norms of freedom,
truth and human rights.
� A private policy must be formulated consisting of the
52. following elements: the categories of information
that must be regarded as private and personal, the levels of
confidentiality (e.g. who has access and use of
which information), a clear explanation of the purposes of the
use of the information, and the description
of the procedures to ensure the accuracy of this information -
based on the norms of freedom, truth and
human rights.
6. CONCLUSION
It can thus be concluded that the use of technology in the
processing of information, poses important questions
with regard to a person's right to privacy. This right is directly
linked to the right to freedom and human
autonomy.
These problems relate mainly to the accessibility of information
and the manipulation thereof. This is of specific
relevance to the information professional who deals with private
and personal information. Practical guidelines
in the handling of these problems can be formulated according
to the norms of freedom, truth and human rights.
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64-67.
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Baker, L. (1992). Needed: An ethical code for library
administrators. Journal of Library Administration, 16 (4):
1-17.
Benjamin, L.M. (1991). Privacy, computers and personal
information: Towards equality and equity in an
information age. Communications and the Law, 13 (2): 3-16.
Branscomb, A.W. (1994). Who Owns Information?: From
Privacy to Private Access. New York: Basic Books. A
division of Harper Collins Publishers.
Christians, C.G. (1991). Information ethics in a complicated
age. In Ethics and the Librarian. Proceedings of the
Allerton Park Institute, 29-31 October 1989, University of
Illinois, Graduate School of Library, edited by F.W.
Lancaster. Vol. 31. Also In Cochrane, J. (1991). Hell hound on
my trail. Ethics and librarianship. New Zealand
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Collier, G. (1994). Information privacy. Just how private are the
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Focht, K.T. & Thomas, D.S. (1994). Information compilation
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considerations. Information Management and Computer
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Fouty, K.G. (1993). Online patron records and privacy: Service
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Librarianship, 19 (5): 289-293.
Froehlich, T.J. (1994). Re-thinking ethical issues in an online
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Goode, J & Johnson, M. (1991). Putting out the flames: The
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I spy. Personal rights in the information age. (1996).
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Kluge, E.H.W. (1994). Health information, the fair information
principles and ethics. Methods of Information in
Medicine, 33: 336-345.
McGarry, K. (1993). The Changing Context of Information. An
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Neethling, J. (1991). Persoonlikheidsreg. Derde uitgawe.
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Neethling, J., Potgieter, J.M. & Visser, P.J. 1996. Neethling's
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4/20/2021 US v Europe - a cultural gap on the right to be
56. forgotten - BBC News
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US v Europe - a cultural gap on the right to be
forgotten
Rory Cellan-Jones
Technology correspondent
@BBCRoryCJ
15 May 2014 Comments
The reverberations from this week's landmark European Court
of
Justice ruling on the right to be forgotten continue to be felt.
Legions of lawyers are still trying to work out what it will mean
for the search
engines, and for millions of EU citizens who may want to force
them to remove
links to their past online lives. And the cultural divide between
Europe and the US
appears wider than ever, with two very different views of how
we should live our
lives online.
On the one hand there is what you might call the web utopian
view, held by the
US internet giants and some in Europe who look to Silicon
Valley for inspiration.
This sees the ECJ ruling as unworkable, illiberal and just out of
touch.
The Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, who divides his time
57. between London and
the US, explains to me why something like it could never
happen across the
Atlantic because of the constitutional guarantee of free speech:
"This is not a
ALAMY
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debate the United States is even capable of entering into. You'd
have to repeal
the First Amendment - and that's like a religious artefact - so
that's never going to
happen."
He tells me this is not necessarily a new cultural gap but one
that is being made
evident for the first time. "In the past if you were in Germany
you were never
worried that some encyclopedia website based in the United
States was going to
name you as a murderer after you got out of jail because that
was inconceivable.
Today that can happen, so the cultural gap that was always there
about the
regulation of speech is becoming more visible."
58. But in Europe many politicians and regulators and some -
though by no means all
- privacy campaigners have welcomed the ruling. Mr Wales'
point about local laws
- which used to mean old convictions simply disappeared from
the record after a
certain time - is one of the reasons for that support.
Europeans who have been told that the internet is basically
ungovernable - and if
it does have guiding principles then they come from the land of
the free - are
expressing some satisfaction that court has refused to believe
that.
Max Mosley, who has fought privacy battles with tabloid
newspapers and Google
over pictures of a sadomasochistic orgy, expresses particular
satisfaction that the
European Court decided the search firm was subject to local
laws. When I talked
to him as he emerged from a radio studio he was also exercised
about the
rehabilitation of offenders: "A principle accepted in most
civilised countries. The
internet shouldn't regurgitate things for ever."
And he refuses to accept the idea that the online world just
cannot be regulated.
"The internet is so new that the law hasn't caught up with it but
eventually it'll be
ADVERTISEMENT
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regulated like every other aspect of society and that's quite
right."
So a battle between two views of freedom - the US belief that
free speech trumps
everything, and the European view that individuals should have
some control over
what the world knows about them. But there is something else
in play here, a
growing unease about the power wielded by what are nearly
always US web
giants over our lives.
Mario Costeja Gonzalez, the man who prompted this week's EU
ruling against Google
Google, Facebook, Twitter and other firms that store and use
vast banks of data
about Europeans have all sought to deny responsibility for how
people use and
share that information. They also maintain that they are not
media firms - which in
Europe face strict regulation - but mere technology platforms
enabling better
communication. In Google's case that stance has come to bite it.
Media firms like the Spanish newspaper site at the heart of this
test case, haven't
been told to remove content. It is the "data controllers" - the
search engines -
60. which are in the court's sights.
Now there are obvious questions about the practicality of
getting Google to decide
which of billions of links to millions of European names should
or should not be
removed. The temptation for the company will be to
automatically agree to all
requests, rather than to set up a vast quasi-judicial bureaucracy
to decide what is
justified and what is not, and that could have a chilling effect
on free expression.
But European web users, who have been told for so long that
companies based in
Silicon Valley cannot be told what to do in the UK or France or
Germany, may feel
REUTERS
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a smidgen of satisfaction about the howls of outrage coming
from across the
Atlantic.
4/20/2021 FDA medical device plan zeros in on cybersecurity,
public-private partnership | Healthcare IT News
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plan-zeros-cybersecurity-public-private-partnership 1/3
Medical Devices
FDA medical device plan zeros in
on cybersecurity, public-private
partnership
The agency released a five-point plan outlining regulatory
changes to
bolster medical device safety, including requiring manufacturers
ensure devices can be updated and patched.
By Jessica Davis April 18, 2018 04:23 PM
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topic/medical-devices
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/fda-medical-device-
plan-zeros-cybersecurity-public-private-partnership 2/3
The Food and Drug Administration released its plan to improve
medical device safety, which
includes a reorganization of its medical device center and a
Congressional plan to launch a
62. public-private partnership focused on cybersecurity.
The five-point plan released Tuesday outlines a plan to
consolidate offices within its device
center, which oversees pre- and post-market activities.
As part of the plan, the FDA will require manufacturers to
ensure medical devices are capable of
being updated and receiving security patches. FDA
Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD, also said
the agency is contemplating forcing manufacturers to publicly
disclose known cybersecurity
issues.
[Also: California medical device manufacturer reports breach of
30,000 consumers]
The FDA also is exploring regulatory options to expedite
labeling changes and other features,
including timely implementation of post-market changes. The
current system on making those
changes is voluntary, even when safety issues arise.
“Although medical devices provide great benefits to patients,
they also present risks,” Gottlieb
said in a statement. “And we are focusing equal attention on
advancing new frameworks for
identifying risks and protecting consumers.”
63. “Our aim is to ensure not only that devices meet the gold
standard for getting to market, but also
that they continue to meet this standard as we get more data
about devices and learn more
about their benefit-risk profile in real-world clinical settings,”
he added.
https://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnounceme
nts/ucm604672.htm
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/california-medical-
device-manufacturer-reports-breach-30000-consumers
4/20/2021 FDA medical device plan zeros in on cybersecurity,
public-private partnership | Healthcare IT News
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/fda-medical-device-
plan-zeros-cybersecurity-public-private-partnership 3/3
The agency also is looking into a requirement of additional
training or education of providers to
ensure the safety and effectiveness of complex devices. Gottlieb
said the FDA also is looking
into ways to support developers pursuing safer devices,
including a faster review of those
devices with vastly improved safety features.
While the FDA has a breakthrough device program, those
devices currently can be reviewed
64. under that program.
Gottlieb also outlined plans for a public-private partnership,
CyberMed Safety (expert) Analysis
Board, which complements its existing device vulnerability
coordination and response efforts.
The group, made up of a wide range of experts from clinicians
to biomedical engineers, also will
support device manufacturers and FDA on safety issues, such as
high-risk vulnerabilities and
adjudicating disputes.
Funding for CYMSAB will be included in the agency’s
requested $70 million for Fiscal Year 2019
for its digital health technology advancements.
Twitter: @JessieFDavis
Email the writer: [email protected]
Topics:
Compliance & Legal, Government & Policy, Medical
Devices, Privacy & Security, Quality and
Safety
More regional news
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topic/quality-safety
4/20/2021 Equifax Breach Exposed More Consumer Data Than
First Disclosed
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Equifax Breach Exposed More Consumer Data Than
First Disclosed
February 13, 2018
Article 3 Comments
The Equifax data breach exposed more of consumers’ personal
information than the company first
disclosed last year, according to documents given to lawmakers.
The credit reporting company announced in September that the
personal information of 145.5 million
consumers had been compromised in a data breach. It originally
said that the information accessed
included names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses
and — in some cases — driver’s
license numbers and credit card numbers. It also said some
consumers’ credit card numbers were
among the information exposed, as well as the personal
66. information from thousands of dispute
documents.
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67. First Disclosed
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0357.htm 2/3
However, Atlanta-based Equifax Inc. recently disclosed in a
document submitted to the Senate
Banking Committee, that a forensic investigation found
criminals accessed other information from
company records. According to the document, provided to The
Associated Press by Sen. Elizabeth
Warren’s office, that included tax identification numbers, email
addresses and phone numbers. Finer
details, such as the expiration dates for credit cards or issuing
states for driver’s licenses, were also
included in the list.
The additional insight into the massive breach was first reported
by the Wall Street Journal.
Equifax’s disclosure, which it has not made directly to
consumers, underscores the depth of detail the
company keeps on individuals that it may have put at risk. And
it adds to the string of missteps the
company has made in recovering from the security debacle.
Equifax spokeswoman Meredith Griffanti said that “in no way
did we intend to mislead consumers.”
The company last year disclosed only the information that
affected the greatest number of consumers
and wanted to “act with the greatest clarity” in terms of the
information provided the committee, she
said.
Griffanti also said that while the list provided to the committee
includes all the potential data points that
68. may have been accessed by criminals, those elements impacted
a minimal portion of consumers. And
some data _ like passport numbers _ were not stolen. The
company reiterated that the total number of
consumers affected is unchanged.
“When you are making that kind of announcement, where do
you draw the line? If you saw the list we
provided the banking finance committee it was pretty
exhaustive,” Griffanti said. “We wanted to show
them that no stone was left unturned.”
But to consumers whose information was exposed, it may feel
like yet another slap in the face.
Equifax waited months to disclose the hack. After it did,
anxious consumers experienced jammed
phone lines and uninformed company representatives. An
Equifax website set up to help people
determine their exposure was described as sketchy by security
experts and provided inconsistent and
unhelpful information to many. The company blamed the online
customer help page’s problems on a
vendor’s software code after it appeared that it had been hacked
as well.
4/20/2021 Equifax Breach Exposed More Consumer Data Than
First Disclosed
https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2018/02/13/48
0357.htm 3/3
Equifax has tried to make changes, replacing its CEO, as well as
spending millions to research and
69. rectify the breach. In January, it launched a service that allows
consumers to lock and unlock their
credit report. But a test of the site by The New York Times
found it unusable in many ways. The
company said this experience was an exception and it has made
some key changes to the service
since it first launched.
The company continues to deal with multiple regulatory
investigations into the matter as well as
hundreds consumer lawsuits. Warren, D-Mass., released a report
on the hack Wednesday that
described it as “one of the largest and most significant data
security lapses in history.”
Related:
Treasury to Look Into Consumer Financial Bureau’s Handling
of Equifax Breach
Equifax, Wells Fargo May Still Face Class Actions Despite
Wall Street Arbitration Win
FTC, Congress, States Investigating Equifax Over Data Breach
Is Equifax’s Cyber Insurance Enough to Cover Breach?
Equifax Breach Exposed Credit Data of 143 Million U.S.
Consumers
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3716.htm
The Washington Post
Washington Post Live
The ethics of Hacking 101
By Ellen Nakashima and
Ashkan Soltani
October 7, 2014
At the University of Tulsa, professor Sujeet Shenoi is teaching
students how to hack into oil pipelines and
electric power plants.
At Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, professor David
Brumley is instructing students on how to write
software to break into computer networks.
And George Hotz, a largely self-taught hacker who became a
millionaire in part by finding flaws in Apple and
other computer systems, is now back in school, where he’s one
of the stars on Carnegie Mellon’s competitive
hacking team.
71. Cybersecurity: A Special Report
Shenoi, Brumley and Hotz are players in a controversial area of
technology: the teaching and practice of what
is loosely called “cyberoffense.” In a world in which
businesses, the military and governments rely on
computer systems that are potentially vulnerable, having the
ability to break into those systems provides a
strategic advantage.
Unsurprisingly, ethics is a big issue in this field. Both
professors say they build an ethics component into their
curriculum; Shenoi won’t even accept students who don’t
promise to work, if hired, for the National Security
Agency, the Energy Department or another U.S. government
agency.
But some experts say the academic community is not taking
ethics seriously enough, and professors are not
accepting responsibility for the potentially dangerous skills they
are teaching.
The very nature of hacking means that a lot of its skills and
standards evolve outside academia. (Hotz, known
in tech circles by the handle “geohot,” says he learned most of
what he knows on the Internet “and from
playing with things.”) This leads advocates of teaching
cyberoffense to say that the “good guys” have to keep
72. up — which in turn raises more questions about whether such
education is morally right.
“There’s a very large stigma around saying we do anything
offense-related,” said Tyler Nighswander, 23, a
computer science graduate student at Carnegie Mellon. “It’s
certainly understandable that you don’t want to
say your school teaches offense — ‘Oh, you mean you teach
kids how to break into computers and steal
stuff?’ ”
http://washingtonpostlive.com/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/ellen-nakashima/
http://www.utulsa.edu/cybercorps
http://users.ece.cmu.edu/~dbrumley/index.html
http://www.geohot.com/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/post-
live/collection/cybersecurity-special-report/
Some academics note that it may be too late to stop the
worldwide expansion of offensive cyber tools and
techniques.
“There is an escalating arms race in cyberspace as governments,
companies and malicious actors are all going
on the offensive, most of it under a shroud of secrecy and
absent any meaningful political oversight,” said Ron
Deibert, director of the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab.
73. Seeking ‘vulnerabilities’
No more than a handful of professors have the knowledge and
resources to teach cyberattack skills at the level
of Brumley or Shenoi, whose students are heavily recruited for
government and industry positions.
At Tulsa, Shenoi, 54, obtains permission from energy
companies for his students to attempt to hack into
them, infiltrating the systems that run gas pipelines or power
grids and gaining access to critical U.S.
infrastructure. They also do penetration testing for other
companies, finding “vulnerabilities,” or flaws, that
enemy hackers could exploit.
“We have a class where we teach people how to write things
like Stuxnet,” Shenoi said, referring to a
computer worm, reportedly developed by U.S. and Israeli
scientists, that was found in 2010 and damaged
about 1,000 centrifuges in an Iranian uranium-enrichment plant,
delaying the country’s nuclear program.
Stuxnet, whose deployment is often considered the first true use
of a cyberweapon, was built around an
unprecedented four “zero-day exploits” — that is, attack tools
based on previously unknown software flaws.
Shenoi began teaching courses on offensive computer
74. techniques in 1999, he said, and by 2008, Tulsa was
offering an entire program. Now, he said, there are “four
courses in reverse engineering, two in cyber
operations, two in offensive SCADA [supervisory control and
data acquisition], and one on malware analysis
and creation.”
Shenoi said that the potential power of offensive cyber
techniques is so great that he accepts only students
who intend to work for the government and who have records
that would qualify them for government
security clearances. He interviews all the applicants as well as
their parents. He sends 15 to 20 students a
year, he said, to work at the NSA or the CIA.
“In order for me to teach these real-world attack skills, these
students have to be trusted,” he said. “They
cannot go to work for the private sector.
“There’s no reason to teach private-sector people how to use
Stinger missiles,” he continued. Similarly, he
said, you don’t teach them to use cyber weapons.
Brumley, 39, has taught offensive cyber skills since 2009. A
self-described “patriot,” he says he discusses
ethics in his classes at Carnegie Mellon — an introductory
computer security course as well as more advanced
75. vulnerability analysis, in which students learn techniques for
breaking through computer defenses. Some of
https://www.sfs.opm.gov/
http://www.wired.com/2011/07/how-digital-detectives-
deciphered-stuxnet/
http://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/security/the-real-story-of-
stuxnet
Brumley’s students work for the government, but most go to
start-ups, big companies such as Google or
defense contractors.
To develop their skills, Brumley encourages his students to
compete in hacking contests. In August, a
recreational team he advises called PPP, made up of about 20
current and former Carnegie Mellon students,
won the ultimate U.S. showcase of hacking skills at the DefCon
hacking conference in Las Vegas — a “capture-
the-flag” competition in which 20 teams tried to break into one
another’s computers.
PPP’s top gun is Hotz, who gained fame in 2007 for
“jailbreaking” the previously impenetrable iPhone. He left
Carnegie Mellon as a 23-year-old sophomore to work on his
own, and is now back as a junior at 25. Hotz is so
skilled that he has won some contests solo — as in July, when
he beat nine teams to win $30,000 at the
76. SecuInside competition in Seoul. He earned $200,000 in April
for finding bugs in Google’s Chromebook
computer and the Firefox browser. Brumley calls him “a
machine.” Hotz boasts that he is “maybe the best
hacker in the world.”
A question of profit
Obviously, these students are developing valuable skills. Shenoi
says his students never make money off the
vulnerabilities they discover or exploits they develop. They give
the information for free to the companies
whose systems they are testing, or to the government.
Intelligence agency officials fly every so often to Tulsa
to be briefed on the flaws the students have found.
Brumley agrees that it is dangerous to share vulnerabilities or
exploits with anyone but the software vendor or
the U.S. government.
“If you’re selling exploits in a free market,” he said, “then
you’re potentially selling them to the adversary.”
Nighswander, a former student of Brumley’s, said that he has
never sold a vulnerability to a software vendor,
but that he thinks it’s ethical to do so, saying, “When you think
that finding a vulnerability can take weeks and
77. months, you can understand that the person wants to get
compensated.”
Hotz declined to say whether he has sold an exploit (although
he was caught last year on a surreptitiously
recorded conversation appearing to broker a $350,000 deal to
sell exploits to jailbreak the iPhone to a
Chinese company).
“I have never worked with any country aside from the U.S.,” he
said. He says he doesn’t dwell on issues of
morality, saying, “I’m not big on ethics.”
Brian Pak, 25, who created the PPP hacking team while
studying under Brumley and now works for a start-up
he cofounded, said that sometimes,
noodling around on his own, he finds bugs in software and
discloses them to the software vendor. He said he
has never sold information about flaws, although some vendors
offer “bounties” of up to several thousand
https://www.defcon.org/
http://www.iclarified.com/37008/leaked-audio-tape-of-geohot-
negotiating-sale-of-ios-7-jailbreak-listen
dollars. He holds onto some vulnerabilities for use in research
— a practice common among security
researchers, he said.
78. “I also don’t think it’s unethical to provide vulnerabilities or
exploits to the U.S. government,” Pak said. “I
trust the U.S. government. The government protects me. As long
as it’s not used against our own people, I see
less of an issue.”
But some experts disapprove of providing previously unknown
or “zero day” vulnerabilities to the
government — whether for free or for profit. They worry that,
rather than disclosing these zero days to
vendors, the government is stockpiling them for use against
adversaries. Doing so would leave the software
vendors ignorant of dangerous flaws in their products, making
the Internet less secure, they say. They also
charge that the government is using these tools with far too
little public debate, for example, in the
controversial area of domestic law enforcement.
Christopher Soghoian, chief technologist for the American Civil
Liberties Union, said the government should
have a policy of promptly disclosing any bugs it discovers so
that software companies such as Microsoft can
fix them before they cause damage. Not doing so can undermine
network security, he said.
But Brumley said such a blanket policy would be unwise.
79. “The obvious example is Stuxnet,” which destroyed Iranian
centrifuges, he said. That, he said, was “an
opportunity to use an exploit for good.”
“Twenty years earlier, that would be the thing that we flew in
bombers and bombed factories for, and people
would die,” he said.
Dual-use tools
Selling exploits and vulnerabilities is not illegal, per se, but
selling them with the intent that they’ll be used to
hack someone else’s computer is a crime. Software is a classic
“dual use” product. It can be used to do
something as innocuous as unlock an iPhone to allow consumers
to switch providers or as destructive as
causing an adversary’s nuclear centrifuges to spin out of
control.
Some academics say the teaching of hacking techniques should
remain limited.
“I’m personally against the widespread or wholesale teaching of
offensive cyber,” said Arthur Conklin,
associate professor of information and logistics technology at
the University of Houston. For one thing, he
said, vetting students for trustworthiness, as Shenoi does, would
be impractical on a mass scale.
80. Giovanni Vigna, a computer science professor at the University
of California at Santa Barbara, warned that
not teaching offensive skills is “not a very smart option because
the bad guys are going to develop them
http://www.cs.ucsb.edu/~vigna/
anyway.” He added, “The key is to make the students
understand what are the lines that cannot be crossed.”
So he integrates into his courses on offensive cyber “a very
substantial chapter on ethical issues.”
Some experts argue that the government should regulate the sale
and use of offensive cyber technology — but
others, including Shenoi, say regulation will only drive the
market for such products deeper underground. At
this point, the U.S. government is in the process of placing
export controls on some hacking and surveillance
tools. It already has forbidden the sale of such technologies to
countries with particularly egregious human
rights records, such as Sudan and Iran.
Meanwhile, interest in offensive cyber skills is growing.
Experts estimate that several thousand personnel in
private industry work at finding bugs and building exploits.
More companies are training employees in
81. offensive skills, and more people are competing in hacking
competitions.
In this context, Soghoian of the ACLU fears that universities
are teaching students high-end skills without a
solid ethical foundation.
“The academic computer security community has not yet
realized the role they are playing in cyberwar,” he
said.
Shenoi said that, above all, he wants to impress upon his
students the responsibilities that come with their
technological prowess.
“They have great power to do harm. They have power to
intimidate. They have power to accrue money
illegally,” he said. “What I tell them is, ‘You may be learning
some potentially deadly skills. But use them
gently and wisely, and use them for the good of society.’ ”
Related:
Key to keeping cyberspace safe? International accord.
With mobile devices, many firms are playing Russian roulette
with cybersecurity
What top government and business officials are saying about
cybersecurity
82. Ellen Nakashima
Ellen Nakashima is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter
covering intelligence and national security matters for The
Washington Post. She joined The Post in 1995 and is based in
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Democracy Dies in Darkness
California is on the verge of passing a sweeping new
83. online privacy law targeting Facebook, Google and
other tech giants
By
June 27, 2018 at 4:07 p.m. EDT
California is hurtling toward the adoption of a new online
privacy law that would govern how tech giants like Amazon,
Facebook, Google and Uber collect and monetize consumers'
personal data – a set of changes that could ripple
throughout the country.
The Golden State legislature is due to vote Thursday on the
California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, which would
require tech companies to disclose the categories of data they
collect about consumers as well as the third-party
entities, like advertisers, with whom they share that
information. Web users would also gain the ability to opt out of
having their data sold, and companies wouldn’t be allowed to
charge users a fee or provide them less service if they
made that choice.
And the proposal comes with some teeth: California’s attorney
general would be empowered to fine companies that fail
to secure consumers' sensitive details against cyber threats.
If it passes, California’s proposed privacy rules would apply to
only its citizens. But it still could force companies like
84. Facebook and Google to change some of their practices across
the country, given the difficulty in maintaining two sets
of privacy protections – one in California, the most populous
state in the country, and a second for everyone else. Many
tech giants in Silicon Valley took precisely that approach in
May, adapting their data-collection practices worldwide
when Europe began implementing its own strict privacy rules.
California’s new regulations also could add to the pressure on
other regulators, including federal lawmakers in
Congress, to follow suit and adopt fresh data-collection
protections, responding to web users who have grown furious
with a series of recent privacy mishaps, particularly at
Facebook.
"These corporations make billions of dollars selling people's
privacy without people having any visibility into what
they're doing," said Alastair Mactaggart, a real-estate developer
and driving force behind California’s new privacy
push.
State policymakers have moved at an unprecedented pace to
introduce tweak and advance the bill all in a matter of
Tony Romm
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill
_id=201720180AB375
https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/tony-romm/
85. State policymakers have moved at an unprecedented pace to
introduce, tweak and advance the bill -- all in a matter of
days -- as they seek to avoid a November ballot initiative
spearheaded by Mactaggart that would impose even tougher
privacy rules on the tech industry. It would have allowed local
consumers, for example, to sue companies in almost any
case where their privacy or security had been compromised.
The ballot initiative had garnered more than 600,000 signatures,
almost double what it needed to qualify for
consideration in the upcoming election. But Mactaggart
announced this week he would withdraw his measure if
lawmakers passed a compromise bill by California’s June 28
deadline for finalizing ballot propositions, setting up a
last-minute blitz in the state’s Assembly and Senate after years
of slow progress on privacy reform.
Major technology companies like Amazon, Facebook, Google
and Twitter had strongly opposed the ballot measure,
chiefly through their lobbying group, the Internet Association.
Tech giants like Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Uber,
and Internet providers like AT&T and Verizon, also donated
$200,000 each to a California coalition assembled in
March to defeat it, according to local campaign finance records,
though Facebook has maintained it is not actively
86. fighting the ballot initiative.
Two of those companies, Facebook and Uber, have been the
subjects of recent federal investigations into their privacy
and data security practices. AT&T and Verizon, meanwhile,
lobbied last year to defeat federal rules governing the way
they handle customers' web-browsing information.
But some tech companies have come to stomach the compromise
bill now advancing in the legislature, believing that
even if it does become law they can train their political
firepower on trying to change it before it takes effect on Jan. 1,
2020. Robert Callahan, the vice president of state government
affairs at the Internet Association, said the group
opposes “many problematic provisions” in the bill and the
“unprecedented lack of debate or full legislative process.”
But he stressed that the “Internet industry will not obstruct or
block [the measure] from moving forward, because it
prevents the even worse ballot initiative from becoming law in
California.”
In the past, California’s regulations have spurred other states –
and even the federal government – to adopt laws in
areas as wide ranging as email spam and climate change. This
time, privacy experts hope Congress steps in to do the
same in response to major privacy mishaps, including