CS310L Yoshii – Week 14A (Notes-14A) Handling Situations

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Some content borrowed from Slides provided by Pearson –
Ethics for the Information Age, and Pearson – Gift of Fire.
Distribution of this material is prohibited by copyright.
Quinn Chapter 9; Baase Chapter 9
TOPIC:
• Honesty is one of the most fundamental ethical values
• Many ethical problems are more subtle than the choice
of being honest or dishonest
• Some ethical issues are controversial
How do you handle difficult situations?

Whistle-Blowing
• Whistle-blower
o Tries to report harmful situation through authorized
channels
o Rebuffed by organization =>
Makes disclosure through unauthorized channels
• Whistle-blowers punished for their actions
o Lose job or all chances of advancement
o Financial and emotional hardship
• Relevant Laws:
• False Claims Act
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_Claims_Act#Provisio
ns
For defrauding government programs.
• Whistleblower Protection Act
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Whistleblower_Protection_Act#Authorized_federal_agen
cies
for protecting government employees
 protects federal whistleblowers who work for the government and report the
possible existence of an activity constituting a violation of law, rules, or
regulations, or mismanagement, gross waste of funds, abuse of authority or a
substantial and specific danger to public health and safety. A federal agency
violates the Whistleblower Protection Act if agency authorities take (or threaten to
take) retaliatory personnel action against any employee or applicant because of
disclosure of information by that employee or applicant. [1]
• Whistleblower Protections by Dept of Labor
https://www.dol.gov/general/topics/whistleblower
An employer cannot retaliate against you for exercising your
rights under the Department of Labor’s whistleblower protection
laws. Retaliation includes such actions as firing or laying off,
demoting, denying overtime or promotion, or reducing pay or
hours.

Case: Morton Thiokol/NASA: Challenger explosion

• Roger Boisjoly and Morton Thiokol engineers documented
dangers of low-temperature launches
• Morton Thiokol executives and NASA officials overrode
and hid concerns
• Boisjoly shared information with Presidential commission
• Morton Thiokol retaliated
• Boisjoly took medical leave for stress, then quit
• Found job as a consultant two years later

Case: Hughes Aircraft

• Factory for military-grade hybrid chips
• Some defective chips being approved
• Ruth Goodearl reported incidents to upper management
• Consequences for Goodearl
o Harassed
o Fired
o Unemployment
o Bankruptcy
o Divorce
• Goodearl and Ruth Aldred sued Hughes Aircraft under
 False Claims Act and won

Corporate Response to Whistle-Blowing

• Whistle-blowers are disloyal
• Whistle-blowing has many harms
o Bad publicity
o Disruption of organization’s social fabric
o Makes it hard for people to work as team

Philosopher Richard DeGeorge’s questions for whistle-blowing:

1. Is serious harm to the public at stake?
2. Have you told your manager?
3. Have you tried every possible inside channel?
4. Do you have persuasive documented evidence?
5. Are you sure whistle-blowing will work?

Let’s see some cases to see how code of ethics applies…

Case: Software Recommendation

• Sam Shaw asks for free advice on LAN security
• Prof. Smith answers questions and recommends top-
ranked package
• Prof. Smith does not disclose …
o She has financial interest in company producing top-
ranked package
o Another package was given a “best buy” rating
• Did Prof. Smith do anything wrong?
• Most relevant principles:
o Be impartial.
o Disclose information others ought to know.
o Share your knowledge, expertise, and values.
• ACM Clauses:
o 1.06: Prof. Smith was deceptive
o 1.08, 6.02: Prof. Smith freely gave valuable
 information
o 4.05, 6.05: Prof. Smith did not reveal conflict of
interest
• Conclusion:
Professor Smith should have revealed her conflict of
interest to Mr. Shaw.

Case: Child Pornography

• Joe Green a system administrator
• Asked to install new software package on Chuck Dennis’s
computer
• Green not authorized to read other people’s emails or
personal files
• Green sees suspicious-looking file names
• He opens some of Dennis’s files and discovers child
pornography
• What should he do?
• Most relevant principles:
o Be impartial
o Respect the rights of others
o Treat others justly
o Maintain your integrity
• ACM Clauses:
o 2.03: Somebody has misused the company PC
o 2.09: Someone is using the PC for a purpose not in
the employer’s interest
o 3.13: Joe violated the policy against opening files
o 5.10: Someone else may have planted the files on
Chuck’s computer
• Conclusion:
o Joe was wrong to violate company policy to uncover
child pornography
o Once he has this knowledge, however, he is obliged
to share it with company authorities
 o Joe should be discreet

Case: Anti-Worm
• Internet plagued by new worm that exploits hole in popular
operating system
• Tim Smart creates anti-worm that exploits same security
hole
• Tim’s anti-worm fixes PCs it infects. It also uses these PCs
as launch pad to reach new PCs.
• Tim launches anti-worm, taking pains to keep it from being
traced back to him.
• The anti-worm quickly spreads through Internet, infecting
millions of computers
• System administrators around the world combat the anti-
worm
• Did Tim do something wrong?
• Most relevant principles
o Continually improve your abilities.
o Share your knowledge, expertise, and values.
o Respect the rights of others.
o Take responsibility for your actions and inactions.
• ACM Clauses:
o 1.01: Tim did not accept responsibility for his action.
o 1.08: The worm was free, but cost system
administrators a lot of time.
o 2.03: The anti-worm entered computers without
permission of their owners.
o 8.01, 8.02, 8.06: Tim improved his knowledge and
skills by creating the anti-worm.
• Conclusion:
o By attempting to hide his identity, Tim refused to
accept responsibility for his actions
o Tim violated the property rights of the PC owners
whose systems were infected by his anti-worm
Case: Consulting Opportunity
• John works in support organization for Acme Corporation
• Many Acme customers downgrading their level of support
• East Dakota gives John opportunity to run a training class
similar to that provided by Acme
• John tells no one at Acme
• John develops materials at home on own time
• John takes paid vacation to teach class
• Did he do something wrong?
• Most relevant principles:
o Be impartial.
o Take responsibility for your actions and inactions.
o Disclose information that others ought to know.
o Maintain your integrity.
o Continually improve your abilities.
• ACM Clauses:
o 3.04: John was well qualified to develop materials and
teach class
o 8.04: By creating materials, John became even more
familiar with Acme’s package and its capabilities
o 4.05: John didn’t disclose his conflict of interest with
his employer
• 2.08: John deprived himself of “time off” needed to
do his best work at Acme
• 6.05: John put his own interest above that of his
employer
• Conclusion:
• John did not disclose East Dakota’s offer or his
decision to Acme’s management
• Acme’s management is likely to question John’s
loyalty to the company
• John’s actions were wrong and unwise
Preparation for HW and Future Weeks: (do these now to be
ready to submit HW)

Find 2 famous whistle blower cases and the outcomes.

Exercise 14A [5pts] INDIVIDUAL

For you, what is the most important code in the ACM code of
ethics and why?
We have looked at many different impacts of computing.
Whatever you develop as a CS person will affect
1. freedom of speech – restrict it or allow too much
2. intellectual property violations – make it easy to copy
3. privacy – make it easy to collect info or do surveillance
4. security and safety – could kill or harm people financially
5. workplaces – remote work? Loss of jobs?
6. globalization – allow offshoring, foreign workers
7. digital divide – widen Haves and Have Nots
8. education – online learning?
9. environment – sustainable?
10.The way people live in general – even harm health

Of course, it is often not up to you to decide what you develop.

Do you have the courage to say to the employer that you will not
do so-and-so?

Which of the 10 effects, are you most concerned about? Why?

Submit a short write-up to Canvas. Due by 11:59pm

Name: Christiansen Dimalanta

Code and why?

Act Consistently with Public Interest
When it comes to seriousness, no code in programming is
perfect. With that being said, people can either be seriously
injured or killed. For example, Tesla’s had a few incidents before
where the self navigation has killed several drivers, or medical
devices failing to save a life. That is why this code resonates
with me more. We have the power to prevent more incidents
from happening and is why we need to be proactive on bugs that
could potentially put lives at risk.

Impact and why

Freedom of speech and security/safety

I’m more concerned with these two. Both seem to be tied very
closely to each other. With things such as the internet (social
media specifically), people who make unmoral decisions could
use meta data to track people of their location, sensitive
information and use them for their own selfish uses (fraud, theft
of money and identity, and invasion of privacy. Sometimes, we
never really know who is watching us through the cameras or
even hidden mics.