ITM2204

COMPUTER ETHICS

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION TO
COMPUTER ETHICS
Slides prepared by Zuriani Hayati binti Abdullah
 objectives

 To have an overview of computing milestones
 To have a glance of the new developments and dramatic impacts
 To study on the issues arises from the rapid changes of the technology
development

MILESTONES IN COMPUTING
Manual Calculating


Erasable clay Ancient tablet Ancient abacus

 Adding and subtracting are very old as it started thousand of years ago.
 Tablets, erasable clay and abacus are the ancient “gadget” used in manual calculating
aids.
MILESTONES IN COMPUTING
Manual Calculating cont…

 Mathematical tables was also an important manual calculating aids in
the past time.
 Great breakthrough when logarithms tables was published in early
seventeenth century by John Napier and Johannes Kepler.

Logarithms table
MILESTONES IN COMPUTING
Mechanical Calculators

 Blaise Pascal constructed a mechanical calculators in 1640, that was capable of
adding whole numbers containing up to six digits.
 Frenchman Charles Thomas de Colmar created Arithmometer in the nineteenth
century. Arithmometer was the first commercially successful calculators.
 George Scheutz and Edward had developed the world’s first printing calculator that
was used by astronomers to compute the motion of Mars and refraction of starlight.

Bookkeepers using Comptometer

calculator
MILESTONES IN COMPUTING
Cash Register

 Created printed , itemized receipts for customers, maintained printed
logs of transactions, and performed accounting functions that capable
of recording detailed sales.

National Cash Register in 1904

MILESTONES IN COMPUTING
Punched Card Tabulation

 Information recorded on punched cards. It can be sorted into groups,
which allows computation of subtotals by categories.
 Punched card was an initiative to the invention of the commercial
computers.
MILESTONES IN COMPUTING
Evolution of Commercial Computers


Programmers connecting wires to ENIAC

 ENIAC was the first electronic computer invented mainly to support in
US military purposes.
 UNIVAC was the first commercial digital computer created and used by
the US government agencies.
MILESTONES IN COMPUTING
Evolution of Commercial Computers cont…

 Mainframe computers are large computers designed to serve data
processing needs of large businesses.
 Microprocessor made it possible to integrate computer into everyday
devices and the world’s first microprocessor was Intel 4004.
 Personal computer
 Altair 8800 was the first personal computer in 1970s.
 Apple I computer was the first personal computer supported keyboard
input and television monitor output.
 IBM PC provide DOS operating system in 1980.
Change and unexpected development

No one of you today would manually write your 60 pages of assignments,
cutting materials from newspaper or magazine to be put in…but peoples
preceded you had did this for so long ago.

OR
 Change and unexpected development

No one would design a large building today without using computers…
but the Great Giza Pyramid, the Great Wall of China and Taj Mahal did
not wait for computers.
 Change and unexpected development
Cellphones


 1990s – only few peoples had cellphones, usually used by the business and sales
peoples who are often worked outside the office.
 2007 – Apple company introduced iPhone smartphones.
 A few years later, peoples around the globe uses phones rather than PCs or
laptops
 2011 – approximately 5 billion cellphones subscriptions worldwide
 Now become a common tool for conversation, messaging, taking pictures,
downloading music, checking email, playing games and etc.
 In spite of the benefit, there are a lot of issues arises from the widespread used of
cellphone technology. Can you think of that?
 Change and unexpected development
Social Networking

 1995 - First online social networking site was www.classmates.com
 2003 - Myspace founded and had roughly 100 million member profiles
by 2006
 Facebook was started at Harvard as an online version of student
directories
 Change and unexpected development
Emails

 1980s- messages was very short and only text was used mostly by
computer scientist.
 After some times, when more peoples and businesses connected to
business, email usage was expanded to millions of peoples.

World Wide Web

 1990 – WWW started to established in Europe when researches sharing
their work.
 Late 1990s – Web browsers and search engines widely used.
 Change and unexpected development
Blogs (Word made up from ‘web log’)

 Began as outlets for amateurs who want to express ideas or creativity
 Appealing because present personal views, are funny and creative, and
present a quirky perspective on current events
 Now used as alternatives to mainstream news and for business public
relations
 Popular blogs have 100,000 to 500,000 readers per day and can peak at
several million views per day
 Change and unexpected development
Video Sharing

 Rise of amateur videos on the web
 Boom of websites like Youtube and Myspace
 Many videos on the web can infringe copyrights owned by
entertainment companies
 Change and unexpected development
Collaboration

 Wikipedia, the online, collaborative encyclopedia
 Open Directory Project (ODP)
 Collaboration between scientists in different states or countries
 Watch-dogs on the Web
 Change and unexpected development
E-commerce and Free Stuff

 Free stuff on the web: email, books, newspapers, games, etc.
 www.Amazon.com started in 1994 and 10 years later annual sales
reached $8.5 billion
 TV show episodes are available to view on the Web
 Change and unexpected development
Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotics, and Motion

 AI suited to narrow, specialized skills
 Robotic devices often special-purpose devices, and may require AI to
function
 Motion sensing devices are used to give robots the ability to walk,
trigger airbags in a crash and cushion laptops when dropped
Change and unexpected development
Tools for Disabled People

 Restoration of abilities, productivity and independence
 Screen readers and scanners
 Speech recognition
 Prosthetics and motion sensors
 Change and unexpected development

Whats next?
 Medical records on chips attached to medical bracelets
 Biological and computer sciences will combine new ways to insert
micro-processors or controlled devices on human bodies
ISSUES ON NEW DEVELOPMENT OF TECHNOLOGY


 Unemployment
 Alienation and customer service
 Crime
 Loss of privacy
 Errors