Software Ethics
● Ethics = the philosophical study of morality
● Three main subdivisions:
– General study of goodness, e.g., what is the meaning
of terms like good, bad, right, wrong
– General study of right action, e.g., what moral
principles should govern our choices and pursuits
– Applied ethics, e.g.:
● Medical ethics
● Business ethics
● Environmental ethics
● Software ethics
ACM's Software Engineering Code of
Ethics and Professional Practice
(www.acm.org/serving/se/code.htm)
● Ethical conduct with regard to:
– PUBLIC
– CLIENT AND EMPLOYER
– PRODUCT
– JUDGMENT
– MANAGEMENT
– PROFESSION
– COLLEAGUES
– SELF
ACM's Software Engineering Code of
Ethics and Professional Practice:
PUBLIC
● PUBLIC - Software engineers shall act
consistently with the public interest.
– Examples:
● National security
● Privacy
Software and National Security
● Terrorist infrastructure attacks, e.g., domain name
system (DNS); bringing down power grids
● Automating nuclear war
– Ethical question: should you work on a proposal to
build a system that will automate a nuclear war after
Washington and Moscow have been destroyed?
– Ethical question: should you work on building
software for an ABM defense system when there is no
way to verify its correctness?
– The problem of program verification
Software and National Security
● Cryptography programs:
– An author of a book on applied cryptography was
prohibited by the State Department from exporting the
book because it included as an appendix a floppy
disk containing programs for encryption software.
– However, were the floppy disk not included with the
book, the book would have been freely exportable
even though the program text on the floppy disk
was also printed in the book.
●Ethical question: should algorithms or the software
that implements them be considered weapons?
Software and Privacy
● Data collection (monitoring surfing habits)
– Ethical question: Should employers have the right
to use software to know every keystroke entered
by employees?
● Email surveillance (wiretapping)
– Ethical question: Should the government have the
right to use software to snoop on suspicious email
of its citizens?
Software and Privacy
● Spamming, e.g. Alan Ralsky:
– Sends millions of messages per day
– Now does his spamming from overseas ISPs
– Slashdot published his home mail address and he is
now inundated with snail mail spam
– Spammers' rights groups are now subjecting anti-
spam groups' web sites to denial-of-service attacks
● Ethical question: Should spammers have the
right to use software to fill communication
bandwidth with unwanted email messages?
ACM's Software Engineering Code of
Ethics and Professional Practice:
CLIENT AND EMPLOYER
● CLIENT AND EMPLOYER - Software
engineers shall act in a manner that is in the best
interests of their client and employer consistent
with the public interest.
– See: PRODUCT
ACM's Software Engineering Code of
Ethics and Professional Practice:
PRODUCT
● PRODUCT - Software engineers shall ensure that
their products and related modifications meet the
highest professional standards possible.
– Software quality:
● Reliability (correctness)
● Efficiency
● Usability
● Maintainability
● Reusability
Software Reliability
● Verification: Making sure program behavior
conforms to specifications
– Formal (mathematical methods)
– Empirical (testing and observation)
● Ethical question: who should be liable for
software misbehavior?
– Program author (for example, Therac-25 disaster)
– Program user (for example, putting incorrect data into
a tax program)
– Domain expert (for example, misdiagnosis by a
medical expert system)
ACM's Software Engineering Code of
Ethics and Professional Practice:
JUDGMENT
● JUDGMENT - Software engineers shall maintain
integrity and independence in their
professional judgment.
– Examples:
● Cracking computer security
● Violating copyright using software
Hacking vs. Cracking
● Hack originally used to refer to clever way MIT
engineers used to run a model railroad
● Hacker originally meant a clever programmer
but has been co-opted by media to mean a
criminal
● Cracker is a better term for computer criminal
● Hacker's Ethic described in 1984 book by Steven
Levy, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer
Revolution
Main Tenets of The Hacker's Ethic
● Access to computers should be unlimited
● Information should be free
● Anti-bureaucracy, pro-democracy
● Mistrust authority, promote decentralization
● Judge hackers by their hacking, not degrees, age,
race, position
● You create art and beauty on a computer
● Computers can change your life for the better
Perverting The Hacker's Ethic
● If you take libertarianism too far, you get anarchy
● If you take the H.E. too far, you get criminal
behavior:
– Viruses and worms
– Website defacement
– Denial of Service attacks (EBay, Yahoo, Amazon)
– Infrastructure attacks, e.g., domain name system
(DNS); bringing down power grids
Viruses, Worms, and Cracking
● Virus: piece of code that can automatically spread
to other computers and destroy or alter files
● Worm: virus that does not alter files but resides in
memory and duplicates itself, e.g., Code Red,
Sasser
● Cracking, e.g.,
– Buffer overflow attack
– Sniffer: program that lies in wait for unencrypted data
(like passwords or credit card numbers)
● Ethical question: Is it OK for clever software
to exploit vulnerabilities just because they are
Kevin Mitnick
● Object of FBI manhunt, first arrested at age 17 in
1981
● Inspired 1982 movie War Games with alleged
NORAD hack
● Released from prison in 2000
● Now a corporate security consultant
● New book: The Art of Deception
The Hacker Ethic vs. The Protestant
Ethic
● See The Hacker Ethic and The Spirit of the
Information Age, by Pekka Himanen (prologue by
Linus Torvalds)
– Work as passion, 24-7
– Openness, enablement, cooperation
● Compare The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of
Capitalism, by Max Weber
– Industrial Age values, 9-to-5
– Hierarchy, bureaucracy, secrecy
Violating Copyright Using Software
● DVD decryption
– Jon Johansen, now 18, circumvented DVD movie
copy protection
– Made a program, DeCSS, available for playing
movies on computer
– MPAA prosecuted him, acquitted
– Two issues:
● Intellectual property rights
● Controlling playback device
Violating Copyright Using Software
● MP3 downloading
– RIAA is prosecuting individual downloaders of
copyrighted material
● Ethical question: Does the digital nature of
contemporary media render traditional
copyright law obsolete?
ACM's Software Engineering Code of
Ethics and Professional Practice:
MANAGEMENT
● MANAGEMENT - Software engineering
managers and leaders shall subscribe to and
promote an ethical approach to the management
of software development and maintenance.
– Don't promise what you can't deliver
Bids and Budgets
● Dramatic example: in the early 1980's the IRS
hired Sperry to automate tax form processing for
$103 million. By 1985 the cost had tripled, the
system could not handle the workload, and it had
to be replaced.
● Ethical question: Should you underbid a
project because you desperately need a
contract?
● Ethical question: Should you claim you can
solve a client problem when you don't fully
understand the requirements?
ACM's Software Engineering Code of
Ethics and Professional Practice:
PROFESSION
● PROFESSION - Software engineers shall
advance the integrity and reputation of the
profession consistent with the public interest.
– Example: software copyright and intellectual property
Software and Intellectual Property
● Ethical question: Is it a fair practice of certain
software companies to quickly "clone" the look
and feel of other companies' successful products?
● Copyright laws are considered to apply to text.
● Patent laws are considered to apply to artifacts of
technology.
ACM's Software Engineering Code of
Ethics and Professional Practice:
COLLEAGUES
● COLLEAGUES - Software engineers shall be fair
to and supportive of their colleagues.
– Related issue: Open source vs. proprietary software
Open Source vs. Proprietary Software
● "Free software" (economic definition) means you
don't have to pay for it
● "Free software" (GNU definition):
– freedom to run the program, for any purpose
– freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it
to your needs (open source)
– freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your
neighbor
– freedom to improve the program, and release your
improvements to the public, so that the whole
community benefits
The GNU Public License:
Copyleft (www.gnu.org)
● Copyleft: a general method for making a program
free software and requiring all modified and
extended versions of the program to be free software
as well."
● Ethical question: Should you make available to
other software engineers (even those who work for
other companies) reusable software of your own
making?
● Ethical question: does the proprietary software
business model allow the patching of O.S. security
exploits as well as the open source model?
ACM's Software Engineering Code of
Ethics and Professional Practice:
SELF
● SELF - Software engineers shall participate in
lifelong learning regarding the practice of
their profession and shall promote an ethical
approach to the practice of the profession.