A Brief Study on Cyber Crime and Ethical Hacking
Added on 2019-11-26
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Running Head: ETHICS IN THE CYBER SPACE1The Ethical Theories of the Cyber SpaceNameCourse CodeInstitution AffiliationDate
ETHICS IN THE CYBER SPACE 2Cybercrime, also referred to as computer crime is any illegal activity that is carriedout with the use of a computer or any device that can be used to access the internet, such as amobile phone. The department of Justice has categorized cybercrime into three categories:crimes where the computer is employed as the weapon, crimes which involves the computeritself as the target and also where the computer has been used as an accessory to crimeThe internet has been the biggest invention ever since printing, and the more it hasspread, cybercrime has also spread with the same magnitude, since a person does not nowneed to be present physically to commit a crime in a certain place. The internet also availsspeed, anonymity, a borderless scope and convenience all which makes crime easier to carryout (("Cybercrime", 2017).Cybercrime can be explained in relation to classical ethical theory. To begin with,deontology holds that the actions of people are to be guided by moral laws; which areuniversal. Deontological ethics are drawn from the philosophy of Kant’s categoricalimperative. He proposed that for an ethical school to appeal to all rational people, it had to bebased on the reasoning of a rational person ("The Cambridge handbook of information andcomputer ethics", 2010). It is duty ethics, the actions of any individual are seen asperformance of duty to act ethically towards other internet users, or the following of the ruleslaid down by country. Therefore, according to deontology, it was wrong for Mr. Tabalbag touse a phishing app to obtain information illegally from his wife’s phone. This is clearly phonehacking because he used an app to gain unauthorized access to his wife’s deleted messagesand phone bills. Mr. Tabalbag in his use of the internet violated the duty a person hastowards other cyber users and the state. He committed a cybercrime, because he used acomputer and his phone as the tools in harming other people, his wife and her lover.Utilitarianism holds that the end justifies the means; that the right action is the onethat will produce the greatest happiness or the best. Rule utilitarianism leads us to adopting
ETHICS IN THE CYBER SPACE 3the moral rules that would produce happiness if they were followed by everyone, while actutilitarianism leads us to do those actions that produce more happiness than unhappiness(Driver, 2017). Ethical hackers use their skill to benefit the society, thus it would be legalunder utilitarian principles, Ethical hacking has been of tremendous benefit to manyorganizations. For instance, it has helped to strengthen national security.it has been used bythe united states air force to evaluate their operating system; which is a contribution to thefight against terrorism and external threats. IBM also uses ethical hackers to keep theirsystems and those of their clients secure (Chao, 2017). Mr. Tabalbag did use a sort of aphishing app that could retrieve the deleted messages and phone bills of his partner. He wassuspicious that his wife was having an affair and the information he got helped him to catchher right in the act, so in a sense, the end justified the means. There are still some grey areashowever. Despite the end justifying the means, his actions did not lead to happiness. If everysuspicious spouse followed his cause of action many lover’s affairs would be exposed, withseveral fatalities as in this case. It is hard to determine, now that Mr. Tabalbag actions ofhacking into his wife’s phone, and used another app to stalk her, whether he ended up happyor unhappier, now that he is in prison for manslaughter.Virtue ethics are normative ethical theories that are weighted on the virtues of mindand character. Ethics should thus be concerned with the character that is displayed by a moralagent, rather than the rules that are dictating what is right and what is wrong. According toAristotle, a virtuous person is that person who has ideal character traits. He will displaykindness across many situations because it is in their character to do so, rather than being insearch of recognition or maximizing utility. Rules are hard to establish and the consequencesare harder to perceive in cyberspace. Virtue ethics are therefore aimed at producing citizensthat are digitally wise and will as a result be able to supervise their online activities.According to Aristotle these virtues cannot be taught theoretically, rather they can be learnt
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