Charles Sturt University: Information Technology Ethics Assignment 1

This assignment solution addresses an ethical dilemma in information technology, specifically focusing on a scenario where a project manager pressures a program director to deliver a software project early, even at the expense of incorporating crucial encryption technology. The analysis delves into the facts of the situation, highlighting the importance of encryption for data security and the limitations of resolving security issues through software updates. The assignment identifies the stakeholders affected, primarily the client company and its customers, and explores the ethical issues involved, such as the violation of security and the prioritization of profit over quality. The solution then discusses potential actions that could have been taken and evaluates the best option, emphasizing the importance of prioritizing the client's long-term interests and the software's security over short-term gains. The solution draws upon references to support its arguments and provides a comprehensive understanding of ethical considerations in software development and project management.

SCHOOL OF COMPUTING AND MATHS, Charles Sturt University
Information Technology Ethics
Assignment 1: Doing Ethics Technique
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Information Technology Ethics
Q1. What's going on?
To satisfy the authorities of the wills system , the project manager ask the program
director if they can deliver the project early than the proposed time. The manger desperately
wants the project to be submitted early so that the company can grab the next project worth
three million from the client company. However, the program director does not approve the
idea of submitting the project early as the program is still in development phase and
encryption algorithm needs to be incorporated to the system to enhance the security measure.
Without the encryption algorithm the system will be easily hacked and this is something that
the program director cannot approve. However the project manger thinks that this is not a
major issue as far the security of the system is concerned. He further suggests the program
director that even if there is a need for the encryption algorithm, it can be easily provided via
software updates.
According to the manager, it is more important to provide the client with the product
solution rather than the encryption technology. The manger is so much desperate in proving
his point and how much important it is for the company, he tries to convince the program
director with the benefits that the company is going to achieve with the project. He further
adds that, if the team can deliver the product early it will draw award and recognition not
only for him, but also for the whole development team working on this project. The program
director is much more after product quality one rather than rewards and recognition following
some unethical methods. This definitely creates an ethical dilemma for Gregg, the director of
the programming team.
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Q2. What are the facts?
In reference to the discussion, this section highlights some facts:
Encryption maintains data secure:
With Encryption, software can be made more secured, reliable and robust (Han et al.,
2015). According to the authors, encryption helps in strengthening system security by
maintaining three major aspects of data security:
1. Confidentiality – it maintains data privacy
2. Integrity – it provides data accuracy
3. Availability – it keeps web server online to ensure data availability on demand.
Encryption, with the help of cryptographic algorithm to provide data security as discussed
in the article.
Software updates resolves security issues:
Software updates are rolled out for removing bugs encountered by the software
encounters at some point during execution. Even after providing best efforts for the design, it
is not always possible to produce software that does not have any issues. In the long run, the
software will create issues as far as the execution or performance of the software is concerned
(Khatarkar & Kamble 2015). Regular updates ensure smooth execution with less error.
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Q3. What are the issues?
There are some issues regarding the project, which will be discussed below:
Integration of the encryption algorithm:
Without the integration of the encryption technology, the software becomes less
secure. It is true that it will take much more time to complete the integration process and it
will delay the project, still delivering the project without encryption is also not accepted, as it
will compromise with the software security and overall quality of the product. From the
business point of view of the company needs to deliver the project within time to avoid
issues that the client may raise if not delivered in time. However, without the encryption
technology the system will be less secure (Subramanyan,, Ray & Malik, 2015).
Resolving security issues with software updates:
Even though security issues are claimed to be resolved with software updates, it is not
an effective solution to resolve the security issues that is due to some faults in the design
process itself. Software updates are effective to bring changes in the day-to-day activities
that the software is designed for to bring improvement in performance. However, it does not
analyze the root causes that lead to system bug. The best practice that should be followed in
order to deal with security issues more efficiently, is to design solution to problems
identified in the software testing process (Bernstein , 2014). Otherwise, it is not easy to fix
the security related issues with software updates as pointed out by the authors.
Q4. Who is affected?
It is the client company that will be affected most. If the manufacturing company
delivers the software to the client company without considering the security issues it will
also affect the customers associated with the organization including the company itself.
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In addition to that if the project is delivered without ensuring optimum performance,
the manufacturing company have to face the accusations for the client site which may see
cancelation of further project allocation or any project related works.
Q5. What are the ethical issues and their implications?
Violation of security:
Whenever an organization develop any product for any client organizations, it is the
responsibility and ethical duty of the company to treat the project with highest priority to
maintain quality of the service. However, in this context as discussed, the security issues are
being overlooked by the manufacturing company to deliver the product early in order to show
the promptness to get the attention of the client so that they can get further. This move can be
regarded highly unethical, as the system which is being developed will deal with personal
data of thousands of customer that need to be secured. Compromising on the quality and
security of such sensitive project can be overlooked at any cost.
Compromising of quality over money:
To deliver the project early in order to fetch the next project worth millions, the
manager is even ready to compromise the quality of the product. This move can be regarded
as unethical as it affect the client both in terms of security and reputation. Additionally, it will
also affect the reputation of the manufacturing company.
Q6. What could have been done about it?
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To finish the project so that it can be delivered early, the project should have been
started in full swing right from beginning rather than opting for unethical means at the later
part of the project development.
Q7. What are the options?
Considering current circumstances, two options are available to be followed right
now. Either, the authorities should come up with an approach to convince the client company
for delivery date extension or they should deliver the product without ensuring proper
performance measure.
Q8. Which option is the best and why?
Considering the available options, it is obviously best to make the company
understand why they need to extended the delivery and what improvements will be done in
this context. This approach is best because if they chose to deliver the product that is not fully
optimized, it will create issues in the later part when the system will be actually in use. This
might create a bad impression for the client and on basis of that, the company might lose the
next project and even any further project from the client.
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References
Bernstein, D. J. (2014). Caesar: Competition for authenticated encryption: Security,
applicability, and robustness.
Han, J., Susilo, W., Mu, Y., Zhou, J., & Au, M. H. A. (2015). Improving privacy and security
in decentralized ciphertext-policy attribute-based encryption. IEEE transactions on
information forensics and security, 10(3), 665-678.
Khatarkar, S., & Kamble, R. (2015). A Survey and Performance Analysis of Various RSA
based Encryption Techniques. International Journal of Computer
Applications, 114(7).
Subramanyan, P., Ray, S., & Malik, S. (2015, May). Evaluating the security of logic
encryption algorithms. In Hardware Oriented Security and Trust (HOST), 2015 IEEE
International Symposium on (pp. 137-143). IEEE.
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