Ethical Considerations in IT: Code of Conduct, Cases, and Analysis

This essay delves into the critical importance of ethical codes of conduct in the field of Information Technology. It explores the fundamental principles of integrity, confidentiality, objectivity, professional competence, and professional behavior, emphasizing how these principles guide IT professionals in their conduct. The essay examines the role of system administrators and highlights potential ethical issues such as insider threats, data breaches, and misuse of privileged access. It presents real-world case studies, including the Terry Childs case and the Edward Snowden case, to illustrate the consequences of ethical violations and the significance of adhering to established codes of conduct. Furthermore, the essay discusses various ethical issues associated with network administration, including equality in reporting, whistleblowing, and the handling of sensitive information. The essay stresses the importance of complying with regulations and legal standards to resolve ethical issues and promote ethical business practices. Overall, the essay underscores the need for IT professionals to uphold the highest standards of ethical conduct to maintain the integrity and security of information systems.

Ethics Essay

TABLE OF CONTENTS
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................4

MAIN BODY
Code of ethics is considered to be a guided principle which helps professional to carry
out business with utmost, accuracy, honesty and integrity. Parker, (2017) evaluated that,
breaking of code of ethics tend to result in dismissal or termination from company. There are
fiver fundamental principle associated with the code of ethics are integrity, confidentiality,
objectivity, professional competence and professional behaviour. Code of ethics mainly focuses
on outlining how an individual should behave and perform activities within prescribed guidance.
Professional system administrator hereby determines that, the highest standard of professional
conduct and ethical conduct must be effectively guided by the code of ethics (Boddington,
(2017)). This helps in encouraging every individual of system administrator to perform function
with utmost accuracy and ethnicity. This mainly comprises of professionalism, personal
integrity, privacy, compliance with law and policies, effective communication, system integrity,
education, responsibility to community, social and ethical responsibility, etc. the key purpose of
code of ethics is that to provide proper guidance and promote consistency at all level of the
employment. This code helps in governing the working relationship and action in order to
effectively deal with various unethical business issues within the business. Ethical misconduct is
referred to as any fabrication of data, misrepresentation of data, falsification, etc. Ethical
misconduct would results in potential disaster, penalties, jail, loss of job, loss of reputation, etc.
Senter & et.al. (2018) evaluated that, one of the biggest insider threat associated with the
corporate network is associated with the stealing or hacking of confidential data. Rogues system
administrator has privileged access to the primary information of the individual. The person is
mainly responsible for the performing insider attacks and is also responsible for preventing the
data. There are 50 key types of rogues against which company should watch out mainly
comprises of crusader, entrepreneur, voyeur, the spy and the avenger. Rogue admin is a person
who tends to do things according to his own wish rather than on the company's way. The
entrepreneur admin are the individuals who are not responsible to anyone. Rogues tends to use
the confidential information of an individual for personal gain. There are various tech ethics
issues associated with biased algorithms, cyborg roaches, advanced military weaponry, etc.
against which company should pay attention for smooth functioning of the business (Jagger,
(2018)). There are several ethical issues which are mainly associated with the network
administrator are equality in reporting, whistle blower situations and sensitive information. It has
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been evaluated that, IT workers with privileged access to the information are considered to be at
high risk. Peeking at sensitive information, stealing data, destroying data, etc. are considered to
be as the issue which in turn hampers the way the company work.
This is recent event where the interior department got swamped. Around 11 department
officials have been cashed out of job. The conduct of interior officials gives rise to unethical
practice. The major question was raised against interior officials and it has been evaluated that,
influential industry group tends to line up their pockets (How The Interior Department Got
Swamped, 2019). Federal ethics rule has been included which helps in preventing seniors from
lobbying their former agencies.
Working for long hours in the company is considered to be as an unethical practice which
in turn lower the performance and productivity of the employees in the company (Boddington,
(2017)). In order to eliminate long working hours company should comply with workers
regulation which in turn leads to smooth functioning of the business (What Should I Do About
the Workaholic Who Works for Me?, 2019). Misusing time of the company is considered to b
one of the ethical issue. Resolving ethical issues by complying with various norms, legal
standards, laws, regulations, etc. helps in ethically carrying out business activities.
It is very important for to follow code of conduct as not following the same may result in
various legal issues. There was a case in 2008, where a man spends 14 months of jail because he
refused to hand over the administrative passwords. He used criminal network meddling and was
charged for using private account in order to block the city network of San Francisco. Terry
Childs was a network administrator who was employed by San Francisco and was taken into
custody. In order to get bail he paid $5 million(Whitman, 2016). The situation was that Terry
Childs locked down the routers and switches the FiberWAN network. Childs only knew the
logins and refused to reveal the same. Childs holds a Cisco Certified internetwork Expert
certification and worked for about 5 years in city's IT department. According to the code of
conduct The San Francisco Felony Bail schedule gives guidelines that for different offenses, 1
million bail is for serious crime like sexual assault of a child, kidnapping etc. By following the
code of conduct, Terry Childs caused damage to San Francisco's network and that is serious
crime and is a flight risk. After the strict actions taken my San Francisco, a week later Terry
Childs handed over the password to back to San Francisco. He conducted such illegal practice as
he was having believe that San Francisco's departments were not able to handle and manage the
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city's network due to their lacking skills and qualifications. On 21st Aug on bases of computer
crime law, the court decided that it was a violation what Terry Childs has done as city was
unable to gain administrative access to the networks as he did not reveal the password. It caused
DTIS to be denied administrative access to FiberWAN. In California it is a crime and that was
the reason a serious action was taken by the court. From the case it is been interpreted that it is
very important for the business to follow the set policies and norms as not following the same
result in different legal actions from the organisation side as well as from the government.
Code of conduct helps the business to work effectively, if different rules and regulations
are set that employees have to follow. Another case is of an American Whistle-blower that is
Edward Joseph Snowden who leaked very important and classified information from NSA. He
was a Central intelligence agency employee and also subcontractor who disclosed different
programs that were run by NSA(Snowden, 2015). He is exile in Russia for the same case. It is
seen in many businesses that the working employees creates trouble or the businesses by not
following the code of conduct and having illegal actions because of which serious actions are
taken by the organisations. It is very important for the business to have these rules and
regulations else, the employees may misuse their power. The UK and US communities anger was
for both published as well as unpublished documents and the anger was quite obvious and
business believes the employees for there work and also that they will effectively follow the
rules and regulations that are set by the business.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Boddington, P. (2017). Towards a code of ethics for artificial intelligence. Cham, Switzerland:
Springer.
Jagger, P. (2018). The Ethics of Learning. ITNOW, 60(2), 22-23.
Parker, D. B. (2017). Rules of ethics in information processing. In Computer Ethics (pp. 17-20).
Routledge.
Senter, L & et.al. (2018). National society of genetic counselors code of ethics: Explication of
2017 revisions. Journal of genetic counseling, 27(1), 9-15.
Snowden, E., 2015. Edward Snowden.
Whitman, R.L., 2016. Brain Betrayal: A Neuropsychological Categorization of Insider Attacks.
Online
How The Interior Department Got Swamped. 2019. [ONLINE]. Available
through:<https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/trump-interior-department-revolving-
door_n_5ddbf08ee4b00149f720e179?ri18n=true>
What Should I Do About the Workaholic Who Works for Me?. 2019. [ONLINE]. Available
through:<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/26/magazine/what-should-i-do-about-the-
workaholic-who-works-for-me.html>
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