IT Ethical Dilemma Assignment: Early Launch - CSU School of Computing

This assignment addresses an IT ethical dilemma concerning the early launch of software without encryption. The scenario involves a project manager advocating for an early launch without security measures to secure a bonus, while the project director expresses concerns about potential security vulnerabilities. The assignment analyzes the facts, issues, and stakeholders affected by this decision. It explores the ethical implications, including the potential for data breaches and unauthorized access. The student evaluates different options, such as ignoring the project manager's recommendation, and justifies the best course of action based on ethical principles and the importance of data security. The assignment concludes by referencing relevant literature on encryption and software security.

SCHOOL OF COMPUTING AND MATHS, Charles Sturt University
IT Ethical Dilemma / Early Launch
Assignment 1: Doing Ethics Technique
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Word Count: 1000

IT ETHICAL DILEMMA/EARLY LAUNCH
Q1. What's going on?
The main aspect, which is seen in the scenario, which is chosen, is that a project
would be delivered to the client without any sort of encryption involved into it. The main
recommendation of the aspect is coming from the end of the project manager. On the other
hand it can be stated according to the scenario is that the project director seems not be so
much interested into the event. This is due to the factor that if the software is launched
without any encryption process involved into it, it can have different types of security
implications, which could lead to different types of problem, involved in it.
Q2. What are the facts?
The facts which are seen in the scenario is that the process of encryption is being
avoided in the case of the early launch of the software. The main aspects which are noticed
relating to the early launch is that on one hand the software would not incorporate the
encryption but it is stated that later on a patch or software update would be launched which
would fix the problem. And on the other ahdn the early launch of the software would make
the project director eligible for bonus which is one of the main factors which sis considered
In the scenario.
Q3. What are the issues?
The main issue, which is seen from the scenario, is that a project without proper
encryption process is being delivered to the client. The proposal of doing so came from the
project manager. According to the project manager, the delivery of the software without any
proper encryption would not lead to any type of problem, as they would be incorporating an
update later on, which would consist all the necessary aspects of the security. The main
concern from the end of the project director is that if after the launch of the software without
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IT ETHICAL DILEMMA/EARLY LAUNCH
any type of encryption could make the software very easy for the hackers to indulge. It could
lead to loss of data of the organization who would be implementing the software.
Q4. Who is affected?
The sector, which would be affected if the event of launching the software takes
place, would be both the organization who is manufacturing it as well as the organization
who would be using or implementing the software. Technically stating if a software is
launched without proper encryption involved into it the hackers can easily access the data or
the information, which would be contained in the software. The process of encryption can be
considered as one of the most important security aspects, which should always be highly
recommended in any type of software. This concept should be of upmost priority being that if
any leakage of information is done from the software.
Q5. What are the ethical issues and their implications?
The main ethical issue, which is being seen in the scenario, is that any software
without security implications involved into it can be very much unethical aspect. This is due
to the factor that it could directly allow the hackers to indulge into retrieval of the data, which
is stored in the system. The data of any organization can be considered very much critical and
if the any another person except the authorized person get access to the data, it could lead to
problem for the organization. Most of the critical information of the data relating to the
financial and other critical sector are saved in the database of the software, if this type of
critical information goes into the hand of hackers or unauthorized person it can be a huge loss
from the point of view of the business.
Q6. What could have been done about it?
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IT ETHICAL DILEMMA/EARLY LAUNCH
The main aspect which should have been done in this scenario is that it would be a
wrong move if the delivery of the software would be done without any proper encryption
involved into it. One things, which could be done in this case, is that the delivery of the
project should not be done without any proper security aspect or encryption involved into it.
The process would be time consuming but it can be stated that the process would be
involving the aspects of the security, which would make the software secured and was not be
possible to be breached. This would be beneficial for the point of the view of the developers
as well as the organization who would be implementing the software.
Q7. What are the options?
According to the video, there are mainly three options, which are stated. First option,
which is stated, is that the project director directly surrenders to the pressure of the project
manager. Secondly, the option, which can be applicable, is that the project director ignores
the project manager’s recommendation. Thirdly, the last option, which is available, is that the
project director listen to the project manager. It can be stated here that the options, which are
stated above, have different types of implications. It is up to the project director to make the
final call into which option should be taken up or implemented.
Q8. Which option is the best and why?
The best option in such type of cases as seen in the scenario the project director
should ignore the recommendation of the project director. A software without any proper
implementation of encryption process or simply any form of security implications if delivered
can face different types of issues even loss of data. The option, which is, selected in this case,
is time-consuming process and at the present situation, the delivery would not be possible. In
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this context, it can be stated that if the project director selects the option it would not involve
any factor of risk associated with the software.
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Bibliography
Aslett, L. J., Esperança, P. M., & Holmes, C. C. (2015). A review of homomorphic
encryption and software tools for encrypted statistical machine learning. arXiv
preprint arXiv:1508.06574.
Braga, A. M., & Dahab, R. (2016, August). Towards a Methodology for the Development of
Secure Cryptographic Software. In Software Security and Assurance (ICSSA), 2016
International Conference on (pp. 25-30). IEEE.
Fernandez, P. (2015). “Through the looking glass: envisioning new library technologies”
securing your digital library with encryption. Library Hi Tech News, 32(1), 5-7.
Jararweh, Y., Al-Ayyoub, M., & Song, H. (2017). Software-defined systems support for
secure cloud computing based on data classification. Annals of Telecommunications,
72(5-6), 335-345.
Loginova, N., Trofimenko, E., Zadereyko, O., & Chanyshev, R. (2016, February). Program-
technical aspects of encryption protection of users' data. In Modern Problems of
Radio Engineering. Telecommunications and Computer Science (TCSET), 2016 13th
International Conference on (pp. 443-445). IEEE.
Mpalane, K., Tsague, H. D., Gasela, N., & Esiefarienrhe, B. M. (2015, December). Bit-level
differential power analysis attack on implementations of advanced encryption
standard software running inside a pic18f2420 microcontroller. In Computational
Science and Computational Intelligence (CSCI), 2015 International Conference on
(pp. 42-46). IEEE.
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Naidu, A. A., & Joshi, P. K. (2015, April). FPGA implementation of fully pipelined advanced
encryption standard. In Communications and Signal Processing (ICCSP), 2015
International Conference on (pp. 0649-0653). IEEE.
Zavattoni, E., Perez, L. J. D., Mitsunari, S., Sánchez-Ramírez, A. H., Teruya, T., &
Rodríguez-Henríquez, F. (2015). Software implementation of an attribute-based
encryption scheme. IEEE Transactions on Computers, 64(5), 1429-1441.
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