Your decision on the Hacking Case

Your decision on the Hacking Case

If you were to decide on the Landmark Hacking, what will be your judgment? Support your answer.

Given the scarce documents regarding the case, it is not just to create a judgment right away. Since there are not enough documents presented to me, I will not be able to make a judgment right away. But suppose that the documents that I have are the only documents that can be presented, I may be more likely to dismiss the case for lack of supporting evidence. Use of a single telephone number for accessing the Thames account cannot be attributed right away to Leilani Garcia only. If people other than Leilani use the telephone number for accessing the ISP, then Leilani and Cesar Mañalac could not be the only suspects right away. If there are company rules by Thames that usage of the account excludes people like Leilani, then Leilani should not have used the account even if she gained access to it. However, if Mañalac has authority to give access to the Thames account then there is no need to argue about the case. But if Mañalac is not authorized to do so, then the case should proceed.

Laws Controlling the Use of Computer Technology

Laws Controlling the Use of Computer Technology

Are you in favor of the enactment and enforcement of laws that will regulate and control the use of computer technology? Why or why not? Defend your answer.

I am in favor with the laws on computer technology mainly because such acts protect various proponents that are related to the technology. It could be forgiven that the laws are somewhat crude; anyway, they are just preliminary moves regarding the laws on computer technology. What could not be forgiven however is when these laws become stagnant, when they are no longer relevant to the present and future needs of the citizens. With the laws on computer technology in the Philippines, computer programs are rendered as not patentable but copyrightable. This ensures protection of the owners of the computer programs against unfair use of their intellectual property. This also ensures protection of other parties interested in producing similar programs that may be an improvement on the existing program. With computer programs being not patentable, the citizens are not locked to existing patented programs which more or less are resting on a monopoly since programs similar to the patented one can not be produced. More often than not, the laws on computer technology are very much favorable for the protection of all parties engaged in the use of computer technology. And even if the exiting laws are not yet fully refined, they should evolve to be.

Three Examples of Computer Crimes

Three Examples of Computer Crimes

Discuss at least three examples of computer crimes.


Ping of Death

In April 18, 2000 a 15-year old Canadian boy was arrested and charged with two counts of “mischief to data” and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police seized his computer for his attacks. He was protected by his pseudonym “Mafiaboy.” The attacks were on yahoo.com, amazon.com, buy.com, cnn.com, ebay.com, E*Trade, ZDNet, Dell Computer, Outlaw.net, and also victimizing computers from Stanford University and University of California Santa Barbara. Maximum penalties for juveniles were put on him by the Canadian Federal prosecutors but social workers aiding Mafiaboy said that he still has no remorse for his crimes.


Gate Programs and Password Crackers

This was from the Case of Randal Schwartz and Intel Corporation. Schwartz was a contributor to the PERL programming language and was a contractor for Intel. Schwartz put gate programs on Intel’s computers and accessed the Internet from them. His actions made Intel’s computer vulnerable and are also not in accord with Intel’s rules. Schwartz was able to crack various passwords from Intel computers and did not notify Intel about it. Schwartz received 5 years of probation, 480 hours of community service, 90 days of jail time, and $68,000 restitution for Intel.


Keyloggers, Software Piracy and Bank Account Theft

Juju Jiang, 24 years old, of Flushing, New York was sentenced to 27 months imprisonment, and three years supervised release after that, with around $200,000 restitution for computer fraud and software piracy. Jiang installed keyloggers on terminals of Kinko’s store to collect usernames and passwords. With the confidential information he obtained, he accessed or tried to access bank accounts belonging to other persons, and transferring funds to unauthorized accounts. His two counts of software piracy came from his sale of copies of Microsoft Office 2000 Professional Edition.

Definition of Computer Crime

Definition of Computer Crime

From the cases summarized above, explain what constitutes a computer crime.


It would not give justice to give a generalized definition for a very complex issue of what constitutes computer crime. That is why the laws are expressed in excruciating detail. But in the light of the cases in the module, computer crimes could be viewed as resulting to normal non-computer crimes like stealing, fraud, etc., but it is just that, computers are involved. So it is not uncommon for computer laws to be viewed as adoption of the non-computer laws, tweaked to be applicable to computing contexts.

Explanation of Court Rulings

Explanation of Court Rulings

Account for the court ruling in the four cases discussed above on ethical grounds. That is, explain from an ethics standpoint the court ruling in each case.


Whelan vs. Jaslow

Whelan did not commit software piracy or plagiarism since no verbatim copies were made. It may be true that the case was resolved using an old appreciation of computer science. Actually, this is a trend in the open source scene were most open source projects are inspired by commercial applications. The commercial and open source projects have the same functionality but no piracy or plagiarism need to be done to accomplish it.


Computer Associates vs. Altai

Altai did an almost noble thing of doing a second version of their program since they do not want to be unethical, in a sense. Altai could have capitalized on a key asset that they have, the ex-Computer Associates employee, but they did not. Computer Associates’ move of suing Altai could be somehow viewed as malicious. Too bad for CA, the case of Whelan vs. Jaslow was viewed as outdated so the case was not in their favor.


Apple vs. Microsoft and HP

The case could be analogous to having masterpieces and their replicas. Look and feels were just matters of style, and styles by nature are prone to mimicking. But still no software was pirated and no written work was plagiarized. Today actually, Apple’s look and feels for their applications were being mimicked by various projects but there are no issues with it.


Lotus vs. Paperback Software, Mosaic Software, and Borland

In here, the basic premise of software piracy or plagiarism was not committed. Of course, if several proponents are creating the same functions for their software, it is not uncommon for their different applications to have similar menu structures. I think I can smell unethical motives not in the issue of the menu structures but in the courts that decided for Mosaic and Paperback. It could be noticed that the previous two companies were not as big as Lotus or Borland. It could not be helped but have a hint that there was partiality in the rulings where smaller companies lost but a big company did not, on cases having the same nature. Today there exists the Microsoft Office suite and the OpenOffice.org suite. OpenOffice.org actually has a menu structure that is very similar to the Microsoft Office menu structure. But no software piracy or plagiarism was committed.

An Issue Discussed from 6 Perspectives

Discuss one of the issues taken up in this module from the point of view of the preliminary and finalist theories discussed in Modules 3 and 4. Note that you must discuss the issue you choose from six perspectives (three preliminary theories and three finalist theories). To put it another way, you must come up with six perspectives on the issue.

Issue: Internet Pornography


First Perspective – Ethical Relativism

In the light of this ethical principle, all absolutist views about Internet pornography will be rejected as this principle supports exceptional cases to almost every rule due to different contexts and conditions among acts like pornography in the Internet. So Internet pornography is tolerated in some contexts and not in other contexts. But a single rule imposed on just one side of the two-sided Internet pornography issue is frowned upon by this ethical perspective.


Second Perspective – Ethical Absolutism

In this perspective, the issue of Internet pornography is either good or bad and there should never be a gray area. This perspective is backed up by rigid factors that are universal, constant and having unchanging reasons for judging the issues.


Third Perspective – Ethical Egoism and Ethical Altruism

Since the object of the ethical egoism perspective concentrates on the “self” (it may also be altruism that is masked behind self-interest), tolerance or intolerance of the Internet pornography issue cannot be a matter of social proportions rather; it is just an individual issue. An individual could assess the issue as an object of aversion or desire and this individual assessment cannot be generalized to apply to all individuals. Since ethical altruism is also an individual issue, this perspective is similar in some ways with ethical egoism regarding the issues of computing like Internet pornography.


Fourth Perspective – John Stuart Mill’s utilitarianism

For this perspective, the issue must be subjected to the “greatest happiness” function. Of course this means that the issue should produce happiness and help people involved to avoid pain. It is inherent in this principle to resolve the issues using the greatest happiness function for promoting judgment that could achieve near universality.


Fifth Perspective – Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperatives

“First, to have moral worth, an action should be done out of duty.” This cannot be applied to all circumstances and all contexts regarding Internet pornography since the duties regarding actions of Internet pornography vary widely. “Second, an action done from duty does not have its moral worth in the purpose, which is to be achieved through it, but in the maxim by which it is determined”. This also does not have universal application considering that Internet pornography’s maxim might be to educate or even just to entertain. In this regard Internet pornography could be a hypothetical imperative since the issue could be good for something else. Since some might also hold that Internet pornography has its inherent value, and that it is good in itself the issue could be regarded by some as a categorical imperative. What is apparent is that this perspective also has diverse views on the issue.


Sixth Perspective – Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics

In this perspective, the issue could be subjected to classification as instrumental, final, or supreme. We could classify the issue as being one of the three in different contexts. Although sexually-related activities are more often given the bad hype, some proponents view sexually-related activities as having pure and non-malicious worth. Internet pornography might also be regarded as being driven by moral or intellectual virtue. Since the perspective makes heavy use of moderation. So the issue of Internet pornography as much as any other issue could be a candidate to being a virtue through moderation.

Chat Groups and Free Expression

Chat Groups and Free Expression

If you were granted indefinite and unrestricted access to the Internet, would you be interested to join a chat group that holds no barrier as far as free expression and communication are concerned? Why? Why not?


Actually, I am not very interested in chat groups, although I am interested in having freedom of expression in various forms. Just like an adaptation of the cliché goes: I may not be interested in what other people are saying, but I may fight for the right of those people to say what they want. Most people find the right to freedom of expression that they are seeking in the Internet, where expressions are ironically easier to restrain. The amount of noise in the Internet is often enormous that people have to actively filter what they want to ingest. What’s good with the lesser restrictions in expression is that information is formed in usually many sources, although sometimes this is also a liability because some sources could contradict with their stands on the same issue. But this just reflects the healthy state of communication. Communication in the Internet can be regarded as having its own evolutionary nature, where flaming, racism, and other malicious form of communication naturally die down, and the healthy state of the intended communication naturally survives.