Notes on Questions in Lecture of 10/12/2022

• What do you think of the ten commandments of computer ethics?

I think they're a good code of ethics. If people were to follow them then there would be no need for cyber security.

• What kind of ethics does the Rabbit Ridge Mountain Bike Trail guidelines follow?

It judges the result of the action and not the action itself. It is also not appealing to anyone's good nature so it would have to be utilitarian.

• What character traits would work in this example?

Being an environmentalist would work in this example because they care about nature and the sign is trying to get people to protect it so they work well together.

• How would you redesign this code of ethics to be more utilitarian, deontological or humean virtue based?

This code of ethics could be made more utilitarian by focusing more on the result of their actions, like how the park would be impacted by the act of defacing it. The sign could be made more deontological by emphasizing how it's bad and wrong to deface the park. It could be more based in virtue ethics by appealing to people's good nature and saying how it's a good thing to protect the park and the natural beauty of it.

• How can laws or required rules in the ACM not be ethics based?

Computer Programmers are trusted with a lot of confidential information and it's their ethical duty not to divulge or reveal it. The exception to this is when it could be in violation of the law, in which case they must forfeit their ethical duty for the greater good.

• “lex iniusta non est lex” Can you guess any words?

I know some from so from that I'm guessing that non and est mean no and is, lex is probably law but I don't know what iniusta means.

• What type of ethics explains the latin phrase?

Utilitarian ethics explains it. If the end result of the law being put in place is more 'bad' in the world and negative outcomes then it is unjust.

• How could the same thing be coded using a different type?

The same thing could be coded using deontology by examining the law itself. If the actions that the law prohibits is not 'bad' then it could be considered unjust.

• Which works better?

I think the utilitarian aspect works better because it examines the end result not just the actions that the law prohibits. The action could not be bad but it could result in bad things therefore examining the end result is more important.

• How can you tell?

It is what I believe based on my own code of ethics.

HW3Proj

Sources:
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/china-ministry-orders-38-apps-rectify-excessive-collection-personal-data-2021-11-03/

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/08/tencent-wechat-surveillance-help-censorship-in-china.html

Background:

Cheating in video games is prevalent in many genres and from low levels of play all the way to professional leagues. Each video game has their own way of combating the problem, some better than others. FPS games in particular have been plagued due to their ease of coding and the many ways to get past cheat detection software. Valorant is an FPS game made by Riot Games who is owned by Tencent, a chinese company, that introduced a unique anti-cheat program called Vanguard. Vanguard works differently than other anti-cheats in the way it operates. Most anti-cheat programs are ran when you start the game and will continue to run until it is closed. Vanguard works differently because it is running from the moment you start your computer until the moment you shut it off. It works this way because it requires something called kernel-level access to your computer. This allows it to have full control over all the processes and data your computer handles. It has had a surprising amount of success. Whereas other FPS games are still plagued by cheaters daily, any who wish to befoul the competitive or casual scene in Valorant are caught nearly immediately. There have been many instances in which a player will decide to start cheating in a match and get caught and permanently banned by the end of it. Counter-Strike is Valorants leading competitor in the market and it is a night and day difference in the presence of cheaters. Seeing somebody hack in Counter-Strike is almost expected and not a surprise to any, but in Valorant it is such a rare occurrence that you could easily play 100 matches or more without encountering a single one. While it clearly has it's pros it has its cons as well. The fact that it has such a high level of access to your computer is scary to many computer science experts who know the extent of control it has. It's made all the more scary when looked at the history Tencent has with data collection in their other apps. They were ordered by the Chinese government on Nov 3 2021 (Horwitz, 1) to "rectify what it called the excessive collection of personal information"(Horwitz, 1). An investigation by a research company showed that they surveil foreign users on their messaging app WeChat which has over 1 billion users globally and is the largest messaging app in China where Tencent operates (Kharpal, 2). The investigation found that when "politically sensitive content which was sent exclusively between non-China-registered accounts was identified as politically sensitive and subsequently censored when transmitted between China-registered accounts, without having previously been sent to, or between, China-registered accounts,"(Kharpal, 11). Seeing what kind of actions they take in their other programs it's not hard to imagine what they might be doing with unprecedented access to 22.5 million active monthly players.