The Ethical Aspect of Hacking - Research Paper Example

Number Hacking This research paper discusses the philosophy of justification of the end through its means. It highlights some of the laws that provide for the hacking process and explains their provisions on this process. The paper identifies the ethical aspect of hacking, whether the society considers it an ethical procedure or not. It also discusses the various perceptions people develop from various situations and how they handle them. It also explains how the society perceives hackers. It identifies the motivations hackers have when breaking into a computer system and relates their behavior to that of thieves in the society. It also describes the various defenses hackers use in order to justify their acts, such as claiming that information ought to be free. Finally, it discusses the negative impact of students hacking institutional systems in the name of acquiring cost-effective education. The hacking process in the society is a dangerous activity that the government should get rid of. This is because there are malicious hackers who break into an organization’s system in order to cause damage (Paul, p26). The crackers access, retrieve and interfere with a company’s data without any consent. The U.S has laws that forbid hacking, for example, the 18 U.S.C 1029, which prohibits any unauthorized access of secured systems. It however justifies the people who have the right cause of hacking, those whose intent is not of committing fraud. The 18 U.S.C 1030 prohibits any unauthorized access to the government systems. This law justifies authorized access but does not provide for people who have a moral intent (Legal Information Institute). There are however situations that may lead one to access systems without authorization in order to acquire essential data without committing fraud, for example in the literature work, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Larsson), Lisbeth broke some laws in order to retrieve information that would bring justice, which gave her credit for the unlawful act. The society however has ethics that differentiate the right from the wrong. If the government made a law that justified the means through its end, there would be increased criminal levels in the society. Instances of theft would increase, as people would claim that they were carrying out the unlawful activity in order to feed his or her hungry family. The society, in all situations, should therefore justify the end through the means (Paul, p27). Although people have different perceptions of a situation, they tend to justify various acts that may have used the same means differently (Levy, p36). For example, if the government chose to eliminate theft by beheading thieves in public, the society would consider this as an immoral act. Even if the act would lower the theft cases, it would emphasis on the rights to life for any person irrespective of the acts. In this case, the means would justify the end. For the computer hackers, the society disregards the method through which they acquired information. The citizens regard them as intelligent people who safeguard the interest of the society. This is irrespective the law that provides for security in the computer systems of a company. This makes one law more important than the other and therefore, the society should formulate a uniform procedure of judging situations (Paul, p28). The society holds that the hackers develop the right judgment towards various issues in the society hence the geniuses can never base their perceptions and thoughts on the wrong facts and imagination (Levy, p38). However, not all perceptions that the hackers hold is always true. They may develop wrong judgment, which may lead to injustice in the world. In the movie Minority Report, the hackers access information that aids an agency in preventing the occurrence of a crime (Spielberg). If the society embraces this concept, the State would sentence many innocent people to prison. This is because the jury would pass judgment based on the thoughts the hackers formulate but not on the acts the defendant commits. There would be no consideration of the capability of each person to posses the will of freethinking since they would consider the collective human behavior. There are various motivators for the hackers. They tend to guess thousands of passwords in order to gain unauthorized access into an organization’s data. This is not different from the thieves who would move from house to house trying to open the locks. The method the thieves use, after gaining access to the house, to peruse through the drawers and the furniture, is the same method the hackers use in scrutinizing all the organization’s data they are able to access. The society, however, is ready to condemn the thieves and embrace the hackers’ results without any considerations for similarity of the means (Paul, p31). The computer break in may be useful in finding evidence against a suspect, but it does not make the action ethical. Hackers argue that all information should be free. They emphasize that all types of information belong to everyone and there should be no restrictions in accessing the data. This concept views the law that safeguards privacy, be it at homes or organizations, as invalid. The citizens, if this perception was law, would not possess any kind of private property. This would increase the criminal activities in the society since anyone would access any kind of information. Individuals would easily access the government systems and perform fraud (Halt & Schell, p23). Patient’s medical records would also not be private information, hence refuting the Hippocratic Oath. The society however disregards this danger as it upholds the thought that the hackers are geniuses. The hackers argue that their talents are an advantage to organizations systems. This is because they aid in identification of flaws in these systems, hence the technical staff is able to reinforce the security of the systems (Paul, p30). They should therefore continually try hacking into security systems for the organizations to fix all the flaws that may be present in the system. This security argument states that the organizations should compensate the hackers, when they succeed in hacking into their systems. One can compare this argument to a scenario in the society, where a locality tries to reinforce its security systems in order to eliminate the theft cases. To test the efficiency of the security, there has to be presence of thieves who should invade the locality. In this case, the society would condemn the thieves, or even press charges. The members of the locality would argue that the thieves were not justified to carry out the activity although they were able to identify the areas that needed reinforcement, hence the end should not justify the means. The hackers embrace various theories in order to justify their actions. They claim that the majority of organizations does not use their systems to their maximum capacity. The hackers therefore make use of the idle capacity of the company’s systems (Paul, p32). They develop some personal software that accumulates the unused space for their gain. The government should eliminate this unlawful act because the invasion of hackers into a system would lead to overloading of the system, which would reduce its efficiency and effectiveness. They should leave the idle capacity for the company’s usage in the future, when there are increased production levels, and in times of crisis. If this action is justifiable, then the society should also justify an instance where a person evades unused personal privacy. If a stranger occupies the unoccupied rooms of a family house, the family would sue him or her for trespassing. Due to their unethical behavior, the hackers should receive similar treatment. The hackers’ celebrity and justifications have attracted the interest of many students in learning the procedures of hacking into a system. Students therefore are able to access the data from various educational institutions without paying for the services. They give an excuse of lack of funds in order to justify their unethical behavior. The learning environment, through unauthorized access of institutions data has led to minimal exposure of the students to the fundamental theories and concepts of the course they purpose to pursue. There is also damage of the systems due to ignorance of the students on the intrusion procedure (Halt & Schell, p42). There has also been increased number of viruses as the students try to develop complex systems. Although learning is expensive, the students must devise ethical ways of raising funds for their learning. This would solve some of the problems of system failure in organizations and formulation of new computer viruses (Houston, p29). Majority of the organizations have embraced the use of computers and networks in storage of data. This is a facilitator of the increase of the criminal activities since employees in the workplace can easily alter data for their personal gain. Organizations have therefore turned to hackers who survey the systems for any instances of criminal activities within the system (Houston, p65). They hold on to the idea of setting a thief to catch a thief. Although this shows that the end justifies the means, it has motivated workers to access restricted areas of the organizations systems through the hacking agents. The computer break-ins have granted them access to committing fraud and laundering money (Halt & Schell, p45). Finally, the government should enforce the hacking law in the society. This is because hacking in itself is a criminal activity that violates the 18 U.S.C 1029 law (Legal Information Institute). Hackers use this law to justify their acts, claiming that their activities do not lead to fraud. The society should be aware that hacking does not provide the best solution in solving problems within the society. This is because it uses a means that involves the law of privacy, which is important to all individuals. Citizens should relate this activity to the criminal activities present in the society, such as theft, because it uses similar strategies of attaining the end. Work-Cited Holt, Thomas J, and Bernadette H. Schell. Corporate Hacking and Technology-Driven Crime: Social Dynamics and Implications. Hershey, PA: Business Science Reference, 2011. Print. HOUSTON, B. The Investigative Reporter’s Handbook: A Guide to Documents, Databases and Techniques. St Martins: Bedford Books, 2009. Larsson, Stieg. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008. Print. Legal Information Institute. 18 USC § 1030 - Fraud and related activity in connection with computers. 2013. 2 Dec 2013 . Levy, Steven. Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (25th Anniversary Edition). Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly Media, Inc., 2010. Spielberg, Steven, dir. Minority Report. Perf. Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell and Samantha Morton. DreamWorks, 2002. DVD Taylor, Paul. Hackers: Crime and the Digital Sublime. London: Routledge. 2012. Read More