Management and the Technology Professional – B302
Case study answer 1
The most compelling reason why the rootkit software should not have been created by lead developers at First4Internet is ethical. Many associations such as the Association for Computing Machinery have published Codes of ethics regarding technological ventures. The very first section of ACM’s Code of ethics states that the “general moral imperatives” should be to “contribute to society and human well-being” and also to “avoid harm to others”. The software created by First4Internet, although not distributed by them, contained serious flaws that led to the overall security of a system being impaired. The software hid files with a certain name and allowed hackers to create worms under that name, making them invisible to the user with its attempted removal resulting in serious damage to the operating system. Sony released this software that they hired First4Internet to create, including it on several of their titles. We have to ask the question; where do we draw the line in this brutal and never ending fight on piracy?
In a discussion of liability, First4Internet's actions could be compared to the creation of a pistol. The creator sells the pistol to another individual who uses is to commit a harmful act. Is the creator or the user liable? Additionally, if the creator was informed by the individual of his plans is he then liable? From the perspective of the head developer at First4Internet he could not possibly be considered liable, as he was instructed to create the software and this act transfers the liability. Similarly, a soldier who fought in Iraq could not be held liable for the illegality of the war. The reason that First4Internet as a company did not break any laws and shifting responsibility to Sony, was probably due to the fact that they did not distribute the software. Once the software was released by Sony, several infringes were made on the Computer Misuse Act 1990 and the Data Protection Act. It is after all a program that installs without the users knowledge and relays information about the user to a central location. Those two facts violate both acts. Sony is held liable under ‘strict’ or ‘absolute’ liability. If they hired a company to do a job they have the obligation to check the quality and the integrity of the work before releasing it to the world. Even if this was done and the security vulnerabilities were corrected, they still released a brutal control and privacy invasion of the user.
Sony BMG Music Entertainment's business objectives were to forcefully controlling our ability to copy their titles. Their public campaigns around the copying of music had evidently failed. This drastic last effort to make the users not able to carry out the task through brute force and illegality was the final step before the lawsuits. Claims have been made that the industry are losing billions every year to pirates. These figures simply cannot be taken seriously as if people could not download or copy the music this would not lead them to necessarily purchase the titles. Artists receive only a few percent of music sales, the argument that they would disappear is ridiculous and the resulting factor probably being more live music. Business by nature is always a risk and sometimes fails. Society holds no responsibility to feed a certain group of people.
The time for sharing is here and the times of the plastic gold has ended.
