Management and the Technology Professional – B302
Case study answer 1
The introduction of the software intended to prevent unauthorised duplication of material on an audio CD was developed with the intention of minimizing this action, however by installing this software, we were leaving consumers vulnerable to viruses, computer hackers and various other malicious scripts. The most compelling reason why our company should not have developed this software is that we abused our authority in maintaining sufficient and consumer orientated Digital Rights Management. In order to run a Sony CD containing this software, the user was forced to install the Rootkit Software onto their PC, without clear notification or confirmation required. This then had a damaging affect on the consumers personal PC by creating severe security vulnerability which others could exploit.
The decision making process used when developing the software for distribution is to blame. The main decision to distribute this software should have been analysed further than to simply assist the company’s battle against piracy.
The engineers at our company are each experts in there field and would have known the capabilities of this software. Forcing a software install of this nature on consumer computers is unethical as it depreciates the high standard that the company is aiming to achieve. The consequences of installing the software are also included in the engineer’s knowledge. The software engineers will been fully aware of this information but continued to break ethical morals. Firstly the engineers exploited customer’s knowledge by increasing computer system risk. I believe an ethical computer engineer should minimise consequences of computer systems instead of enhancing them. By putting software of this kind in the public domain shows people how to use and could possibly result in more people gaining knowledge in the virus and hacking area which creates more vulnerability in the computer systems. The company is not completely honest and trust worthy moral reasoning is an example of the company achieving there goal but not considering the consequences causing the problems identified. By exploiting users that don’t have as much knowledge as the engineers it is not the correct method to approach a problem.
My personal reflection is that many issues concerning digital rights management and technological protection measures have been raised by this event, however Sony and our company has seriously compensated some stature through this act of naivety. The common code of ethics for computer professionals has critically been ignored, leaving innocent customers with computers which are open to malicious intrusion. I feel for a large organisation to do this in such a way underlines the greed and market monopolisation which Sony are portraying. With any company the customer should be put first. A company may have a product but without customers buying that product there is no company. To conclude our company has used software to fix the piracy problem but has ignored possible consequences of using the software.
