Final ethics post

Original post:

The power I feel with the hacking powers I’ve learned is to my friends, family, and loved ones. I feel like I have a responsibility to let them know that these things, such as SQL attacks and password crackers, and people who do these types of things and more, are out there and they can cause major problems. I feel the need to tell my loved ones that they need to be careful with the way they use computers of any form. I’ve been continuously sharing with friends and family (especially my parents) throughout this course about various things and how they can protect themselves. That is my biggest thing. I don’t want people I know and care about to get ripped off by thieves online. Any of the hacking powers I have obtained, I have no intention of using, unless it is in a working manner when I have permission to do so. Any social engineering I would do is just me being me – being friendly. That’s just the type of person I am. I wouldn’t use any information I gathered against people, that wouldn’t be right, and quite frankly it is beneath my character.

What do you believe?  What are your values? 

Simply put, I believe there is a right way to treat people and a wrong way to treat people. I try to treat people how I would want to be treated. I try to be nice to people. I try to be fair to people. I may joke around about certain things, and if someone gets hurt, that’s unfortunate, but it certainly wasn’t on purpose. I definitely don’t believe in doing something, just because you can – as one of our ethics questions earlier this season asked. I actually like the example PZB used in class about this subject when he discussed milk – if a person needs milk and they have the money to go buy it at the store, of course I would have no problem with that, but if the person steals milk from a store or otherwise, just because they can get away with it, that’s wrong. I would say it is wrong regardless of why it is needed and regardless if a person has a family to feed and they are in dire straits financially. I can understand an argument for that last scenario, but personally I wouldn’t see myself doing it. Then again, I’m a single person living alone and maybe I would feel differently if I did actually have a family to feed and things  got to that point.

The above is also how I feel about hacking and the computer world as well. Just because a person has the ability to trick people or hack into people’s systems, that doesn’t mean they should do it. As I’ve stated in class – although I realize it is unrealistic, I don’t believe IT security and related professions should even be needed because people shouldn’t be trying to access other people’s information or flat out steal from other people, that’s just not how I was brought up. When I was younger I did my fair share of downloading music that I shouldn’t have. It was kind of the thing to do, and at that point I didn’t realize it wasn’t supposed to be happening. Now, any music I download is from iTunes and I pay for it. I’ve told people this, and they look at me funny and say I’m stupid. I might be stupid, but at least I’m honest.

Hopefully all of the above fulfills what I was supposed to write about in this assignment – now for this: 

 Now, why is that the case?  Why is that the right thing to do?

So, why is all of that important to me? Again, it goes back to my parents and how I was raised. I was raised to earn an honest living, not take from others. I’m not saying I’m a perfect person, far from it, but I do my best to live a virtues life, and I try to surround myself with friends who are the same way.

Think about it this way, how does it feel when you get your information or money or secrets or whatever stolen from you? How does that make you feel? My guess would be pretty crappy or pretty upset or hurt or violated or some combination of all of the above. I leave you with this, why would you want to do that to someone else, and make them feel that way?