Practical Ethics

Don't be Evil -- and prove it.

A new angle has recently come to light regarding the unrest in Iran: well known western companies provided the technology the government are using to eavesdrop on its citizens. The Washington Times and Wall Street Journal have reported on the fact that Nokia and Siemens have sold special equipment to Iran's state-owned telecommunications company, which can be used to tap phones, read email messages and observe who is accessing which internet sites. This is not the first such case. In 2006, Amnesty International drew attention to the assistance Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google had given to Chinese authorities in their attempts to suppress free speech on the internet in China. Finally, the networking giant, Cisco, has been a key player in setting up the hardware that China uses to block foreign websites with its 'Great Firewall'.

Sometimes justice wears a mask: blogging, anonymity and the open society

After the Times exposed the identity of the police blogger "Night Jack" he has been disciplined by the police force. The blog (now deleted) had won the Orwell Price for political writing and often expressed critical views related to the police and the justice system. In a court ruling Mr Justice Eady claimed that blogging was "essentially a public rather than a private activity" and that it was in the public interest to know who originated opinions and arguments. Do we have a right to anonymity on the net? And is it truly in the public interest to know who every blogger is?

Intuitive pirates: why do we accept file sharing so much?

Piracy is in the headlines, whether in Somalian waters or Swedish cyberspace. A Stockholm court this friday found four men guilty of promoting copyright infringement by running the popular file-sharing site The Pirate Bay and sentenced them to one year in prison as well as a 30 million kronor fine (about $3.5 million). The case will no doubt go to a higher court and the circus (as well as the piracy) will continue. Legally, at least in the sense of the spirit of the laws banning copyright infringement, the case is pretty clear. But morally, what is wrong with file sharing? And why don't people care?

Open source censorship

The struggle against child porn goes on. An Australian judge has ruled that a cartoon showing a character from The Simpsons engaged in sexual activity is child pornography. Australia is also trying to implement Internet filtering for the whole population, although the project has run into serious opposition. Meanwhile Wikipedia ended up 'censored' in the UK due to a page with the controversial cover of an album.

The most interesting aspect of the Wikipedia debacle is that the decision that led to the censorship was not made by any government authority but an industry-sponsored group, the Internet Watch Foundation. The IWF maintains a blacklist certain ISPs subscribe to, and users trying to reach a site on it will be sent a blank page. Is this censorship, and is this bad?

Hacking the spammers

Why is there spam? The simple answer is that "there is a sucker born every minute" and email is cheap enough to reach millions of potential suckers who might want to buy Viagra, sure-fire investments and fake Rolexes. A new study has discovered that it is enough with one response to every 12.5 million emails sent is enough to be profitable. The most interesting about the study was how it was done: by hacking the spammers own network. But is it OK to hack in order to understand spam?

Election ex machina: should voting machines be trusted?

When election of public officials through public voting was instituted in the US,the framers of the constitution had no inkling about how large the voting public would one day become. Beside logistical problems that accidentally enfranchise goldfish and the many issues surrounding voter registration a growing concern is the reliability of electronic voting machines. As electronic voting machines are being installed, concerns about their reliability are being raised and legal battles ensue. In a Finnish election the system lost 2% of all electronic votes. About 60% of American votes are cast on paper ballots, but it might increase locally after problems with voting machines. The real fear is not that people might misvote due to misunderstandings or that votes might be miscounted, but that the machines themselves might be biased or easily tampered with. Can we trust the machines? Or are elections by their nature too messy for these problems to matter?

Protectionist deities vs. the economy of fun: ownership of virtual possessions

Do players in online games have a right to their virtual possessions? As discussed by Erin Hoffman in an essay the matter is a legal quagmire. Real money is involved, people have assaulted each other over virtual thefts, China now recognizes people's right to their virtual property while the US does not. As virtual worlds become ever bigger business the legal issues surrounding virtual property will become more important - both directly in court, and indirectly in shaping what kinds of worlds will be profitable or even possible. But from an ethical standpoint, do we have a right to virtual property?

Silicon dreams: digital drugs and regulation

A new worry has hit parents: digital drugs. The idea is that sounds can affect brain states, so by listening to the right kind of sounds desired brain states can be induced - relaxation, concentration, happiness, PMS relief or why not hallucinations? Apparently "idosers" walk around high on sound. Just the right thing for a summer moral panic - kids, computers, drugs and pseudoscience.

Lex Orwell: When is a Surveillance Society OK?

The current Swedish debate about a bill to allow military intelligence to intercept phone and Internet communications has produced something most unSwedish: a grassroots "blogquake" that has upset the staid logic of traditional politics. Given the threat that the bill may fall because of MPs disobeying their party whips (normally unheard of in Swedish politics) there is a real chance the bill is even withdrawn at the last minute. But even if it is, this is an issue that will return again and again: exactly how much information should the government be allowed to gather and for what purposes?

The stresses of 24 hour creative work: How much would Aristotle blog?

New York Times writes about the stressful lifestyle of for-pay bloggers. The bloggers get rewarded for being prolific and quick to comment, but since the Internet never sleeps they feel a pressure not to sleep either. The result is physical and emotional stress that never lets up – especially since often the home is also their workplace. This is just one example of the high stresses of many new creative class occupations. Is there any way out of knowledge-economy workaholism?