Ethics In IT 466
chiefloko writes "I am presently taking a Business Ethics class while earning my MBA. For my final paper topic I have chosen 'Ethics within the Information Technology realm.' Over the past 13 years I have worked for three corporations and have seen everything from the typical BOFH to ungodly pirated software use. I also bore witness to a remote user logging in to a poorly administrated Sun station, finding out s/he was root, and then reading co-workers' emails. I am interested in what the norm is for ethics in the IT world and some of the stories and outcomes."
Re:The difference between IT and other professions (Score:2, Informative)
(It's helpful if you're ever asked to do something you consider unethical, and you can state your professional organisation membership's code of ethics forbids such behaviour. It helps you stick to your ethics because it backs you up.)
ACM Code of Ethics (Score:5, Informative)
SAGE: System Administrators' Code of Ethics (Score:3, Informative)
What ethics? (Score:3, Informative)
Here's a scenario that happened to me in 2006. I had a contract terminated with no reason given. 4 days before the contract was terminated I sent a memo to the CEO (I reported to him) about sending bulk email without an opt-out option and without the companies physical address. I included relevant state and federal laws regarding the issue, mainly the Can Spam Act. 3 days before the contract was terminated the CEO confronts me in front of the whole office about how they were the following the law. I flatly told him I wouldn't send them or train anyone to send them until they added physical contact information and a way to opt-out. This was in front of his entire office staff. I wanted to discuss it in private and he wanted to discuss it in front of everyone. Friday, my contract got terminated, no reason given. Take a guess as to why it was terminated?
Re:You need to clarify your question (Score:5, Informative)
Think of it as the difference between a politician and a serial killer.
late payment (Score:4, Informative)
Well, most companies don't hold to that.
Oft repeated rhetoric here is that a companies only purpose is to make money. You're actually depriving your shareholders of a small amount of capital by paying on time if it's possible to avoid.
I find that (as a director in a small business) we get paid late by big businesses and government organisations. They can pay late, we can't afford to sue and we need them more than they need us. We've been paid over a month late by a local council (!) for an amount equal to about 50% of our wages bill
Inspired by Google's early ethical policy of "do no evil" ours is "be nice". We've many times checked our behaviour, and adapted it (sometimes to our financial detriment), by following this code.
Ethics is a personal attribute, not a rule set.. (Score:2, Informative)
You have in each case two options: do what's right or do what is convenient. I prefered to do what is right, but you have to accept that in many cases this will be held against you by those that are more of the morally lazy persuasion (or who need their numbers to stack up).
The good news is that such a reputation also works in a positive way: you can become regarded as utterly unbiased, and as long as you don't have personality defects to go with it (I get on with almost anyone) you sometimes end up becoming an example.
In many cases the requested behaviour was contradicting ethics policies. Ethics policies are treated by most organisations as a marketing exercise, not as a code of behaviour. Given the examples of thos who make a real profit I can't see this change overnight..
There is no norm for ethics in IT I think (Score:4, Informative)
Programmer Ethics (Score:2, Informative)
Let me begin by reviewing three modalities of ethical behavior:
1) How the IT worker functions vis-a-vis their co-workers: the usual stuff--office politics, gossip, backstabbing, etc. and has been well-covered elsewhere.
2) How the "visible" IT worker functions in relation to his/her job: Email snoops, BOFHs, yeah, yeah, we get it.
3) Invisible work: Poor management doesn't understand the value of patching, refactoring, debugging, commenting--and because of this forces the worker to compromise their ethics. These operations are often invisible to the unwashed masses.
The third category is hard for management to grasp. They don't understand what it means to cross the line from "useful hack" to "pure garbage."
Code like this: ...should be considered a special type of ethics violation (there are probably better examples--but this one should suffice).
Lots of programmers make evil shortcuts or write halfass algorithms, not (always) because they're lazy or incompetent, but because they're implicitly asked to, by managers and product teams who don't understand. Where is the ethical violation in an empty 'catch' block? Could it be the result of:
A) Management who lied about the man-hours required to complete a project,
B) Product teams who didn't take the time to gather requirements properly, or
C) Decision-makers who don't consider programmer input or advice.
The programmer is often forced to make an ethical decision: what is the right thing to do when the boss says "STFU about revising your code and push it into production?" Usually the programmer will just throw whatever they have ready, knowing that they're not putting their best work forward.
Who suffers? The programmer who feels they're forced to make an evil choice, the enduser who pays for shoddy product, the next person who looks at your code, etc.
Sometimes this choice is validated based on expediency, sometimes, it does nothing but let the manager check a milestone off in their excel spreadsheet.
As a fellow MBA Student Ill give some insight. (Score:3, Informative)
What are Ethical issues:
Finding loop holes in software to avoid paying extra license fee (lets make sure that everyone loges onto this server as this name)
Knowing there has been a security breach and possible data has gotten lost wether to tell the company or not
Change the ways hours for projects are recorded to put more hours in one project and less in an other.
Contracting consultants to replace your current work force just because they are billed from a different source and makes you look good.
Not contracting consultants when your project really needs more people or skills. or a new set of skills for the job for a project.
Changing a project from Fixed Priced to Time and material or vice versa because it just suits your needs.
Expecting Free Quotes or Specs for a new project then going to a different group to do the work.
Work with a third party reseller to get the design you need then go to to the source just because they can give you a better deal.
If you have third party resellers choosing to undercut them after they have done all the relationship building and advertising for your projects.
Ethis is an issue of trust. If your actions shows that you cannot be trusted then things really backfire. Any one ethic violation may not hurt anyone but a combination will generally get the company of employees and venders shit lists and you will get less quality and service and value over time.
Islamic angle (Score:3, Informative)
First group arguments:
* concept of ownership in Shariah is confined to the tangible objects only
* no precedent in religious practice where an intangible object has been subjected to private ownership or to sale and purchase
* concept of "intellectual property" leads to monopoly of some individuals over knowledge, which can never be accepted by Islam
Second group arguments:
* there is no express provision in the Holy Qur'an or in the Sunnah which restricts the ownership to the tangible objects only
* there are several instances in Shariah where such intangible rights have been transferred to others for some monetary considerations
* concept of "intellectual property" does in no way restrict the scope of knowledge
Read more of it through the reference. I know there are tons of Muslims from subcontinent in IT industry and (inevitably) on
"reading co-workers' emails":
1. Sahih Bukhari is book number 2 for Muslims:2. Less solid hadeeth (has somewhat flawed chain of narrators)
I guess second part of the second hadeeth does not apply to BOFH.
Re:You need to clarify your question (Score:3, Informative)
We have got into a world where some companies want to return a greater profit each year and this idea becomes more important to them, than providing a steady living for people.
Businesses aren't welfare programs. Nobody started Microsoft or Proctor & Gamble or big evil entity name here thinking "Hmm, maybe I could employ 400,000 people if only I worked 80 hour weeks for the next ten years or so on the off-chance I might be successful?"
Businesses are supposed to make money. Period. We have laws to keep them from drinking the blood of kittens. Barring unions and closed shops, you are always free to look for another job that will give you a steadier living.
Which is why most places (in my limited experience) try their hardest to make sure their best employees have a "steady living." In any place outside of fast food, turnover is hard on a business. There are financial and opportunity costs involved with training new employees, and a boss that screws over the company for the sake of his paycheck won't be employed long. (Even the most profitable companies will die with enough people bleeding them dry.)
Businesses are here to make money. That's not bad - where do you think your paycheck comes from?