Case Study 1: IBM-GSA IT Outsourcing Contract

What is going on?

IBM-GSA was one of the three tender suppliers for IT outsourcing contract for health department along with CSC and EDS. During the tender process, it was supplied with computer disks containing critical information relating to final pricing of their rival tenders. It, therefore, revised it tender after the deadline and was announced the successful bidder by the minister. OASITO described this as an inadvertent error. The minister then denied for it to be halted and three years later after his retirement, he admits it should have been canceled. In addition to it being successful, the minister’s claim that Probity Auditor’s role was limited and this was contracted by evidence provided by OASITO to a Senate hearing.

What are the facts?

IBM-GSA was supplied with a disk containing critical information relating to final pricing of their rival tenders and they consequently revised their tender after the due deadline and were announced the successful bidder. The minister dismissed the opposition’s call to halt the tender process, but three years later after the minister retired, he acknowledged that the tender would have been canceled.

What are the issues?

• IBM-GSA was supplied with a computer disk containing critical information on the final pricing of rival tenders.
• IBM-GSA revised their tender after due deadline.
• Minister dismissed opposition’s call to halt the tender process immediately.
• Minister admitted after his retirement that the tender should have been canceled.
• OASITO informed Probity Auditor and their legal advisers, but they all concurred that the process continues unchanged.
• Again, Probity Auditor briefed in person but came back with a proposed course of action and was finally happy that they delivered according to the proposed course of action.

Who is affected?

• The rival tenders -whose critical information about final pricing was leaked out.
• IBM-GSA – got the leaked information about its rival tenders.
• OASITO -informed the minister of the inadvertent error.
• The minister -announced the successful bidder.
• Probity Auditor and the legal advisers- concurred for the process to continue unchanged.

What is the ethical issue?

IBM-GSA was supplied with a computer disk containing critical information on the final pricing of rival tenders, and it revised its tender after the due deadline.

What are the implications of the ethical issue?

Giving IBM-GSA critical information related to their rivals final pricing implied that it would apparently revise its tender by putting a lower price than that of the rivals so as to be awarded the tender to the lowest bidder. This was an unfair act to the rivals and damaged reputation of the organization in general.

What could have been done about it?

• The tender process ought to have been canceled.

What are the options?

• The tender would have been reviewed and the previous pricing bids used before IBM-GSA revised its tender.
• IGM-GSA tender is canceled since it is revised after the due deadline.
• Tender process started afresh with IBM-GSA not being amongst the three tenders.
• IBM-GSA being prequalified and so it’s not allowed to supply in that financial year.

What option is the best?

• IBM-GSA being prequalified and so is not allowed to supply in that financial year.

Why is the above option the best?

This is the best option as it provides justice for the rival tenders and also discourages such a similar case from repeating itself again since it is punishable.

What’s going on?

Jean a statistical database programmer and is trying to write large statistical program needed by her company. Programmers in that company are encouraged to write about their work and to publish their algorithms in professional journals. After months she found herself stuck on a program and the manager wanted the job completed in the next few days. She is then forced to take source listings given to her by a co-worker from his current work andm an early version of a commercial software package developed by another company. She then takes two areas of code which could be directly incorporated into her program and uses their segments to complete her program and does not tell anyone or mention it in the documentation. With that she completes the project and turns it in a day before the deadline.

What are the facts?

• Jean has found herself stuck on several parts of the program.
• The manager does not recognize the complexity of the problem and wants the job completed in few days.
• Upon studying the programs Jean sees two areas of code which could be directly incorporated into her program and uses them but does not tell anyone or mention it on the documentation.
• Programmers in this company are encouraged to write about their work and publish their algorithms in professional journals.

What are the issues?

• She uses segments of code from both her co-worker and the commercial software but does not tell anyone or mention it the documentation.
• The manager does not recognize the complexity of the problem and wants the job completed in few days.
• Programmers in this company are encouraged to write about their work and publish their algorithms in professional journals.

Who is affected?

• Jean as she has done something unethical.
• The manager as he is responsible for all the operations of the company.
• The company itself for it is responsible for actions of its employees.

What is the ethical issue?

• She uses segments of code from both her co-worker and the commercial software but does not tell anyone or mention it the documentation.

What are the implications of the ethical issue?

Case Study 2: Plagiarism in Programming

The ethical issue could lead to legal penalties if sued by the other company and Jean’s Company will be forced to pay court costs and the attorney’s fees plus the actual amount damages and profits.

What could have been done about it?

Jean could not have used the segments code of the co-worker and commercial software and instead, could have asked for more time from the manager or rather consult from the manager if it was right to use them and mention it in the documentation.

What are the options?

• Jean using the code from a co-worker and commercial software and mentioning it in the documentation.
• Jean was to tell the manager that she was stuck and could not continue with the project.
• Jean had an option to ask the manager if it was right to use the segments of code from the co-worker and the commercial software.

What is the best option?

The best option was Jean telling the manager that she had used the segments of code from the co-worker and the commercial software and mentioning it in the documentation.

Why is the above option the best?

Probably this had to be the best option since, in the long run, the company needed the program and so either way they had to look for a solution hence it was better to use it and acknowledge its source.

What’s going on?

Andrew has just started work with government health department on a project that has been underway for nine months, and though the system is not yet complete, it uses live data. He also realizes that the system is poorly designed and riddled with bugs due to former developer’s lack of expertise and the type of technology is incompatible with department’s infrastructure leading to corruption and loss of financial data on a daily basis.

In fact most of the time he spends unsuccessfully trying to recover corrupted data, and due to his experience, he concludes that the system is unstable and will eventually be corrupt beyond repair and all its data will be unrecoverable. He, therefore, advice the supervisor of his findings and recommends; that the system redeveloped using appropriate technologies and quality measures. This would take six weeks, but the supervisor rejects Andrew’s recommendations stating that their IT department will not agree to a change in technology and directs him to use the existing technologies to complete the project.

What are the facts?

• The system is unstable and will eventually be corrupt beyond repair, and all its data will be unrecoverable.
• The expertise and the type of technology is incompatible with department’s infrastructure leading to corruption and loss of financial data on a daily basis
• The system is poorly designed and riddled with bugs due to former developer’s lack of expertise.
• Andrew spends most of his time unsuccessfully trying to recover corrupt data.

What are the issues?

• The supervisor has rejected Andrew’s recommendation about system redevelopment because it’s unstable and corrupt.
• Andrew’s says the system is unstable and will eventually be corrupt beyond repair and all its data will be unrecoverable.
• The expertise and the type of technology are incompatible with department’s infrastructure leading to corruption and loss of financial data on a daily basis.

Who is affected?

• Andrew who is the new software developer.
• The supervisor.

What is the ethical issue?

The system is corrupt, unstable and will eventually be corrupt beyond repair and all its data will be unrecoverable since it is already losing financial data on a daily basis and yet he advises the supervisor on its redevelopment it, but the supervisor rejects claiming that the IT department will not agree to a change in technology.

What are the implications of the ethical issue?

The entire system will be corrupt beyond repair, and all its data will be unrecoverable including all the financial data thereby exposing the health department to numerous risks.

What could have been done about it?

The supervisor would have allowed the redevelopment of the system so as to protect the system from being corrupt and losing sensitive data like financial data.

What are the options?

• Andrew would go ahead and redevelop the system without his knowledge.
• Andrew would have reported the issue to the health director and other senior staffs in the department of health.
• Andrew would have gone ahead to enquire from the IT department why or if they didn’t need a change in the technologies used.

Which is the best option?

Andrew reporting to the head of department and senior authorities about the corrupt system and the need for redevelopment since the supervisor was against it and reporting that the supervisor rejected that recommendation.

Case Study 3: System Corruption in Health Department

Why was it the best option?

• This is the best option because the system had to be redeveloped either way for security purposes to avoid corruption and future losses.

Whistleblowing has slowly taken route in protecting the public against dangers, neglect, and abuse. A whistleblower is an employee who reports malicious cases in the company he/she is working. A whistleblower feels the need to uncover the suspicious activities within a company to protect the public interest. Take for instance a teacher who exposes a school principal for misusing school’s resources. Of cause, the person whose department is in jeopardy will look at the whistleblower as an enemy, and make them lose their jobs. But is it bad if an employee reports a wrong doing?

Whistleblowers do uncover the faults in their organizations because it is their moral duty. However, a whistleblower must weigh the options he has before taking any action. After all, not all cases are worth reporting, Right? Employees pledge loyalty to their colleagues and the organizations for which they work. A whistleblower who decides to report the wrong doings of his boss chooses to go against the loyalty he pledged to the boss and his organization, which may lead to severe consequences. He will be risking his job, his security, and money. His information may be discredited and serious actions taken against him. He may be given more work or posted to jobs for which they are not qualified. They can be impaired of their jobs.

 A whistleblower will be operating on personal ethics. It is the inner drive that makes him feel the need to uncover the wrong in his company that leads to him taking actions. He is therefore not acting professionally, but it is his personal code of conduct at work here. Professional ethics would demand that a whistleblower stays loyal to his employers and company. This would require him to follow the rules and regulations set by his work organization to the latter.  The ethical approaches within a company include honesty, transparency, accountability, competence, confidentiality, and integrity, obedience to the law, respect and loyalty. A whistleblower will be going against most of these approaches when uncovering the wrongs of his boss. He will be showing disloyalty to his employer; he will be going against the law of the company and going against the confidentiality of the company.  However, his personal ethics will lead him to do the right thing for the interest of the public. His integrity, transparency, and accountability will trigger him to correct the wrongs of his company.

There are some differences involved between professional ethics and other types of ethics like personal ethics which include; personal ethics involves the individual having a choice to follow or not while in professional ethics the individual cannot choose. In personal ethics accountability is to the individual while in professional failure to comply makes both the individual and the company liable. Personal codes of ethics include honesty, commitment, openness and commitment. Examples of professional ethics include legal ethics, financial ethics and marketing ethics. Professional ethics improves responsibility of individuals. Again, whistle blowing conforms to the utilitarianism theory of ethics whereby person actions are beneficial to most of the people in the society even though it is against the professional ethics. Whistle blowing also conforms to the rights and virtue theories which are all considered ethical to the public as a whole though contradict the professional theory. Deontology theory of ethics helps the employee to adhere to his duties associated with the process of decision making to put ethics in practice.

In conclusion, whistleblowing is unethical, and a whistleblower may face retaliation. A whistleblower runs the risk of jeopardizing the confidentiality of his company. Such people should be cut from the company.

The world’s digital information is growing enormously, and the number of people using digital gadgets such as phones and computers is rapidly increasing. Social websites have been created, and the people using these sites are on the rise. Thus, companies dealing with information and communication technology collect all sorts of data from users of the internet and telecommunication services. These data collected are vulnerable to breaching, which has prompted the need for privacy.

Privacy is important to limit the power other people have on us. In cases where information has been leaked to the wrong people, the people whose information has leaked may be at risk of blackmail among other things. The individuals in possession of information relating to other people have power over those people. They are in danger of losing their reputation should their information be released to the public. One can use another’s information to influence their decision making.

Information and communication technologies have therefore enhanced privatization of information to help in the reputation management of internet and telecommunication users (Stahl, B. C., Eden, G., Jirotka, M., & Coeckelbergh, M. 2014). A lot of people use the internet through social media; hence a lot of their data is left vulnerable. Similarly, users of mobile phones and other gadgets used for communication leave a lot of data in the air. This data is recorded by service providers and stored. This data can harm the user of these services hence the need to protect the stored data from reaching the wrong people. However, keeping information of information and communication technology (ICT) users private and safe from the public is also necessary for the respect of the individual.

Keeping information private by ICT providers is professional ethics. The ICT companies are obliged with the responsibility of ensuring the information of their users is kept private. This is being achieved using passwords and encryption of messages. WhatsApp, for instance, has introduced the end to end encryption of messages to protect information of WhatsApp users.

  Privacy is an ethical practice and it is aligned with ethical theories like rights, virtues, utilitarianism and deontology. Rights are whereby you do things that are considered right by the society and are protected and given the first priority because most of the people accept them. Privacy is generally considered right by everyone. Virtues, on the other hand, depend on a person’s character which in turn depends on their behavior. It considers moral ethics and reputation of people its alignment with privacy as an ethical issue. Utilitarianism is also an ethical theory that supports privacy as it benefits the public in general. There are some of the differences that emerge between professional ethics in IT and other types of ethics in IT that control privacy. The codes of ethics in IT include confidentiality, honesty, integrity and professionalism. Privacy is also among them. They are the professional ethics in IT. The professional ethics may differ from other types of ethics like personal ethics like the personal ethics increases reputation of the individual and professional IT ethics improves reputation of the company as a whole. The ethical theories are also other types of ethics.

To this end, the privacy of information by ICT is essential. The users of ICT are people with private life and prefer if it is kept that way. The risk that comes with leaking personal information is significant. ICT companies have come up with contingency measures to protect their users from being left vulnerable to hackers and the public. This is the reason privacy of information has become the most important issue in Information and Communication Technology.

Hackers are those who use utilize their knowledge on computer software and hardware to break down and bypass security measures on a computer. Not all hackers are bad, and so it all depends on their intentions. There are three types of hackers that are the white hacker, black hacker, and the gray hacker. Hacking in the real sense is not bad unless the hacker is doing it for bad intentions.

Black hacker- in most cases does it for personal and financial gain. Such as stealing credit cards and harvesting personal data for sale. They are always held as the computer criminals performing illegal acts for personal gain.

White hacker- they use their abilities for good, ethical and legal purposes rather than bad, unethical and criminal purposes. After they have accessed the system, they report back to the organization and inform them how they gained access, allowing the organization to improve their defenses.

Grey hacker- they fall somewhere in between the white hackers and the black hackers. They don’t work for their personal gain or to cause carnage, but they may technically commit crimes and do arguably unethical things.

An ethical hacker- on the other hand, is a professional expert in computer and networking and systematically attempts to penetrate the computer system on behalf of its owners for the purpose of finding security vulnerabilities that malicious hacker could potentially exploit.

The difference between the white, black and grey hackers and the ethical hacker is that the ethical hacker has the permission of the organization it is working for and so he gains access to the system with the organization’s permission, while the black, grey and white hackers utilizes their expertise and knowledge to access the system without the organization’s permission (Coleman 2013). The professional ethical hacker is employed by the organization.

Black, gray and white hackers are working against the ethics of the organization, and so they are invading the privacy of the organization. They are an enormous risk to the organization especially the black hackers and they are always treated as criminals.

However, the ethical hackers are more or less the same as the white hackers since they both report to the organization how they gained access and allow them to improve their defenses. They both use their expertise for sound, ethical and legal purposes. The ethical hacker though is better than the white hacker since the white hacker gains access without the knowledge of the organization.

Hacking is not professional and so it goes against other types ethics. It goes against ethical theories like utilitarianism since it is selfish and acts on personal gain since the hacker does not conform to what benefits the whole public and is acting on personal gain. Hacking is also against rights and virtues as the public do not endorse it and it judges a person as being unethical unless it is ethical hacking which is a professional ethic. Ethical hacking adheres to deontology theory of ethics as the ethical hacker is employed by the organization and performs his duties and obligations in an ethical way for the benefit of the organization. This therefore brings out the differences of professional ethics like legal or corporate ethics and other types of ethics. It is also against the professional codes of ethics like confidentiality, fairness, transparency and proficiency. These professional ethics differ from personal like honesty and integrity. The differences are like the professional ethics individuals do not make a choice to adhere or not while personal ethics the individuals makes choices to adhere or not.

In conclusion, hacking is professionally unethical that is the black, gray and white hacking as they allow access to the confidential information of the organization without permission. For this reason, the organization should always employ ethical hackers to continuously review the system and acknowledge the loopholes and find security vulnerabilities that potential hackers may exploit.

Coleman, EG 2013, Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of hacking., Princeton University Press.

Stahl, B. C., Eden, G., Jirotka, M., & Coeckelbergh, M. 2014, ‘From computer ethics to responsible research and innovation in ICT: The transition of reference discourses informing ethics-related research in information systems. ‘, Information & Management, vol 51, no. 6, pp. 810-818.