Computer ethics

philosophy

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Scenario

Zaki Al Aaref is a talented computer engineer student at Alain university in his final semester before graduation. During his database system course, he and his classmates were provided access to the university database server to practice SQL. He found a security hole in the universitys registration Database computer system that provides him access to other students records. He was able to view other students information including marks, financial records, private information such as date of births, address and contact numbers. He reported this loophole issue immediately to the university system administrator. He never tried to access other students information until the problem was fixed 2 weeks later. During that period, Zaki received a reminder from the university finance department that he has a balance of 25K Dhs to be paid in full before he can be permitted to attend the final test next week. The money transferred from his father in Kuwait to the university was put on hold because of some changes made to the direct bank account numbers which the university failed to inform him about. Zaki now is in a big problem. The bank needs at least 1 week to release the money back to his father. Zaki was afraid of not being able to do his final test because of this mistake which he blames the university for. Zaki accessed his financial record through that loophole, before it was fixed, and adjusted his owing balance to Zero. He was able to attend the finals. After 1 week, he adjusted his account again to what it was and the money transferred was credited to his account. He graduated with A+ grade and started his career with one of the big software development companies

Question 1______________________________________________________(10 pts)

1. Analyze Zaki's action of from the Kantianism ethical point of view.

2. Where Zaki's access to his financial record moral from the ethical point of view of Act Utilitarianism? Justify your answer.

3. Would your answer to the previous question (b) change if Zaki was arrested by the police for committing cybercrime? What do we call this problem associated with Act utilitarian reasoning?

4. Analyze the ethical factors in this scenario from the ethical point of view of Rule Utilitarianism.

e. Analyze the ethical factors in this scenario from the social-contract ethical point of view.