notes/docs/lectures/ethics/04_professional_responsibilities.md

Professional Responsibilities

You are generally expected to uphold the profession

Unethical conduct includes:

• Exaggerating skills and competences
• Withholding or misrepresenting technical information
• Conflicts of interest
• Divulging confidential information
• Dishonest conduct

Due Diligence

It is imperative that you take reasonable care in conducting your professional work

This means:

• You are competent to do the work required of you and your team
• Appropriate steps are taken to avoid harm
• Systems are robust, secure and respect privacy
• Rules are followed
• Special care is taken when modifying or retiring systems or systems are integrated in societal infrastructure

Public Good

"Computing professionals actions change the world. To act responsibly, they should reflect upon the wider impacts of their work, consistently supporting the public good" - ACM Code of Ethics

Unconscious Bias

• Subtle and built into all of us
• Entirely natural
• Can be mitigated
• Draws our attention to micro-issues
  • for example discriminate against people of tattoos, or people with piercings
• Can have an squally detrimental effect as the big issues
  • Design to minimise unconscious bias

Respect the Work of Others

• Do no harm
• Do not hack
  • Unless public good requires it or you are authorised to do so
• Respect intellectual property rights (IPR)
  • Relevant types of IPR: trade marks, industrial designs, patents, trade secrets, databases & domain names

IPR

Trademarks

A distinctive sign, symbol or logo

• Owner holds exclusive rights of use
• Registered nationally, regionally or globally
• Protection lasts 10 years, with the option to renew indefinitely

Industrial Designs

Distinctive elements of a product

Used where products have a short design life e.g. fashion

• Two types of protection
  • Registered Community designs (RCD)
    • Protection lasts 5 years, renewed up to 25 years
  • Unregistered Community designs (UCD)
    • Protection lasts for 3 years

Patent

• An exclusive right granted to protect an invention
  • Prevents others from making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing invention without owner's permission
• Lasts for 20 years from date of filed
• Costs between $3,000 and $6,000
• Can't patent a computer program only a "computer-implemented invention"

Utility Models

• Prevents others from making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing invention without owner's permission
• Cheaper than a patent (not available in UK)
• Lasts 7-10 years
• Registered nationally

Trade Secrets

• Confidential business information that provides a competitive advantage
• Must put reasonable measures in place to keep it a secret
  • Store safely, implement NDAs
• Do not confer proprietary rights
• Protected by law for an unlimited time period

Copyright

• Author's or creator's right to protection over uses of their work
  • Ideas cannot be copyrighted, only the concrete implementation of the idea
• Obtained automatically
• Includes economic rights (renumeration for use by others)]
• Fair use allowed
• Covers life-time of owners plus 50-70 years

Databases

• A systematic arrangement of data, works or materials
• Two forms:
  • Original
    • Protection lasts lifetime + 50-70 years
  • Non-original (like a phone directory)
    • Protected by sui generis database right which lasts for 15 years

Domain Names

• Registered by ICANN registars
• Not protected by copyright
• May be protected by a registered trade mark
• Last up to 10 years, renewed indefinitely

Ethical Limits of IPR

Don't go too far in protecting your own works

Sony Rookit

They produced CDs that when entered into a computer downloaded a rootkit which gained administrator control on the victims computer.

Rookit modified the victims OS, limiting the users ability to use the CD.

Profoundly unethical and illegal

Whistleblowing

Negligence by inaction is not ethical

Whistleblowing is the final recourse, is the last resort.