Ethics in Cyberspace

Ethics in Cyberspace Summary of the Book- the Ethics of Cyberspace by Cees Hamelink Cees Hamelink is not new in the field of study of the principles relating to the communicating world and their association with civil liberties of mankind. Hamelink has accumulated his skills and views on all fields of communication and authored a book on the ways that most of the democratic society need to be resorted to in order to systematize the cyberspace.

Hamelink, in his previous publications, attempted to evaluate the products, system and institutions of traditional industries vis-a-vis the morality of the people and liberty of mankind with a view to identifying these industries firmly and intentionally amidst as well as accountable to the civil society worldwide. He proved both of them to be essential. The book asserts of the facts that the control of the cyberspace worldwide should be guided by the public necessity rather than subject to the wills and motives of the private enterprises.

Cees lay stress on human participation and reiterated the view that the debatable communication on the issue will be capable of finding out the agreement on generalized moral standards considered significant in the sphere of cyberspace control. The book strives to reveal the very ideas concerning the ethical standards and necessary interferences those are essential to make the cyberspace receptive and responsible to the public aspirations.

The book strives to solve the problem of intersection between the necessity of governments control over the World Wide Web in respect of its access and choice of substance and the next alternative of the Internet to be left to the jurisdiction of private individuals uncontrolled so as to be taken care of by them. Hamelink in his prelude mentioned that the Cyberspace technologies attempt to create a virtual world, which is not perceived in complete isolation from the real one.

The existence of the real world is felt in terms its influences on the virtual world and alternatively, the influence of the virtual world is also quite evident in the real world.

To illustrate it may be pointed out that the game on the World Wide Web seems to be a dream world, however the news that is heard, after spending the entire day on the game, when presents about the case of the murders, killings, robbery, harassment and crimes a uniformity in the strategies as that of the computer game can easily be visualized in these cases. The introductory chapter of the book of Hamelink, delineates the problem of choice more particularly the moral choice.

Hamelink attempts to bring out the strategies delineate moral choice and related ethical discourses. In the later portions of this chapter he emphasized on the characteristics and influences of Information and Communications Technology. His visualizations on the influence of Information and Communications Technology on the culture of the society are considered to be direct and perceptive while the concluding section dealing with social transformation reflects his skill, expertise, mastery and scholarship.

The section is considered most useful to the executives that deal with the human statistics with out being open to the elements of recent Information and Communications Technology. The next chapter brings out the variations in our morality as a result of the impacts of Information and Communications Technology. Mankind has different types of ethics that a person generally possesses or disseminates, which can be categorized under the heads-personal, professional, corporate and social. The latest changes in the innovations in Information and Communications Technology intensify such differentiations.

The new problems along with old ones include virtual sex, and hacking. The added magnitude to the old problems is the possibilities of escaping being caught up in a cyber crime which is the higher in comparison to the traditional ones. This is possible due to the added features of size and speed on one hand and the combination of the ambiguity of virtual multiple persona and anonymity.

The third chapter is concerned with the ethical principles basing on which the responsible society is expected to formulate its control over the cyberspace. Hamelink strived to provide explanations with a traditional touch on ethics and control and advocates in favor of civil liberties and freedom as the foundation of control of cyberspace of the society. The arguments of Hamelink are put forth clearly and in an understandable manner. The presentation of the idea in the whole chapter is found to be an enlightened one.

The next chapter presents the civil liberties of mankind as the basis and finds out that the fairness and righteousness spells out the control of the cyberspace. The fifth chapter is presented as one of the greatest chapter in the book the justification to this is accorded in terms of our concerns with the threats and safety particularly after the incident of 9-11.

The illustrations, the problems and our anxieties are so lucidly presented in this chapter that it is worth reading for every one and particularly, by the computer users and Internet surfers. It is quite worth reading the section dealing with the software crashes, the points that make the software undependable, the software itself, and the users of the software. The sixth chapter presents the various problems associated with the new Information Communication and Technology. The two controversial legislations are presented in the book.

These Acts are refuted as being encouraged by the entertainment industry and motivated the Internet user to condemn them as bad regulations and promulgated with biased motives. Even though these two legislations attempt to safeguard the copyrights however are not successful in ensuring the just use of the liberties of the consumer in the correct perceptions. The new Act under process sought to ensure that all digital tools are to be formed with integrated protection mechanisms.

This is so extreme that the Act even forbids watching on the TV a home video shot by the family. Hamelink also points out the anxieties associated with the right to speak and awareness with regard to the new ICT policies and cyberspace controls. The final chapter is an argumentation as well as an appeal for democratizing the controlling process and emphasizes on the participation of people in the process of choice of technology and determination of the base for controls.

The main contentions of the book is spread though questions on the beliefs and aspirations, ethics and legitimacy and technologies and applications, the infrastructures and practices, associated with the cyberspace presently. The world environment of rapid technological progress and relentless applications has resulted in universal recognition of policy making in retrospection. This resulted in propositions of various situation-oriented ethical codes for cyberspace that is said to hinder the very purpose. The concern of moral accountability is challenging in view of new sciences and applications.

This however does not signify a shortage of ethical standards on cyberspace and virtual world, presently available. Cees Hamelink has emphasized in his book, about the association of the personal ethical code, professional ethical code and corporate ethical code. The abundance of such principles rather seems unwarranted. However, the necessity of these principles is felt due to the fact that the new virtual world is like the Pandora's Box containing all the possible ills and it is more vulnerable in the hands of corporations and the private sectors.

We are motivated to feel that this system is in existence to cater to our basic aspirations and for our well being. It affords to establish that they are well aware even though it is justified to presume that they are well aware because they have the money.

We are posed in an undesirable situation visualizing the relevance of the digital technology indicating towards the exploration of wisdom and its application in the sunrise industries, the industries associated with cyber-finance and life-sciences, while the GM technologies emphasizing on ethical codes flooded with the writ of corporations. The non-corporate ethical codes fetch us a very little legitimately. The codes having applications at national regional or multilateral levels seem to pull little more.

The deficiencies in terms of lack of a universal law to control such a potential application on the one hand and abundance of ethical codes of conduct for guidance of cyberspace on the other is regarded as demonstration of a 'wild west' mentality having tremendous impact on the control of the cyberspace. Some opinions are floated that the cyberspace as an electronic no-man's land should be left free from any governmental restraints and to be in the hands of the private corporations or individuals.

The supports of governmental intervention in nations like Singapore and Myanmar have been viewed as substitute in form of enforcement and censorship. There exists a broad range of associations who sitting on the fence take in for questioning the utilization of cyberspace for growth and civil liberty. This differentiation in utilizations, however, is not supported by increased participations in the critical areas associated with the choice of technology, design of infrastructure, and prediction of global futures.

Cees emphasized that the crucial area of utilization of cyberspace is regulated today mainly by the corporate sector with their global operation and ownership of economic resources. Irrespective of the real influence of the industry in our thinking the cyberspace crucially has become a new centre point in consonance with the neo-classical economic program of global capitalism.

The corporate interests have paramount prioritization in the sphere of information technology, as is evident from the regulations for piracy, privacy, competitions in cyberspace along with, to some extent, the reluctant interests put forth in support of the public benefit like universal access, diversity in cyberspace, unprofitable cyberspace however are not taking into account the digital democracy, justice, human security and freedom.

It is felt by Cees that the only method of evolving a popular and acceptable global controlling system of cyberspace is active participation of the associated community in the controlling process and ensuring their interference in policy making. The ways of organizing the cyberspace by the democratic society have been proposed by the Cees J. Hamelink emphasizing significance of the civil liberty of the people rather than the profit. He advocated that the traditional approaches on morality and ethics have serious weaknesses.

Cees in the last section, emphasized on the necessity of the public education for a problematic approach to gain awareness of the cyberspace, which would enable to comprehend the meaning of the choices essential for constructing the democratic digital environment. It endeavors to investigate the underlying principles, which is considered as the great potency of the book; about the reasons that bestow the cyberspace with vast qualities seem to look like miracles.

It seems to have succeeded in mystifying the realities and creating interest among the readers to look into the logic of facts even farther than simply being aware of such views. Cees accord cyberspace its importance that it deserves and seeks to find within it the generalized principles of world economy that treats the information as capital and the nexus between power and knowledge.

The book asserts the democratization of the cyberspace is the universal objective and it is the responsibility of the common people to exploit the benefits directing it in their desired direction. The greatest weakness of the book lies in the fact of its failure to express the way that debatable communication leads to ethical agreement.

When the present problems are considered to be the in consonance with the 'competing definitions of truth' multiplicity of principles of civil liberty is felt essential to level solutions to the most intense problems of world. Emphasizing the deficiencies of present global control measures and designs the writer in this book affords to examine various deficiencies in them and advocates the principles that prioritized the justice, security and liberty of the mankind.

The book seems necessary to the policy framers, however, any one taking interest in computer and Internet and is associated with them and applying them should go through this book. To the common reader, it serves as a guide to predict the future expectations and problems involved with the technology. For the executives it indicates the criticalities affecting directly or indirectly the company and the service of the company.

This is viewed as a crucial book worth keeping for all times to serve as an orientation, as well as for assistance and motivation. Academic Discussion on the issues involved in cyberspace In almost every sphere of life, such as effecting to the business dealings as customers, accumulating necessary information, emancipation in the political discourses, performing jobs, keeping in touch with the dear ones and corresponding with them, etc.

The impact of growth of the World Wide Web is felt quite significant along with the new dimensions in provisions of new skills and new strategies. The Internet presently is thought of as expression of the upsurge of the digital technologies that creates major threat to the traditional conceptions of the ways to control mankind. Discourses are continuing about the parts of the governments, the effectiveness of the conventional legal tools, the essentiality for new forms of self administration and the necessity for international collaboration, etc.

The cyberspace advances many problematic queries, relating to effecting contracts and transactions, safeguarding of people being inflicted, stimulate the democratic experiences, and ensure the fundamental civil liberties and independencies. The cyberspace also enhances threats among most of them relating to the uncontrollability of damaging behaviors and activities. The policy formulators thinking of imposing legal restraints on the ever growing virtual world in form of electronics faces several queries fundamental of them are: the authority to control the cyberspace and by implementation of which methods.

Finding out the ways of orienting the fundamental regulations of ordinary business with a view to facilitating the reliable transactions and establishing dependable business concerns. Identifying the authority to be vested with the powers to impose punitive actions for violations of principles in the electronic world, as well as identify, deter the culprits that inflict harm to the innocent users. The revolution in the Internet world has made it essential to formulate necessary measures for its control.

The policy framers have designed many laws for its control in consonance with the principles enshrined to combat the real world crime ever since its introduction. However, the cyberspace is not considered as real world phenomenon and its functionalities spread beyond the limits of the borders and authorities demarcated in the real world. (Cerf, Vint; 2003) The efforts to utilize the real world regulations in governing the cyberspace are considered as a limited approach in controlling such new medium of communication.

The experiences with the electronic world emphasizes the necessity for formulation of a totally different sets of principles and regulations that attempt to tackle the vast skills and uniqueness of this virtual world without of course introducing the real world laws. Introduction of real world laws is visualized in this sphere as a threat to the unhindered growth of this world and concludes in safeguarding the interests of the profit making principles of the business concerns that is quite damaging to the very purpose of the system as a whole.

These should be adhered to with much precaution if at all a regulation to control the world is considered worth addressing. (Featherstone; Burrows, 1995) Cyberspace is considered to be such areas where the government control even though already initiated do not seem to be progressive in consonance with its rate of growth. Cees Hamelink, addressed the problem of hacking as having the most damaging potentialities in respect of the Internet.

Presently, it is very difficult to identify the persons as well as the locations that inflict the damages through the cyber attacks. In reality, many expertises on computer do not suspect the hackers of their ill motives nor do they condemn their activities vehemently. According to some they are similar to the mechanics that leans down and enters in for investigating the car to detect a problem. It is the crackers who are the real culprits inflicting damages to the network.

The hackers access the websites illegally only to show that they have the necessary capability to break the security system of cyberspace. Contrary to them the crackers have evil mentality of destroying and damaging the program. They violate the laws as the real world criminals do, resorting to unauthorized access to the websites with an ill motive of destroying the websites or to take away illegally the related software.

(Edgar, 1997) It is of absolute necessary that necessary programs assisting in catching hold of and advancing punitive action against them are to.