Ethics — The good fairy or an unnecessary extra burden?
Berni Dwan · Computer Fraud & Security · 1999
There is a whole layer of awareness that comes before computer security. This is not a technical layer, but in many ways it is inextricably bound with things technical, especially with regard to security. This layer I am referring to comprises ethics. Ethics is important because of, or in spite of, computer security. You cannot have one without the other. On the one hand, if everyone was a valid user, or plying their trade honestly, and there were no abusers, ethics would have won the day, and we would all be upright, clean living citizens and netizens. Unfortunately, this One-Hundred-Acre Wood paradise does not exist. As the abusers become more adept, requiring the solutions to embrace increasingly complex issues, happy-ever-after Christopher Robin solutions are mere pipe dreams.