 In most countries of the world, the “information revolution” has altered many aspects of life significantly: commerce, employment, medicine, security, transportation, entertainment, and so on.

 Consequently, information and technology have affected — in both good ways and bad ways — community life, family life, human relationships, education, careers, freedom, and democracy (to name just a few examples).

 Computer Ethics is becoming more and more important as the users are increasing everyday and there is no way to check what kind of people are actually using it.  Therefore it is a must to educate all the users about the ethics and the issues that can be considered as violation of ethics.  Thus Computer Ethics helps us to solve the legal issues that crop up everyday, to underline and solve those violations that were not defined by the older laws  Goals are to form a organized structure of laws to govern the world of internet, which is termed as "cyber law".

 How is the word “ETHICS” defined?  Simply put, what does it mean?

 Ethics - Ethics refers to the standards and rules that "should" be followed and it helps us to regulate our conduct in a group or with a set of individuals.

 Ethics refers to well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do:  rights,  obligations,  benefits to society,  fairness, or  specific virtues.

 Secondly, ethics refers to the study and development of one's ethical standards.  As mentioned above, feelings, laws, and social norms can deviate from what is ethical.  So it is necessary to constantly examine one's standards to ensure that they are reasonable and well-founded.

 Ethics also means, then, the continuous effort of studying our own moral beliefs and our moral conduct, and striving to ensure that we, and the institutions we help to shape, live up to standards that are reasonable and solidly-based.

 OK..We know ethics…What is next?  Ethics usually come together in codes of conduct or ethical standards. Some examples of codes of conduct…

 K-State Information Technology Employee Code of Ethics K-State Information Technology Employee Code of Ethics  Global Information Assurance Certification Code of Ethics Global Information Assurance Certification Code of Ethics  CCSD Internet Acceptable Use CCSD Internet Acceptable Use

 What might be some issues related to computers/technology where ethics would come into play? (Hint: think about things that might be illegal or “not the right thing to do” that involve computers/technology)

 Hacking  Software Piracy  Role of enforcement / How to?  Public Domain Software  Computer Crimes / Cyber Crime  Privacy Online  Security  Intellectual Property  Phishing  Viruses/Identity Theft