1. China’s attempt to tighten communication Byron Alleman CSCE390 – Computer Ethics April 2011

2. The Story Due to political unrest in the Middle East, China has tightened communications An attack is blocking emails from being sent sometimes in a way that makes it look like it is an error with gmail Google claims that it isn’t a technical issue on their side Security experts say that the Chinese government is likely using transparent proxies to intercept network messages.

3. 8-step ethical decision process 1. There are two main ethical issues that I can think of. If every email is being filtered and checked for content there is an issue of privacy. Second, China has the ability to warp what the user views, creating possibly misleading information. 2. The two stakeholders are Google and China. China denies the allegations. Google wants China to stop filtering the data and causing issues for Google’s users.

4. Continued. 3. Two extremes would be China not being capable of modifying content and China having full access to content filtering. A compromise would possibly be allowing China to filter content with a notification to the user about why the information is being filtered. The only one I would tolerate is removing any filtering or tampering. 4. I would be willing for everyone to be permitted to use this solution because I think its unethical for people to modify information. I don’t believe my solution treats people as ends rather than as means.

5. Continued. 5. I think the solution is in accord with what is natural. People expect the information that they are presented with to be true. 6. I think that the majority of people (unfortunately not the people that rule) would find this solution satisfactory. 7. I feel like I am unbiased in my decision. 8. I feel like in this situation, the philosophical belief system that is most influential in my solution is idealism. Perhaps it is too idealistic and naive to believe that information should not be filtered. Controlling information is a good way of controlling population.

6. Application of the ACM Code The two sections of the code that apply in this situation are: 1.3 Be honest and trustworthy and 1.7 Respect the privacy of others.

7. References http://www.technologyreview.com/web/37074/?a=f http://technews.acm.org/archives.cfm?fo=2011-03- mar/mar-25-2011.html#513243 http://www.acm.org/about/code-of-ethics