INTRODUCTION
To know what protection the provides for computer and data to appropriate laws that protect the right of other with respect to computer, program and data, and to understand how existing laws provide a basis for recommending new laws to protect computers, data and computer.
Law is not always the appropriate way to deal with issues of human behavior.
Differences between LAWS and ETHICS
Laws
- Described by formal, written laws
- Interpreted by court
- Established by legislature representing everyone
- Applicable to everyone
- Priority determined by courts if two laws conflict
- Court is final arbiter of right
- Enforceable by police and court
Ethics
- Described by unwritten principles
- Interpreted by individuals
- Presented by philosophers, religions, professionals group
- Personal choice
- Priority determined by individuals if two principles conflict
- Limited enforcement
Protecting Programs and Data
Copyrights
- Are design to protect the expression and data.
- Applied to creative work such as story
- Intended to allow regular and free exchange of ideas.
- Must be apply to any original work and it must be in some tangible medium of expression.
- Grant to the original of the expression.
- Can also be granted for work which contains some public domain material as long as there is some originally, without the need for the author to identify what is public and what is original.
Patents
- Different from copyrights in that it applies to the results of science, technology and engineering.
- Can protect a new and useful process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter.
-Designed to protect the device or process for carrying out an idea
- Can valid only for something that is truly novel or uniques
-Granted to who invented it first, regardless who filed the invention first.
- The patents applicant has to reveal what is novel about the invention
- The patents owner then will use the patented invention by producing or by licensing others to produce them.
Trade Secret
A trade secret is information that gives one company a competitive edge over others. For example, the formula for a soft drink is a trade secret, as is a mailing list of customers, or information about a product due to be announced in a few months.
The distinguishing characteristic of a trade secret is that it must always be kept secret. The owner must take precautions to protect the secret, such as storing it in a safe, encrypting it in a computer file, or making employees sign a statement that they will not disclose the secret.
Trade secret protection applies very well to computer software.
The underlying algorithm of a computer program is novel, but its novelty depends on nobody else’s knowing it.
Trade secret protection allows distribution of the result of a secret (the executable program) while still keeping the program design hidden.
Trade secret protection does not cover copying a product (specifically a computer program), so that it cannot protect against a pirate who sells copies of someone else’s program without permission.
However, trade secret protection makes it illegal to steal a secret algorithm and use it in another product.
Why Computer Crime is Hard to Define?
Understanding
*Neither courts, lawyers, police agents, nor jurors necessarily understand computers.
Fingerprints
*Polices and courts for years depended on tangible evidence, such as fingerprints. But with many computer crimes there simply are no fingerprints, no physical clues.
Form of Assets
*We know what cash is, or diamonds, or even negotiable securities. But are 20 invisible magnetic spots really equivalent to a million dollars?
Juveniles
*Many computer crimes involve juveniles. Society understands immaturity and can treat even very serious crimes by juveniles as being done with less understanding than when the same crime is committed by an adult.
Type of Crimes Committed
The distinguishing characteristic of a trade secret is that it must always be kept secret. The owner must take precautions to protect the secret, such as storing it in a safe, encrypting it in a computer file, or making employees sign a statement that they will not disclose the secret.
Trade secret protection applies very well to computer software.
The underlying algorithm of a computer program is novel, but its novelty depends on nobody else’s knowing it.
Trade secret protection allows distribution of the result of a secret (the executable program) while still keeping the program design hidden.
Trade secret protection does not cover copying a product (specifically a computer program), so that it cannot protect against a pirate who sells copies of someone else’s program without permission.
However, trade secret protection makes it illegal to steal a secret algorithm and use it in another product.
Why Computer Crime is Hard to Define?
Understanding
*Neither courts, lawyers, police agents, nor jurors necessarily understand computers.
Fingerprints
*Polices and courts for years depended on tangible evidence, such as fingerprints. But with many computer crimes there simply are no fingerprints, no physical clues.
Form of Assets
*We know what cash is, or diamonds, or even negotiable securities. But are 20 invisible magnetic spots really equivalent to a million dollars?
Juveniles
*Many computer crimes involve juveniles. Society understands immaturity and can treat even very serious crimes by juveniles as being done with less understanding than when the same crime is committed by an adult.
Type of Crimes Committed
Telecommunications Fraud
*It is defined as avoiding paying telephone charges by misrepresentation as a legitimate user.
Embezzlement
*It involves using the computer to steal or divert funds illegally.
Hacking
*It denotes a compulsive programmer or user who explores, tests, and pushes computers and communications system to their limits - often illegal activities.
Automatic Teller Machine Fraud
*It involves using an ATM machine for a fraudulent activity - faking deposits, erasing withdrawals, diverting funds from another person’s account through stolen PIN numbers.
Records Tampering
*It involves the alteration, loss, or destruction of computerised records.
Acts of Disgruntled Employees
*They often use a computer for revenge against their employer.
Child Pornography and Abuse
*They are illegal or inappropriate arts of a sexual nature committed with a minor or child, such as photographing or videotaping.
Drug Crimes
*Drug dealers use computers to communicate anonymously with each other and to keep records of drug deals.
Organised Crime
*For all kinds of crime, the computer system may be used as their tools.
Summary
Firstly, the legal mechanisms of copyright, patent, and trade secret were presented as means to protect the secrecy of computer hardware, software and data.
However, these mechanisms were designed before the invention of computer, so their applicability to computing needs is somewhat limited.
Meanwhile, program protection is especially desired, and software companies are pressing the courts to extend the interpretation of these means of protection to include computers.
Secondly, relationship between employers and employees, in the context of writers of software. Well-established laws and precedents control the acceptable access an employee has to software written for a company
Thirdly, some difficulties of in prosecuting computer crime. In general, the courts have not yet granted computers, software, and data appropriate status considering value of assets and seriousness of crime. The legal system is moving cautiously in its acceptance of computers.
What are Ethics?
Society relies on ethics or morals to prescribe generally accepted standards of proper behaviour.
An ethic is an objectively defined standard of right and wrong within a group of individuals.
These ethics may influence by religious believe. Therefore, through choices, each person defines a personal set of ethical practices.
A set of ethical principles is called and ethical system.
Differences of The Law and Ethics
Firstly, laws apply to every one, even you do not agree with the laws. However, you are forced to respect and obey the laws.
Secondly, there is a regular process through the courts for determining which law supersedes which if two laws conflict.
Thirdly, the laws and the courts identify certain actions as right and others as wrong. From a legal standpoint, anything that is not illegal is right.
Finally, laws can be enforced, and there are ways to rectify wrongs done by unlawful behaviour.
Contrast of Law Versus Ethics
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