Questions of Ethics in Computer Systems and their Future

Essay by Anonymous UserA+, December 1996

download word file, 19 pages 3.4

1) Identify and discuss security issues and considerations evident for Information Systems

And computerization in the brokerage industry. ( Think about how the Internet has

already influenced trading.)

'The technology is getting ahead of regulators' claims David Weissman, director of money

and technology at Forrester Research Inc., in Cambridge, Mass.

If one is to believe the quote above it sounds very ominous for the regulators and the government

to attempt to even bring this media under any kind of regulation. But, what is it that they the

government agencies truly are looking to regulate? If you take to the argument that this media,

the Internet is truly a public access network, then the control to which they would like to extend

to it would be the most regulated public access system in history. What I believe the attempt here

is to regulate through censorship. Since it is almost impossible to censor the phone networks

without actually eaves dropping on your phone, they have decided to regulate and censor your

written word.

The danger in this is what you write as an opinion may be construed by that

government regulator as a violation of some regulatory act. The flip side to this is if you did this

through another medium such as the phone system nothing would ever come it. The bigger

question here is how much government do people want in there lives? The Internet was brought

into the picture for the public as the next great technology of this century. It is without a doubt as

big if not bigger than any other public means of communication that has come before it. With

that in mind I think the government is trying to extract it's pound of flesh for what they believe is

missed revenue dollars that could be...