11.2 Listening


copyrighted material also have rights, the right to access the material and to use it in ways which are not prohibited by the copyright laws. With the development of digital creative works, such as music or films on DVD, it became very easy for people to copy and share these. There was a need for legislation to protect the rights of the copyright holders to get paid for the content they produced. However, some people say that when WIPO treaties have been passed into law by governments, they have ended up protecting only the rights of the copyright holders. With respect to the US, the evidence shows that this is especially true. In my view, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which was passed in the US in 1998, is a case in point. By making it a criminal offence to produce or disseminate technology to help users avoid digital rights management protection, it has damaged innovation. It has also acted as a direct challenge to those who believe there should be no restrictions on the copying of content, as a matter of principle. These people feel that the DMCA is being used by companies in ways for which it was not intended. In the US, for example, DMCA has been used to prevent wheelchair users from hacking the software which controls their wheelchairs. A very interesting article by Furnell (1999), called ‘Dissecting the “Hacker Manifesto”’, gives an extremely good insight into what actually motivates these individuals. A final area of criminal legislation which is important


is legislation relating to computer misuse. Computer misuse is often thought of as hacking, where somebody deliberately accesses a computer system to steal information or to damage the system. However, the evidence shows that this is not the case. Computer misuse can also be something as simple as an ex-employee accessing the computer system of their former employer with a username and password which has not been blocked. A lot of the concern which led to this legislation came about because the internet made it much easier for individuals with the right skills to access or modify data on computers to which they did not have legal access. One example of this type of legislation is the Computer Misuse Act, passed in the UK in 1990. Given the international nature of the internet, international coordination on legislation was required and an international agreement called the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime was made in 2001. This was designed to reflect the complexities of the internet and to provide a model for countries which had not yet updated their legal framework to reflect the complexities of the internet. Crimes under the legislation are divided into a number of different categories: data crimes, network crimes, access crimes and other related crimes. Data crimes relate to the theft or deliberate modification of data. Network crimes involve interfering with a network to prevent access or sabotaging a network. Access crimes include gaining unauthorized access to systems and to the introduction of viruses, trojans, worms or other types of malware. The related crimes include forgery, fraud and other existing crimes, which are carried out with the assistance of a computer. This can include phishing attempts, where forged emails are sent to get users to log onto fake websites which steal their usernames and passwords. There are also a number of other points for


computing professionals to take into account regarding


non-criminal or civil law, which I am only going to touch on here. If you want to look more closely at these, a very good resource is Lloyd’s (1993) Information Technology Law, (I’ll give you the reference later). A key issue here is contract law. Different types of contract which are relevant include: an employment contract, setting out an agreement between a computing professional and the company that employs them, or a contract between two companies for the design, development or maintenance of a computer system. The employment contract will determine what is expected of an employee and, if they fail to carry this out, then they will be in breach of contract and can lose their job. Where two companies have a contract for the


development of a system, there may be disagreements in terms of whether the quality of the system was in line with expectations. Where these disputes occur, contract law is what determines how the agreement is interpreted. While contract law is probably the most common aspect of civil law, there are also other ways in which it can be used. Individuals may claim for damages under civil law if they feel that they have been damaged by a product or service. They can also use the civil courts if they feel that their rights have been infringed, for example, in the case of a breach of their privacy. An important point to note is that civil law varies considerably between countries, and it is essential that computing professionals are aware of the general provisions of civil law in the countries in which they are working. Legal standards are also very important when


companies are creating their company regulations. As you will be aware, most companies have a wide range of regulations they use within the companies. These are designed to provide guidance to employees to ensure their decision-making is legal and ethical. So, how important is complying with company regulations? First of all, there is no question that this is a good idea if you want to keep your job. We have to accept, as employees, there are certain things which computing professionals can and cannot do. But the question is: is it enough to follow company rules in order to ensure that decisions are legal? Some computing professionals claim they don’t have to worry about breaking national and international laws if they follow an employer’s instructions. But I’m afraid that just isn’t true. The evidence shows that companies can and do do things which are illegal. Research into computer companies and the law shows that there are instances where a companies’ actions can be seen as criminal. Evidence to support this comes from Rogerson, in a 2018 article, showing how the actions of software engineers at Volkswagen were found to be criminal. Volkswagen needed to develop a diesel car which could pass government environmental tests in the US. However, their car could not do this. To get around the problem, software engineers at the company created software which could detect if a car was in test mode, or if it was driving normally. The software adjusted the emissions so that, when they were tested, they were low enough to pass the test, but when they were driven normally the emissions were much higher. Because this broke the law, Volkswagen pleaded guilty to three criminal charges and paid a fine of $2.8 billion. One of the software engineers was sentenced to over three years in prison. As Rogerson (2018) points out, this was a very high price for the


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