Chapter 9. Legal, Privacy, and Ethical Issues in Computer Security

In this chapter:

  • Program and data protection by patents, copyrights, and trademarks

  • Computer crime

  • Privacy

  • Ethical analysis of computer security situations

  • Codes of professional ethics

In this chapter we study human controls applicable to computer security: the legal system and ethics. The legal system has adapted quite well to computer technology by reusing some old forms of legal protection (copyrights and patents) and creating laws where no adequate ones existed (malicious access). Still, the courts are not a perfect form of protection for computer resources, for two reasons. First, the courts tend to be reactive instead of proactive. That is, we have to wait for a transgression ...

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