Discuss The Ethical Implications Of Lethal Cyber Weapons (Essay Sample)

Essay Writing
[Student Name Here]
[Institution’s Name Here]
[Professor’s Name Here]
[Date Here]
Introduction
Most of today’s headlines are dominated by the use and misuse of information and communication technology. Furthermore, considering the fact that computers, as well as other communication technologies, have made their way into all aspects of life makes ICT an integral component of today’s life. ICT involvement has also led to a great dependence on it which in itself raises some questions on this over reliance (Mishra, 2015). Nevertheless, it's now common to hear of government systems losing data or even an official government member who uses police data to spy on the general population. In other cases, a private company may be charged with selling underage information via the internet (EIEx, 2016). All these issues among many others are caused by ICT or related to the field. This paper will highlight an ethical issue experienced in 2016 and especially related to lethal cyber weapons, while analysing a case study from the four classical theories.
Lethal Cyber Weapons
In 2016, an upcoming, nearly half a billion dollar contract was developed by the US military, a contract that aims to develop a next generation computer code capable of killing enemy combaters or adversaries. Furthermore, the said technology is set to be deployed as soon as it’s complete having the necessary tools to spy, retrieve information and execute it set mandate (Nextgov, 2016). In this new system, the U.S. troops would be able to launch logical bombs, unlike the traditional bombs that target an enemy’s vulnerable/critical infrastructure. The new bombs would have extensive capabilities to site vulnerabilities and hit targets with the utmost accuracy. In essence, this signals the arrival of lethal cyber weapons, a highly controversial topic filled with many ethical dilemmas.
Several school of ethic exist including utilitarianism, deontology, virtue and contract, let’s analyse this case study in terms of these theories. Utilitarianism focuses on a pragmatic approach where the said technology is seen to harm the society other than benefit it.
Cyber weapons or even cyber warfare, in general, has many unusual features, for one, it’s arguably the first major new form of warfare developed after the development of nuclear weapons, for this reason only means there is a huge policy vacuum. Whenever new technologies or developments are made, a lack of governing policies is experienced, for instance, the jurisdiction of lethal weapons i.e. what warrants a cyber-attack and even to what extent (Dipert, 2010). Moreover, to date, there are no informed, public or even political discussions to highlight the ethical as well as wise policies to govern the use of cyber weapons such as the U.S lethal weapon program. In addition to this, consider the numerous cyber-attacks that have occurred over the past few years but were swept under the rug as little was known by the public. In 2009 for instance, several components of the US defense cyber infrastructure were attacked, moreover, in the same year, military cyber-attacks were carried out on Estonia by the Russians. These attacks signal the first problem associated with the technology as it’s unknown and highly unsanctioned.
According to Neil Rowe (2007), offensive cyber warfare has serious ethical problems relating to society and will continue to do so until proper policies are developed to govern the technology. To him, lethal cyber weapons are very different from conventional weapons which mean they require extreme ethical rules. Privacy comes into play when considering some of the societal ethical issues. When targeting enemy combaters it’s difficult to precisely target the said audience without interfering with the neighboring community. Therefore, when collecting information i.e. spying, the entire world is under watch, which clearly infringes on privacy laws. Furthermore, considering the interdependence of modern computers the accuracy of the said weapons is minimal, hence, collateral damage to civilian casualties is an unforeseeable major problem. Rowe’s concerns can be illustrated by the numerous military attacks that have later affected the civilian population, be it even a computer virus targeting a military site but later affects civilian sites.
Security and ownership of intellectual property also come into play when you consider the difficulty in assessing cyber-attacks. So, how secure is a person’s data? Data is an essential component of cyber wars, for the proposed lethal weapons to work they must scrutinize and analyze data. This data could be simple items as people’s name, their social security numbers, bank accounts etc. In this case, a good cyber weapon will have extensive research capabilities and like in research, the more the information/data the better the result. To meet these requirements a lot of data is needed, data that will exceed the set mandate having civilians as well as criminals. Furthermore, in a case of unsanctioned cyber-attack the damage is hidden in the said data, therefore, this encourages massive cyber-attacks to guarantee success and also to cover evidence tracks (Pence & Latiff, 2014).
Secrecy is yet another concern for cyber-attacks, especially when compared with old, traditional weapons. Traditional bombs and their technology are unconcealed to the adversary because of it well known and surprises are actually possible. However, with cyber-attacks, the information about the attack as well as delivery mechanism signals an ability to stop it (Denning, 1999). Moreover, time and place can never offer the much-needed surprise as it well known that attacks can occur at any given time or place. These attacks, therefore, require secrecy from the time they are initiated to when they are deployed. However, many adversaries have the necessary intelligence to root out these secrets which mean it difficult to achieve the needed level of secrecy. Furthermore, secrecy can promote many organizational disadvantages and inefficiencies because any organization can easily duplicate certain secrets for their research or even for development. Cyber-attacks and cyber weapons are therefore questionable on an ethical ground (Bok, 1983)
Lethal cyber weapons are proposed as a way of minimizing collateral damage, however, it’s unethical if an attack cannot be attributed to this notation. On the other hand, when executed by criminals it can be difficult to determine the perpetrators because most of the attacks are executed with long chains en route to the targeted audience. When traced back, these routes can have many unsuspecting civilians whose passwords and identities are stolen to accomplish the attack. Community and identity are another cornerstone of ICT ethics and with cyber-crimes, a person’s identity can be easily mistaken or stolen (Folk, 20...