Deck 4: Ethical and Social Issues in Information Systems

Question 1

In white-collar fraud, information systems are most typically used as a means to hide financial evidence of crimes.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

The Copyright Office began registering software programs in the 1990s.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

Any unsolicited e-mail is legally considered spam.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

Spyware is software that comes hidden in downloaded applications and can track your online movements.

Question 5

The drawback to copyright protection is that the underlying ideas behind the work are not protected, only their reproduction in a product.

Question 6

Privacy is the right to be left alone when you want to be, without surveillance or interference from other individuals or organizations.

Question 7

Copyright is the legal protection afforded intellectual property, such as a song, book, or video game.

Question 8

Professionals take on special rights and obligations because of their special claims to knowledge, wisdom, and respect.

Question 9

The last step in analyzing an ethical issue should be to identify the stakeholders-people who have a vested interest in the outcome of the decision.

Question 10

Most Internet businesses do very little to protect the privacy of their customers.

Question 11

According to the courts, in the creation of software, unique concepts, general functional features, and even colors are protectable by copyright law.

Question 12

Even in today's legal climate, there is little incentive for firms to cooperate with prosecutors investigating financial crimes at their firm.

Question 13

Advances in data storage have made routine violation of individual privacy more difficult.

Question 14

The European Parliament has passed a ban on unsolicited commercial messaging.

Question 15

Most American and European privacy law is based on a set of five principles called COPPA.

Question 16

Despite the passage of several laws defining and addressing computer crime, accessing a computer system without authorization is not yet a federal crime.

Question 17

Data gathered by online behavioral tracking firms is limited to the user's behavior on a single Web site.

Question 18

Technostress is a computer-related malady whose symptoms include fatigue.

Question 19

The key concepts in patent law are originality, novelty, and value.

Question 20

The most common type of computer-related RSI is CTS.

Question 21

Which U.S. act restricts the information the federal government can collect and regulates what they can do with the information?

A) Privacy Act of 1974
B) Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999
C) Freedom of Information Act
D) HIPAA of 1996

Question 22

A colleague of yours frequently takes for his own personal use small amounts of office supplies, noting that the loss to the company is minimal. You counter that if everyone were to take the office supplies, the loss would no longer be minimal. Your rationale expresses which historical ethical principle?

A) Kant's Categorical Imperative
B) the Golden Rule
C) the Risk Aversion Principle
D) the "No free lunch" rule

Question 23

The ethical "no free lunch" rule states that

A) if an action cannot be taken repeatedly, then it is not right to be taken at any time.
B) one should take the action that produces the least harm or incurs the least cost.
C) one can put values in rank order and understand the consequences of various courses of action.
D) everything is owned by someone else, and that the creator wants compensation for this work.

Question 24

In the information age, the obligations that individuals and organizations have concerning rights to intellectual property fall within the moral dimension of

A) property rights and obligations.
B) system quality.
C) accountability and control.
D) information rights and obligations.

Question 25

A classic ethical dilemma is the hypothetical case of a man stealing from a grocery store in order to feed his starving family. If you used the Utilitarian Principle to evaluate this situation, you might argue that stealing the food is

A) acceptable, because the grocer suffers the least harm.
B) acceptable, because the higher value is the survival of the family.
C) wrong, because the man would not want the grocer to steal from him.
D) wrong, because if everyone were to do this, the concept of personal property is defeated.

Question 26

The use of computers to combine data from multiple sources and create electronic dossiers of detailed information on individuals is called

A) profiling.
B) phishing.
C) spamming.
D) targeting.

Question 27

In the information age, the obligations that individuals and organizations have regarding the preservation of existing values and institutions fall within the moral dimension of

A) family and home.
B) property rights and obligations.
C) system quality.
D) quality of life.

Question 28

All of the following are current key technology trends raising ethical issues except

A) data storage improvements.
B) data analysis advancements.
C) increase in multimedia quality.
D) increase in use of mobile devices.

Question 29

Which of the five moral dimensions of the information age do the central business activities of ChoicePoint raise?

A) property rights and obligations
B) system quality
C) accountability and control
D) information rights and obligations

Question 30

The introduction of new information technology has a

A) dampening effect on the discourse of business ethics.
B) ripple effect raising new ethical, social, and political issues.
C) beneficial effect for society as a whole, while raising dilemmas for consumers.
D) waterfall effect in raising ever more complex ethical issues.

Question 31

NORA is a

A) profiling technology used by the EU.
B) federal privacy law protecting networked data.
C) data analysis technology that finds hidden connections between data in disparate sources.
D) sentencing guideline adopted in 1987 mandating stiff sentences on business executives.

Question 32

Accepting the potential costs, duties, and obligations for the decisions you make is referred to as

A) responsibility.
B) accountability.
C) liability.
D) due process.

Question 33

The 2012 FTC report on industry-best practices for protecting individuals' privacy focused on each of the following topics except

A) mobile privacy.
B) phasing out of self-regulatory codes.
C) data brokers.
D) large platform providers.

Question 34

The process in law-governed societies in which laws are known and understood and there is an ability to appeal to higher authorities to ensure that the laws are applied correctly is called

A) liability.
B) due process.
C) the courts of appeal.
D) accountability.

Question 35

Which of the following best describes how new information systems result in legal gray areas?

A) They work with networked, electronic data, which are more difficult to control than information stored manually.
B) They result in new situations that are not covered by old laws.
C) They are implemented by technicians rather than managers.
D) They are created from sets of logical and technological rules rather than social or organizational mores.

Question 36

FIP principles are based on the notion of the

A) accountability of the record holder.
B) responsibility of the record holder.
C) mutuality of interest between the record holder and the individual.
D) privacy of the individual.

Question 37

According to the ________, you should take the action that produces the least harm.

A) Categorical Imperative
B) Risk Aversion Principle
C) Utilitarian Principle
D) Golden Rule

Question 38

Immanuel Kant's Categorical Imperative states that

A) if an action cannot be taken repeatedly, then it is not right to be taken at any time.
B) one should take the action that produces the least harm or incurs the least cost.
C) one can put values in rank order and understand the consequences of various courses of action.
D) if an action is not right for everyone to take, it is not right for anyone to take.

Question 39

Which of the following is not one of the five steps discussed in the chapter as a process for analyzing an ethical issue?

A) Assign responsibility.
B) Identify the stakeholders.
C) Identify the options you can reasonably take.
D) Identify and clearly describe the facts.

Question 40

The feature of social institutions that means mechanisms are in place to determine responsibility for an action is called

A) due process.
B) accountability.
C) the courts of appeal.
D) the judicial system.

Question 41

Which of the following is not one of the practices added in 2010 by the FTP to its framework for privacy?

A) Firms should build products and services that protect privacy.
B) Firms should increase the transparency of their data collection.
C) Firms should require consumer consent and provide clear options to opt out of data collection.
D) Firms should limit the length of time that any personal data is stored to six months or less.

Question 42

Flash cookies are different from ordinary cookies in that they

A) are installed only at the user's request.
B) are not stored on the user's computer.
C) cannot be easily detected or deleted.
D) monitor the user's behavior at a Web site.

Question 43

U.S. businesses are allowed to use personal data from EU countries if they

A) have informed consent.
B) create a safe harbor.
C) develop equivalent privacy protection policies.
D) make their privacy protection policies publicly available.

Question 44

European privacy protection is ________ than in the United States.

A) less far-reaching
B) less liable to laws
C) much less stringent
D) much more strict

Question 45

Intellectual property can best be described as

A) intangible property created by individuals or corporations.
B) unique creative work or ideas.
C) tangible or intangible property created from a unique idea.
D) the expression of an intangible idea.

Question 46

What legal mechanism protects the owners of intellectual property from having their work copied by others?

A) patent protection
B) intellectual property law
C) copyright law
D) Fair Use Doctrine

Question 47

One of the difficulties of patent protection is

A) that only the underlying ideas are protected.
B) digital media cannot be patented.
C) preventing the ideas from falling into public domain.
D) the years of waiting to receive it.

Question 48

A(n) ________ model of informed consent permits the collection of personal information until the consumer specifically requests that the data not be collected.

A) opt-in
B) opt-out
C) P3P
D) PGP

Question 49

The Online Privacy Alliance

A) encourages self-regulation to develop a set of privacy guidelines for its members.
B) protects user privacy during interactions with Web sites.
C) has established technical guidelines for ensuring privacy.
D) is a government agency regulating the use of customer information.

Question 50

The U.S. Department of Commerce developed a ________ framework in order to enable U.S. businesses to legally use personal data from EU countries.

A) COPPA
B) P3P
C) PGP
D) safe-harbor

Question 51

________ are not held liable for the messages they transmit.

A) Regulated common carriers
B) Private individuals
C) Organizations and businesses
D) Elected officials

Question 52

Which of the following adjusts copyright laws to the Internet age by making it illegal to circumvent technology-based protections of copyrighted materials?

A) Digital Millennium Copyright Act
B) Privacy Act
C) Freedom of Information Act
D) Electronic Communications Privacy Act

Question 53

Which of the following statements about trade secrets is not true?

A) Trade secret protections vary from state to state.
B) Any intellectual product, regardless of its purpose, can be classified as a trade secret.
C) Software that contains unique elements can be claimed as a trade secret.
D) Trade secret law protects the actual ideas in a product.

Question 54

"Look and feel" copyright infringement lawsuits are concerned with

A) the distinction between tangible and intangible ideas.
B) the distinction between an idea and its expression.
C) using the graphical elements of another product.
D) using the creative elements of another product.

Question 55

The Federal Trade Commission FIP principle of Notice/Awareness states that

A) customers must be allowed to choose how their information will be used for secondary purposes other than the supporting transaction.
B) data collectors must take responsible steps to assure that consumer information is accurate and secure from unauthorized use.
C) there is a mechanism in place to enforce FIP principles.
D) Web sites must disclose their information practices before collecting data.

Question 56

When a cookie is created during a Web site visit, it is stored

A) on the Web site computer.
B) on the visitor's computer.
C) on the ISP's computer.
D) in a Web directory.

Question 57

Which of the following U.S. laws gives patients access to personal medical records and the right to authorize how this information can be used or disclosed?

A) HIPAA
B) Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act
C) Privacy Protection Act
D) Freedom of Information Act

Question 58

In general, it is very difficult to hold software producers liable for their software products when those products are considered to be

A) part of a machine.
B) similar to books.
C) services.
D) artistic expressions.

Question 59

The strength of patent protection is that it

A) puts the strength of law behind copyright.
B) allows protection from Internet theft of ideas put forth publicly.
C) is easy to define.
D) grants a monopoly on underlying concepts and ideas.

Question 60

In the United States, the claim to privacy is protected primarily by each of the following except

A) Constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and association.
B) Privacy Act of 1974.
C) Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure.
D) COPPA.

Question 61

________ refers to the existence of laws that permit individuals to recover damages done to them by other actors, systems, or organizations.

Question 62

The most common source of business system failure is

A) software bugs.
B) software errors.
C) hardware or facilities failures.
D) data quality.

Question 63

The practice of spamming has been growing because

A) telephone solicitation is no longer legal.
B) it is good advertising practice and brings in many new customers.
C) it helps pay for the Internet.
D) it is so inexpensive and can reach so many people.

Question 64

Re-designing and automating business processes can be seen as a double-edged sword because

A) increases in efficiency may be accompanied by job losses.
B) increases in efficiency may be accompanied by poor data quality.
C) support for middle-management decision making may be offset by poor data quality.
D) reliance on technology results in the loss of hands-on knowledge.

Question 65

It is not feasible for companies to produce error-free software because

A) any programming code is susceptible to error.
B) it is too expensive to create perfect software.
C) errors can be introduced in the maintenance stage of development.
D) any software of any complexity will have errors.

Question 66

The ________ model prohibits an organization from collecting any personal information unless the individual specifically takes action to approve information collection and use.

Question 67

The commission of acts involving the use of a computer that may not be illegal but are considered unethical is called computer ________.

Question 68

________ can be induced by tens of thousands of repetitions under low-impact loads.

A) CTS
B) CVS
C) RSI
D) Technostress

Question 69

Advertisers use ________ targeting in order to display more relevant ads based on user's search and browsing history.

Question 70

Which of the five moral dimensions of the information age does spamming raise?

A) quality of life
B) system quality
C) accountability and control
D) information rights and obligations

Question 71

The "do anything anywhere" computing environment can

A) make work environments much more pleasant.
B) create economies of efficiency.
C) centralize power at corporate headquarters.
D) blur the traditional boundaries between work and family time.

Question 72

A(n) ________ grants the owner an exclusive monopoly on the ideas behind an invention for 20 years.

Question 73

A wide disparity in the ability of different social groups to access computers and the Internet is referred to as ________.

Question 74

The ethical principle called ________ asks you to put yourself in the place of others, and think of yourself as the object of the decision.

Question 75

Which two of the following issues are privacy advocates and advertising industry most in conflict over? (Select two of the following.)

A) an opt-in policy required at all sites
B) a national Do-Not-Track list
C) an opt-out policy required at all sites
D) disclosure and transparency in the use of Flash or super cookies

Question 76

The principles of right and wrong that can be used by individuals acting as free moral agents to make choices to guide their behavior are called ________.

Question 77

Descartes' rule of change, that if an action cannot be taken repeatedly, it is not right to take at all, is also known as the ________ rule.

Question 78

The Do-Not-Track Act of 2011

A) allows firms to track customers if default given is opt-in.
B) requires firms to notify customers that they are being tracked.
C) allows firms to track customers if they do not sell the information to third parties.
D) requires firms to get customer sign-off before tracking them.

Question 79

________ is permission given with knowledge of all the facts needed to make a rational decision.

Question 80

A tiny software object embedded in a Web page and used by tracking programs to monitor online user behavior is called

A) spyware.
B) a super cookie.
C) a Web beacon.
D) a cookie.