Deck 8: Ethics and Technology

Question 1

Sending digitized information across fiber-optic wires raises no ethical questions.

Answer 1

False
Explanation: Sending digitized information across fiber-optic wires raises several ethical issues, an example of which is-should the customer be notified that his or her personal information is being sent to and processed in another country?

Question 2

The new technological capability that allows employees to work from locations other than their office and log into their company's network remotely is known as telecommuting.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

The argument over privacy at work traditionally centered on the amount of time that employees were on-site.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

The intranet is a private piece of a company's Internet network that is made available to customers and/or vendor partners on the basis of secured access by a unique password.

Question 5

The extranet is a part of a company's website which can only be accessed by its senior executives.

Question 6

Employers feel it necessary to monitor employees at the workplace because they have an obligation to their stakeholders to operate as efficiently as possible.

Question 7

Advances in technology make it harder for employers to assign work to their employees outside the workplace.

Question 8

Telecommuting does not allow employees any degree of flexibility in terms of the location from which they work.

Question 9

One of the ways in which multinational corporations lower their expenses is by shipping work to countries with lower labor costs.

Question 10

The availability of ongoing technological advancements has made it easier to determine precisely where work ends and personal life begins.

Question 11

Companies can now make vast amounts of information available to its employees and customers on their Internet, intranet, and extranet sites.

Question 12

Workplace technology has changed dramatically over the last two decades.

Question 13

With advances in technology, the availability of employees in the business environment is no longer defined by their accessibility.

Question 14

Technological advances over the last two decades have made it possible for some employers to read the personal e-mails that employees send from their workstations.

Question 15

From an employer's perspective, monitoring an employee's computer activity at the workplace is necessary to map their productivity during work hours.

Question 16

Technological advances over the last two decades have made it more difficult to pass the personal data of customers from one place to another.

Question 17

The concept of "at work" has become blurred because of the advances in computer technology and the new capability of telecommuting.

Question 18

According to Adam Moore, consent given by employees with little choice is referred to as thick consent.

Question 19

Customer service call centers and computer tech support are examples of services that cannot be outsourced to another country.

Question 20

Information, once digitized, cannot be sent over a fiber-optic cable.

Question 21

Parties charged with vicarious liability are never in a supervisory role over the person or parties personally responsible for the injury or damage.

Question 22

Parents can be charged with vicarious liability for the actions of their children.

Question 23

Using a computer to appropriate the intellectual output of another person is an example of ethical employee behavior.

Question 24

Thin consent leaves employees with little choice regarding the monitoring of their web activity at the workplace.

Question 25

With employers being able to monitor every keystroke on a computer, track every website visited, and record every call made by employees, the workplace is beginning to display Orwellian characteristics.

Question 26

Keystroke loggers can only capture information that is not deleted.

Question 27

The implications of vicarious liability are that the party charged is responsible for the actions of his or her subordinates.

Question 28

Packet-sniffing software can be used to monitor employees' private accounts, as long as they are accessed on workplace networks or phone lines.

Question 29

Video surveillance, under federal law, is acceptable where the camera focuses on publicly accessible areas.

Question 30

According to the legal concept of cyberliability, employers can be held liable for the actions of their employees through Internet communications to the same degree as if they had written those communications on company letterhead.

Question 31

Computer ethics extends to considering the social consequences of the program being written and ensuring that your work doesn't harm people.

Question 32

Thin consent is based on the assumption that the employee can easily find another job.

Question 33

When jobs are plentiful and an employee would have no difficulty finding another position, then the consent given to the monitoring policy of a company is referred to as thin consent.

Question 34

Copying and distributing unpaid proprietary software is not a violation of computer ethics.

Question 35

The categories of litigation for cyberliability extend to defamation and libel.

Question 36

Cyberliability applies the existing legal concept of liability to the field of computers.

Question 37

Employee turnover, a long-term effect of monitoring employees, costs organizations thousands of dollars in recruitment costs and training.

Question 38

Cyberliability results in litigation for harassment through spam, obscenity, and pornography.

Question 39

Vicarious liability is a legal concept that means a party may be held responsible for injury or damage only if he or she were actively involved in an incident.

Question 40

One of the arguments cited by employers for the use of web-monitoring at the workplace is the concept of vicarious liability.

Question 41

Emily, a website designer, is hired by an organization to create an internal website that contains information meant to be accessed solely by employees. This website is the company's _____.

A)orgonet
B)intranet
C)castanet
D)extranet

Question 42

Which of the following is a disadvantage of technological advances in a workplace?

A)Loss of privacy
B)Limited employee mobility
C)Reduced employee accessibility
D)Limited access to customers

Question 43

Which of the following is true of the changes that telecommuting has introduced into the work environment?

A)Employers find it easy to tabulate the time employees spend working.
B)Employees are unable to take care of personal needs during work hours.
C)The availability of employees is being defined by their accessibility.
D)The distinction between personal life and work life is clearly perceived.

Question 44

_____ has made it difficult for organizations to precisely measure the amount of time that employees are on-site.

A)Keystroke loggers
B)Smart ID cards
C)Telecommuting
D)Packet-sniffing software

Question 45

Which of the following statements is true of the effects of telecommuting?

A)The concern over loss of privacy has been resolved.
B)The concept of being at work has become more flexible.
C)The promise of increased productivity has become blurred.
D)The ability to monitor every employee has reduced.

Question 46

Resolving the different perspectives on the issue of monitoring employee activity is difficult because:

A)federal laws for video surveillance in public areas do not exist.
B)technological advances have no impact on the workplace.
C)it is legal for employers to wiretap employees' personal phones.
D)it is difficult to determine where work ends and personal life begins.

Question 47

The argument over privacy at work has traditionally centered on:

A)the designations held by different employees.
B)the amount of time that employees were on-site.
C)whether the organization was vertically structured.
D)whether the organization was horizontally structured.

Question 48

Which of the following statements is true of telecommuting?

A)It allows employees a certain degree of flexibility in terms of their work hours.
B)It allows employees no flexibility in terms of the locations from which they work.
C)It makes it easier for employers to measure the amount of time employees are on-site.
D)It makes it easier for employers to monitor the Internet activity of their employees.

Question 49

_____ will create a distinction between thin consent and thick consent according to Adam Moore.

A)The state of the job market
B)The capability of telecommuting
C)The promise of increased productivity
D)The implications of vicarious liability

Question 50

Information can be digitized and transmitted over fiber-optic cables because of the recent advances in technology. What implications does this have?

A)Customer services and tech support services are now bound by geographic borders.
B)Companies have fewer ways in which they can attend to the needs of their customers.
C)Customers' personal information can no longer be sent to or processed in other countries.
D)Companies can reduce their expenses by shipping work to countries with low labor costs.

Question 51

_____ refers to a new capability that allows employees to work from home and log into to their company's network remotely.

A)Telecommuting
B)Wiretapping
C)Hyper-networking
D)Cybersquatting

Question 52

Companies can make vast amounts of information available to customers through their _____ sites.

A)extranet
B)intranet
C)cybernet
D)fibernet

Question 53

The term _____ refers to a company's internal website that contains information for employee access only.

A)intranet
B)extranet
C)castanet
D)informanet

Question 54

Information can be digitized and transmitted over fiber-optic cables because of the recent advances in technology. Which ethical obligation of this new capability is now being realized?

A)Should customers be charged more now that companies can offer them better customer servicing?
B)Should customers be charged less now that companies have ways in which they can reduce production costs?
C)Should customer service be relative to the amount of money customers spend on company products?
D)Should customers be informed that their personal information is being sent to other countries?

Question 55

Telecommuting has changed the work environment in a way that:

A)employers find it easy to keep track of the number of hours employees put into a project off-site.
B)employees cannot be contacted by employers after a company's work hours.
C)employers cannot request employees to work after a company's work hours.
D)employees have begun to expect a level of flexibility in taking care of their personal needs during work hours.

Question 56

The advances in technology have affected customers in a way that:

A)their personal data can no longer be sent to any part of the world.
B)they have round-the-clock access to customer services.
C)they no longer have access to after-hours tech support services.
D)their personal data cannot be digitized, thus protecting their privacy.

Question 57

Michelle receives a formal notification from her company stating that it will be monitoring all her e-mail and web activity. The notification also indicates that her continued employment with the company will depend on her agreement to abide by its monitoring policy. Because jobs are hard to come by, Michelle accepts. The consent given by Michelle can be classified as _____ consent.

A)thick
B)implied
C)thin
D)inferred

Question 58

Which of the following statements is true of the advances in workplace technology over the last two decades?

A)Companies cannot send personal data of their customers to any part of the world to take advantage of lower labor costs.
B)Companies are now able to make vast amounts of information available to employees and customers.
C)Companies are facing the issue of maintaining a flexible work environment.
D)Companies cannot monitor their employees to identify the rate of productivity.

Question 59

The term _____ refers to a private piece of a company's Internet network that is made available to customers and/or vendor partners on the basis of secured access by unique password.

A)extranet
B)intranet
C)fibernet
D)castanet

Question 60

Jordan, a software engineer, is responsible for maintaining the private piece of his company's internet network that is accessible to clients by means of a unique password. This piece of the company's network is known as the _____.

A)intranet
B)cybernet
C)extranet
D)clientnet

Question 61

Under federal law, video surveillance is legal only if:

A)the camera focuses on publicly accessible areas.
B)the camera is placed in employee rest areas.
C)the cameras aren't focused on customers.
D)the cameras aren't focused on employees.

Question 62

The _____ is a private piece of a company's network that is made available to customers or vendor partners using secured access with a unique password.

Question 63

The _____ is a company's internal website, containing information for employee access only.

Question 64

Information can be sent over fiber-optic cables only after it has been _____.

Question 65

Which of the following statements is true of parties charged with vicarious liability?

A)They are held responsible for the actions of their subordinates.
B)They are seldom in supervisory or managerial roles.
C)They only comprise the individuals directly responsible for the damage.
D)They only comprise individuals who were the recipients of the damage.

Question 66

Andrew is informed by his company that he should be open to monitoring as a part of the company's plans to improve productivity. Because of his qualifications and work experience, he knows that he would have no difficulty finding a similar position in another company. Andrew agrees to the policy, knowing that he can switch jobs if the new policy affects his job satisfaction. He has given his company _____ consent.

A)thick
B)implied
C)thin
D)inferred

Question 67

Which of the following explains why employers are in favor of monitoring and restricting the actions of their employees?

A)The implications of vicarious liability for employers
B)The federal restrictions placed upon wiretapping
C)The reluctance of employees to give thick consent
D)The federal restrictions placed on cybersquatting

Question 68

What is the reason for the increased monitoring of employees at work by organizations?

A)The evidence gathered from the electronic trail of e-mails from employees can cause potential damage to an organization.
B)The concept of being at work has become far more rigid in the new environment.
C)Organizations have been given the right to monitor every movement of their employees by the federal government.
D)Employers have proved beyond doubt that constant employee surveillance leads to increased worker productivity.

Question 69

Which of the following is true of the technology used to monitor employees at the workplace?

A)Keystroke loggers can track employees' location while they move through the workplace.
B)Packet-sniffing software can intercept and archive all communications on a network.
C)Cybersquatting software can automatically monitor breaks between receiving calls.
D)"Smart" ID cards can be employed to capture every key pressed on a computer keyboard.

Question 70

The concept of cyberliability:

A)does not include harassment that reaches employees via e-mail.
B)applies the legal concept of liability to the world of computers.
C)is only enforceable in unregistered commercial Internet cafés.
D)does not cover categories like obscenity and pornography.

Question 71

Which of the following actions does the Computer Ethics Institute consider ethical?

A)Making one's password easily available to coworkers
B)Considering the social consequences of one's work
C)Using corporate software for private use
D)Using pirated software for commercial purposes

Question 72

Which of the following is true of cyberliability?

A)It extends to any form of harassment that reaches an employee via e-mail.
B)It has no negative repercussions for the employer or the company involved.
C)It only applies to crimes that involve the patrons of commercial Internet cafés.
D)It does not cover categories like racial discrimination, defamation, and libel.

Question 73

_____ refers to employees' ability to work from home and log into their company's network remotely.

Question 74

Which of the following statements is true of thick consent?

A)It is given when employees have little or no choice.
B)It is not affected by the state of the job market.
C)It signals that the consent of employees was forced.
D)It is given when employees have realistic job alternatives.

Question 75

Which of the following statements is true of keystroke loggers?

A)They can record typed-in information even if it is deleted.
B)They can videotape employees in public areas.
C)They can analyze and archive calls made on personal phones.
D)They can track the movement of employees in the workplace.

Question 76

Which of the following statements is true of thin consent according to Adam Moore?

A)It is given when an employee has no other choice.
B)It is not dependent upon the state of the job market.
C)It is consent given on behalf of somebody else.
D)It is a form of consent that is not legally binding.

Question 77

_____ is a legal concept that means a party may be held responsible for injury or damage even when he or she was not actively involved in an incident.

A)Strict liability
B)Vicarious liability
C)Absolute liability
D)Regulatory liability

Question 78

Which of the following actions does the Computer Ethics Institute consider unethical?

A)Logging into one's company's intranet and extranet
B)Enabling cookies on one's own computer
C)Clearing the cache of one's own computer
D)Copying proprietary software without paying for it

Question 79

The ability to send digitized information over _____ led to the establishment of call centers.

Question 80

The legal concept of _____ holds employers liable for the actions of their employees through Internet communications to the same degree as if they had written those communications on company letterhead.

A)cyberliability
B)cybersecurity
C)hyper-networking
D)virtual-mirroring