Unit-8 Legal and Ethical

Issues
Cyber and Computer Crime
• Types of computer crime:
• Computer crime, or cybercrime, is a term used broadly to describe criminal activity in which
computers or computer networks are a tool, a target, or a place of criminal activity.
• The U.S. Department of Justice [DOJ00] categorizes computer crime based on the role that
the computer plays in the criminal activity, as follows:
• Computers as targets: This form of crime targets a computer system, to acquire information stored on
that computer system, to control the target system without authorization or payment (theft of
service), or to alter the integrity of data or interfere with the availability of the computer or server.
• Computers as storage devices: Computers can be used to further unlawful activity by using a
computer or a computer device as a passive storage medium. For example, the computer can be used
to store stolen password lists, credit card or calling card numbers, proprietary corporate information,
pornographic image files, or “warez” (pirated commercial software).
• Computers as communications tools: Many of the crimes falling within this category are simply
traditional crimes that are committed online. Examples include the illegal sale of prescription drugs,
controlled substances, alcohol, and guns; fraud; gambling; and child pornography.
Intellectual Property:
• The U.S. legal system, and legal systems generally, distinguish three
primary types of property:
• Real property: Land and things permanently attached to the land, such as
trees, buildings, and stationary mobile homes.
• Personal property: Personal effects, moveable property and goods, such as
cars, bank accounts, wages, securities, a small business, furniture, insurance
policies, jewelry, patents, pets, and season baseball tickets.
• Intellectual property: Any intangible asset that consists of human knowledge
and ideas. Examples include software, data, novels, sound recordings, the
design of a new type of mousetrap, or a cure for a disease.
Types of Intellectual Property
There are three main types
of intellectual property for
which legal protection is
available: copyrights,
trademarks, and patents.
• COPYRIGHTS Copyright law protects the tangible or fixed expression
of an idea, not the idea itself. A creator can claim copyright, and file
for the copyright at a national government copyright office, if the
following conditions are fulfilled
• The proposed work is original.
• The creator has put this original idea into a concrete form, such as hard copy
(paper), software, or multimedia form.
EG: - Literary works, Musical works, Dramatic works, Software-related
works:
• PATENTS A patent for an invention is the grant of a property right to
the inventor.
• There are three types of patents:
• Utility patents: May be granted to anyone who invents or discovers any new
and useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of
matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof;
• Design patents: May be granted to anyone who invents a new, original, and
ornamental design for an article of manufacture; and
• Plant patents: May be granted to anyone who invents or discovers and asexu-
ally reproduces any distinct and new variety of plant.
• TRADEMARKS A trademark is a word, name, symbol, or device that is
used in trade with goods to indicate the source of the goods and to
distinguish them from the goods of others.
Ethical Issues
• Ethics refers to a system of moral principles that relates to the
benefits and harms of particular actions, and to the rightness and
wrongness of motives and ends of those actions
• Ethics and the IS Professions :
Ethical Issues Related to Computers and
Information Systems

• A classic paper on computers and ethics [PARK88] points out that ethical
issues arise as the result of the roles of computers, such as the following:
• Repositories and processors of information: Unauthorized use of otherwise unused
computer services or of information stored in computers raises questions of
appropriateness or fairness.
• Producers of new forms and types of assets: For example, computer programs are
entirely new types of assets, possibly not subject to the same concepts of ownership as
other assets.
• Instruments of acts:To what degree must computer services and users of computers,
data, and programs be responsible for the integrity and appropriateness of computer
output?
• Symbols of intimidation and deception: The images of computers as thinking
machines, absolute truth producers, infallible, subject to blame, and as
anthropomorphic replacements of humans who err should be carefully considered.
Cyber security in Nepal
• Nepal ranks 94th in the Global Cyber Security Index which uses five pillars for
the ranking of security, namely, legal, organizational, capacity development,
and cooperation.
• Cyber Security issues in nepal:
• The risk of cyber security in Nepal seems to be high due to non-implementation of the
policies and rules issued by the government itself, low level of cyber security awareness
among the people, lack of strong defense system and policy on cyber-attacks.

• Cyber Security crime started in nepal:

• The government of Nepal passed "The Electronic Transaction and Digital Signature Act-
Ordinance" popularly known as "Cyber Law" on 30th Bhadra 2061 BS(15
September,2004).