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From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: New Book in Computer Ethics
Message-ID: <9008171738.AA01165@world.std.com>
Date: 17 Aug 90 17:38:22 GMT
References: <3217@gara.une.oz.au>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 31


Sounds awful. It seems this whole "hacker scare" thing has provided
quite an opportunity to churn out the potboilers.

>     Readers will notice that we have not adopted an explicit theoretical 
>framework and have avoided philosophical discussion of ethical theory.
>...
>Neither will readers find a detailed account of the legislative
>position around the world on the various topics discussed. This is
>because in each country the legal situation is often complex, confused
>and changing fast - and again this is not the purpose of the book.

   Read: "We had to whip something together fast while the market was
   hot and can't really be expected to know anything about the subject."

>     Finally, a note on sources. First, we have to acknowledge an
>enormous debt to Peter G.  Neumann, whose "Risks to the Public in
>Computer Systems" sections in Software Engineering Notes, the journal
>of the Association of Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on
>Software (ACM-SIGSOFT) have provided inspiration, amusement and a vast
>amount of valuable information. Long may he continue. Second, we have
>to caution that many of these and other sources are newspaper and
>media reports, which, like computers, are not 100 per cent reliable.

    Read: "We did most of our research by flipping through things we found
    lying about the office."

        -Barry Shein

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