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Cybersecurity Professional Ethics

One field actively recruiting cyber professionals is military leaders hoping to increase readiness and cybersecurity for militarized cyberspace. Information communication technologies (ICT) have become the backbone of the modern military, as they become increasingly reliant on satellite GPS, nuclear launch systems, and cyber espionage. (Spidalieri & McArdle 2016, 141). Yet, there is a shortage of qualified personnel skilled enough to work in military cyberspace to develop networks and protect information (Beidel 2012, 22). Therefore, since the Bush era, the cornerstone of America’s cyberspace security strategy has been private-public partnership (Harknett & Stever 2011, 459). This gives the military access to more quality computer science professionals, while also benefiting from the technological advancements made outside of the military sphere.

Unlike Anthropology or more formalized areas of research and academia, there is no widespread standard code for cyber ethics (“Ethical Issues behind Cybersecurity.” 2021). Some guidelines have been developed, such as the “Ten Commandments of Computer Ethics” by the Computer Ethics Institute, which includes such metrics as “Thou shalt not use a computer to harm other people,” but these are not widely recognized (Allen 2005). Rather cyber ethics has become a nebulous personal decision, up to interpretation. This has opened the gate for software capabilities, AI development, and algorithm optimization held to no standard of ethics or personal responsibility, regardless of proven societal implications.

One such technological advancement was the expansion of computer vision (CV) research, which works with object detection neural networks to train software to recognize objects within an image. Joseph Redmon created a popular object detection algorithm named YOLO (or You Only Look Once) and was championed for its success in better, faster and more accurate CV algorithms, and won the OpenCV People’s Choice Award. But once approached about the military use of CV for drone technology, Redmon abandoned CV research entirely and tweeted that “the military applications and privacy concerns eventually became impossible to ignore.” (Yuan 2020). This announcement came out as a result of the Neural Information Processing Systems Conference updating their guidelines to now require a broader impacts section “including possible societal consequences—both positive and negative” for the submission process (Lin et al., 2020).

This defection from military collaboration is part of a larger trend of developers advocating for their code to be licensed to prevent its use in a way they deem unethical. More than 4,000 Google employees protested and some even resigned in protest until the company agreed to not renew its US military artificial-intelligence contract to develop AI to identify potential drone targets in satellite images, known as Project Maven (Griffith 2018). Seattle software company Chef had a programmer delete part of their open source projects used by customers in protest of the company’s contact with ICE, which led the CEO to reevaluate the contract (Finely 2019). In response to ethical awareness, Coraline Ada Ehmke developed a “Hippocratic License” to serve as an ethical ‘do no harm’ code licensing option for software developers to protect their open source licenses from being used to “violate standards of human rights” (Finley 2019). While the interpretation of what is being used for harm can vary, the implication is still clear—developers are beginning to challenge the public-private partnership that the military is relying on.

Even though there is not a formal set of professional ethics for cyber professionals to reference, programmers are still finding their personal set of the ethics in conflict with the objectives of the military contracts their work is being used under. This is without even considering the privacy concerns of the military’s involvement with cyberspace in the United States and internationally. As developers continue to restrict the use of open source code for military projects, the military is actively losing technological capabilities by not complying with ‘do no harm’ standards. The case study of tech further shows that the strength of professional ethics in a field is in direct conflict with the field’s ability and willingness to work on military contracts.

The Ten Commandments of Computer Ethics

Written by the Computer Ethics Institute by the Computer Ethics Institute

  1. Thou shalt not use a computer to harm other people.
  2. Thou shalt not interfere with other people's computer work.
  3. Thou shalt not snoop around in other people's computer files.
  4. Thou shalt not use a computer to steal.
  5. Thou shalt not use a computer to bear false witness.
  6. Thou shalt not copy or use proprietary software for which you have not paid.
  7. Thou shalt not use other people's computer resources without authorization or proper compensation.
  8. Thou shalt not appropriate other people's intellectual output.
  9. Thou shalt think about the social consequences of the program you are writing or the system you are designing.
  10. Thou shalt always use a computer in ways that ensure consideration and respect for your fellow humans.

Works Cited

Allen, Stuart. 2005. “The Ten Commandments of Computer Ethics.” CPSR. http://cpsr.org/issues/ethics/cei/ (November 6, 2021).

Beidel, E. 2012. Military Academies Look to Fill Nation’s Cybersecurity Gaps. National Defense, 96(698), 22–23. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27019261

Brook, Tom Vanden. 2015. “Army Kills Controversial Social Science Program.” USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/06/29/human-terrain-system-afghanistan/29476409/ (November 6, 2021).

Edwards, David B. 2010. “Counterinsurgency as a Cultural System - Small Wars Journal.” https://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/journal/docs-temp/630-edwards.pdf (November 6, 2021).

“Ethical Issues behind Cybersecurity.” 2021. Maryville Online. https://online.maryville.edu/blog/cyber-security-ethics/ (November 6, 2021).

Evans, Ryan. 2017. “The Seven Deadly Sins of the Human Terrain System: An Insider's Perspective - FPRI.” Foreign Policy Research Institute. https://www.fpri.org/2015/07/the-seven-deadly-sins-of-the-human-terrain-system-an-insiders-perspective/ (November 6, 2021).

Finley, Klint. 2019. “An Open Source License That Requires Users to Do No Harm.” Wired. https://www.wired.com/story/open-source-license-requires-users-do-no-harm/ (November 6, 2021).

Finley, Klint. 2019. “Software Company Chef Won't Renew Ice Contact after All.” Wired. https://www.wired.com/story/software-company-chef-wont-renew-ice-contact/ (November 6, 2021).

González, R. J. 2008. “Human Terrain”: Past, Present and Future Applications. Anthropology Today, 24(1), 21–26. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20179893

Gonzalez, Roberto J. 2015. “The Rise and Fall of the Human Terrain System.” CounterPunch.org. https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/29/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-human-terrain-system/ (November 4, 2021).

Goodman, Alan, and Monica Heller. 2007. “American Anthropological Association’s Executive Board Statement on the Human Terrain System Project.” http://s3.amazonaws.com/rdcms-aaa/files/production/public/FileDownloads/pdfs/pdf/EB_Resolution_110807.pdf.

Griffith, Erin. 2018. “Google Won't Renew Controversial Pentagon Ai Project.” Wired. https://www.wired.com/story/google-wont-renew-controversial-pentagon-ai-project/ (November 6, 2021).

Harknett, R. J., & Stever, J. A. 2011. The New Policy World of Cybersecurity. Public Administration Review, 71(3), 455–460. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23017502

“Human Terrain System FAQ.” 2009. Human terrain system. https://web.archive.org/web/20090825062303/http:/humanterrainsystem.army.mil/faqs.html (November 6, 2021).

Jaschik, Scott. 2015. “Army Shuts down Controversial Human Terrain System, Criticized by Many Anthropologists.” Army shuts down controversial Human Terrain System, criticized by many anthropologists. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/07/07/army-shuts-down-controversial-human-terrain-system-criticized-many-anthropologists (November 6, 2021).

McFate, M., & Fondacaro, S. 2011. “Reflections on the Human Terrain System During the First 4 Years.” Prism, 2(4), 63–82. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26469149

Price, Brian R. 2017. “Human Terrain at the Crossroads.” Joint Force Quarterly 87.

Spidalieri, F., & McArdle, J. 2016. Transforming the Next Generation of Military Leaders into Cyber-Strategic Leaders: The role of cybersecurity education in US service academies. The Cyber Defense Review, 1(1), 141–164. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26267304

Yuan, Yuan. 2020. “Yolo Creator Joseph Redmon Stopped CV Research Due to Ethical Concerns.” Synced. https://syncedreview.com/2020/02/24/yolo-creator-says-he-stopped-cv-research-due-to-ethical-concerns/ (November 6, 2021).

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