2.5 Give comprehensive and thorough evaluations of computer systems and their impacts, including
analysis of possible risks... Computer professionals are in a position of special trust, and therefore
have a special responsibility to provide objective, credible evaluations to employers, clients, users,
and the public... Any signs of danger from systems must be reported to those who have opportunity
and/or responsibility to resolve them...
SUMMARY
Ethics is the rational study of different moral systems. We described very briefly some of the different
ethical theories, and then introduced the ACM Code of Ethics, developed to guide the behavior of people in the
computing industry.
178 SOCIAL ISSUES [CHAP. 9
The development of the software industry has brought new emphasis to the topic of intellectual property
rights. Software is now considered valuable intellectual property, and companies and individuals protect their
rights with a variety of tools. We discussed trademarks, trade secrets, patents, and copyrights. The most
common ways of protecting software rights are to maintain source code as a trade secret and protect object code
with copyright.
Individual privacy can be endangered in this age of large data bases and marketing of data resources to
commercial interests.
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