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Ethical Guidelines for Computer Security Researchers: “Be Reasonable”

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Financial Cryptography and Data Security (FC 2010)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNSC,volume 6054))

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Abstract

For most of its existence, the field of computer science has been lucky enough to avoid ethical dilemmas by virtue of its relatively benign nature. The subdisciplines of programming methodology research, microprocessor design, and so forth have little room for the greater questions of human harm. Other, more recently developed sub-disciplines, such as data mining, social network analysis, behavioral profiling, and general computer security, however, open the door to abuse of users by practitioners and researchers. It is therefore the duty of the men and women who chart the course of these fields to set rules for themselves regarding what sorts of actions on their part are to be considered acceptable and what should be avoided or handled with caution out of ethical concerns. This paper deals solely with the issues faced by computer security researchers, be they vulnerability analysts, privacy system designers, malware experts, or reverse engineers.

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Sassaman, L. (2010). Ethical Guidelines for Computer Security Researchers: “Be Reasonable”. In: Sion, R., et al. Financial Cryptography and Data Security. FC 2010. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6054. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14992-4_24

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14992-4_24

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-14991-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-14992-4

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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