Information ethics: doing the right thing with information
Ethics means knowing what is right and wrong. Information ethics means the right way to make, use and share information.
- Privacy: Do not share another person's name, photo, address or phone number without asking.
- Honesty: Do not spread a rumour. Check a fact before you forward it.
- Credit: If you use someone's picture, music or writing, ask and say who made it. This is respect for copyright.
- Kindness: Words online hurt like words said aloud. Do not tease or threaten.
- Responsibility: Your post stays online and can be copied. You are answerable for it.
Many countries have laws on this, for example laws that protect personal data. The law is the minimum. Good manners go further.
How information travels on a network
A network joins devices so they can share data. Your phone sends a message to a router. The router passes it on through the internet to a server, and then to your friend's phone. The message is cut into small packets.
Every stop on the way is a place where something can go wrong. A person could read the packets (eavesdropping), change them, or pretend to be someone else.
Threats to information
- Malware: bad software such as a virus, which damages files or steals data.
- Phishing: a fake message or website that tricks you into typing a password.
- Weak passwords: easy to guess, like 1234 or your name.
- Eavesdropping: reading open messages, for example on free public Wi-Fi.
- Human mistakes: sending to the wrong person, losing a phone, sharing a password.
- Loss: a broken disk or a stolen laptop with no backup.
Keeping information safe: security management
Information security protects three things: information should be seen only by the right people (secrecy), should not be changed by mistake or by a thief (accuracy), and should be there when needed (availability).
- Strong passwords and two-step login (a password plus a code on your phone).
- Encryption: turning a message into scrambled text that only the key can open.
- Updates and anti-malware: fix known holes and catch bad files.
- Firewall: a gate that blocks unwanted traffic.
- Backup: a second copy kept in another place.
- Access rights: each person can open only the files their job needs.
Security management is how a school or company does all this on purpose: it writes rules, gives each person the right access, trains people, keeps logs of who opened what, and has a plan for what to do if something goes wrong.
Try it: a strong passphrase
Use the slider in the 3D. At 6 letters a computer that tries one billion guesses a second needs about a third of a second. At 12 letters it needs years. Now make your own: pick 4 random words and join them, like lamp-river-seven-kite. Long and easy to remember is better than short and strange. Never use the same password in two places, and never tell it to anyone.
Key formulas and definitions
- Key idea: think before you share
- Password guesses = (number of choices per place) to the power (length). Lowercase letters only: 26^length
- Three goals of security: secrecy, accuracy, availability
- Key terms: privacy, copyright, phishing, malware, encryption, firewall, backup, access rights
Worked examples
1. A phone PIN has 4 digits (0 to 9). How many different PINs are possible? If one wrong try is allowed every second, is it safe to leave unlimited tries?
Each place has 10 choices, so 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 = 10 000 PINs. At one try per second a thief needs at most about 2 hours 47 minutes. So a short PIN is safe only if the phone locks after a few wrong tries.
2. Password A has 6 lowercase letters. Password B has 8 lowercase letters. How many times harder to guess is B?
A has 26^6 = 308 915 776 options. B has 26^8. The ratio is 26^2 = 676. So B is 676 times harder to guess. Two more letters made it far stronger.
3. A friend sends you a funny but embarrassing photo of a classmate and asks you to forward it to the class group. What should you do?
Do not forward it. Ask three questions. Is it private? Could it hurt the classmate? Did the classmate agree? If the answer to the last one is no, stop and tell your friend why. Delete your copy. If it is bullying, tell a teacher.
Common mistakes
- Thinking a private chat is always private. Anyone in it can copy or forward it.
- Using one password everywhere. If one site leaks it, all your accounts are open.
- Clicking a link in a scary message ("your account will close!") without checking who sent it.
- Believing a post can be fully deleted. Others may already have saved or shared it.