1 Professional and Management and Skills H1041 Ethics Assessment 2 Blay Whitby 20.03.2017 Select one of the case-studies below. Write a report which expands on the case by describing the ethical issues, if any, raised by the case you have chosen. Do not omit any legal requirements. These are only brief outlines. You should research (and include references on) your chosen case looking, in particular, for project management issues on which you can comment from an ethical point of view. In particular, you should explain which, if any, ethical principles might help prevent any recurrence of this sort of event. Your report may cover technical matters where necessary but the marks will be awarded for coverage of ethical issues. Your report should be well-structured and no longer than 2000 words. References and appendices are not included in the word count. This assessment should normally be submitted in Week 11 – Check Sussex Direct for your exact submission details. Case 1 – Apple and the FBI In 2013 Edward Snowden revealed that various state security agencies including the NSA in the US and GCHQ in Britain could access almost all the information held on any smartphone. Perhaps in response to this revelation, Apple developed new encryption technology for iOS 8 and later devices which prevented any outside access to users’ data. Despite legal objections, Apple continues to use encryption methods which can not be read by the security services. On December 2nd 2015, 14 people were killed and 22 were seriously injured in a terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California. The terrorists had destroyed their personal phones immediately before the attack but one of them had also been issued with an Apple iPhone 5c by his employer which was recovered after the attack. The FBI had reason to believe that some information on this iPhone such as call history, internet history, and location tracing would be of great importance in preventing further acts of terrorism. However, they were unable to hack into this phone because of Apple’s new security features. On 9th February 2106, the FBI obtained a court order requiring Apple to unlock this phone by providing a new one-off iOS operating system which would allow them to use brute force methods to defeat the pin code without erasing all data after 10 attempts -2 as it can be set by the user to do. The FBI said this would be used once only to crack this particular phone and be destroyed afterwards. Apple repeatedly refused to comply with this order: stating that creating such a ‘trapdoor’ would encourage others to do the same and would not be consistent with their commercial goal of protecting their users’ information. On 16th February Apple CEO Tim Cook sent an online ‘letter’ to all Apple users explaining why the company was taking this position. Most tech companies in California sided with Apple in this debate but polls suggest that a majority of US citizens take the side of the FBI. The US Department of Justice therefore filed a federal application to compel Apple to comply and Apple announced that it would fight the federal order in court. However, while legal preparations were being made, the FBI were approached by ‘a third party’ (assumed to be Cellebrite, the Israeli data-extraction specialists) and on 28th March 2016 announced that they had, with the help of this ‘third party’, successfully broken into the iPhone and no longer required assistance from Apple. Case 2 – The loss of STS-107 Columbia On January 16th 2003 during the launch of the space shuttle Columbia piece of foam insulation broke off from the Space Shuttle external tank and struck the left wing. On at least 4 previous launches of the space shuttle similar foam strikes had been observed and it was not considered a serious problem. Engineering and management views of the subsequent space flight differed in a manner highly reminiscent of the loss of STS-51-L Challenger. Engineers made three separate requests for US Department of Defense imaging of the shuttle in orbit to determine if there was any damage. While the images were not guaranteed to show the damage, the technical capability existed for imaging of sufficient resolution to provide meaningful examination. NASA management did not honour the requests and in some cases may have intervened to stop the Department of Defence from assisting. The exact details of these communications with the military currently remain classified. Risk assessment meetings came to the conclusion that the flight was not in danger. John Harpold, Director of Mission Operations reportedly said: “You know, there is nothing we can do about damage to the TPS (Thermal Protection System). If it has been damaged, it's probably better not to know. I think the crew would rather not know. Don't you think it would be better for them to have a happy successful flight and die unexpectedly during entry than to stay on orbit, knowing that there was nothing to be done, until the air ran out?” No further attempt was made to investigate the damage to Columbia and the crew was told: “Experts have reviewed the high speed photography and there is no concern for 3 RCC or tile damage. We have seen this same phenomenon on several other flights and there is absolutely no concern for entry” Re-entry of Columbia began as scheduled early on 1st February 2003. At 0853 when travelling at about Mach 23 in the upper atmosphere, superheated air entered a large hole in the leading edge of the left wing leading to the complete destruction of the spacecraft and the deaths of the crew. The subsequent enquiry: Columbia Accident Investigation Board, was particularly critical of the management culture within the upper echelons of NASA. There was also criticism of the software used by the engineers. Case 3 - Theft of Software Primal Pictures is a London-based company producing software that provides an accurate 3D model of human anatomy. This software is used in medical training for patient, practitioners and students in over twenty countries across the globe. Unfortunately Primal Pictures faces at least two threats to protecting its intellectual property (IP). DVDs can be illegally copied and resold as fake merchandise. Also online peer-to-peer torrent download sites permit the sharing of pirated versions of the software. Primal Pictures contacted the Federation against software theft (FAST) who instigated a project that sought to disrupt illegal postings and the distribution of pirated products online throughout 2010 and 2011. It is not always clear that torrent sites are responsible for the pirated material on their sites. Often they do not host the illegal copies, but act merely as an open forum or provide links to illicit copies. This activity perpetuates the exchange of material free of charge when it should be paid for. FAST were able to target those online retailers for who it was possible legally to prove they had committed fraud and who could therefore be closed down. In 2010 and 2011 63 listings were removed from Google, and 41 forum postings were tackled, plus a host of images containing infringing representations of the Primal product. However, subsequent legal action has proved difficult. A law firm active in anti-piracy in Britain, ACS Law, was targeted by hackers and subsequently ceased trading. A letter-writing campaign claiming that many of the people facing prosecution are vulnerable or lack funds has resulted in a backlog. There is also a general unwillingness of the legal system to prosecute when an offence is traced to an IP address (ie a specific computer) rather than an individual. Case 4 – Volkswagen Emissions Modern motor manufacturers need to produce vehicles that comply with strict standards governing emissions. This is not only a legal necessity but also a key marketing point. The Volkswagen Audi group, as one of the world’s largest car manufacturers, started in 2009 to produce a new generation of ‘Clean Diesels’ which it claimed met all the new emissions standards in the US and the EU. As a result, Volkswagen Group gained green car subsidies and tax exemptions in the US. The 2009 4 Volkswagen Jetta Diesel was awarded Green Car of the Year. This and similar diesel models were marketed as ‘green technology’. After this, there were many indications that Volkswagen’s Clean Diesel range did not meet the legal emissions standards in real road conditions. In 2014 scientists at West Virginia University collected data on emissions in real world driving conditions – finding, for example, that the award-winning Jetta exceed the legal limit by a factor of 15 to 35. Eventually on 18 September 2015 the US EPA served a Notice of Violation (NOV) on Volkswagen Group. They claimed that approximately 480,000 VW and Audi vehicles equipped with 2-litre TDI engines, and sold in the US between 2009 and 2015, had an emissions-compliance ‘defeat device’ installed. Up to 11 million vehicles may be affected worldwide. In this case, the ‘defeat device’ was engine management software that detected when an emissions test was being conducted, through parameters such as no steering input, bonnet open, or only one set of wheels turning. All of these would indicate that the car was on a ‘rolling road’ test bed and not being used in traffic. It is usually necessary for engine management software to detect a test situation in order to protect the engine from damage. However, it is very easy for engineers and software designers to use this feature in order to optimize one set of variables during an emission test and another set during driving. The Volkswagen case is not the first use of such a ‘defeat device’ – something defined in US law – many examples of such devices illegally used by many large motor manufacturers go back to the 1970s. Volkswagen group had initially claimed that the discrepancies in emissions were technical glitches until confronted with the hard evidence of the ‘defeat devices’. As things stand, it is not clear at precisely what level in the company the decision to sell vehicles engineered in this way was taken. Estimates for the number of extra deaths in the US caused by Volkswagen’s use of defeat devices vary from 10 to 350. The company has put aside US$18.32 billion to deal with the immediate problem but the long term costs to Volkswagen Audi Group will be far greater. It is also likely that all manufacturers of combustion-engine vehicles will suffer steadily declining sales from now on as public confidence in ‘green’ claims by manufacturers is lost.