The Ten Commandments of Computer Ethics were created in 1992 by the

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

–based Computer Ethics Institute. The commandments were introduced in the paper "In Pursuit of a 'Ten Commandments' for Computer Ethics" by Ramon C. Barquin as a means to create "a set of standards to guide and instruct people in the

ethical Ethics is the philosophical study of moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches include normative ethics, applied e ...

use of computers." They follow the Internet Advisory Board's memo on ethics from 1987. The Ten Commandments of Computer Ethics copies the archaic style of the

Ten Commandments The Ten Commandments (), or the Decalogue (from Latin , from Ancient Greek , ), are religious and ethical directives, structured as a covenant document, that, according to the Hebrew Bible, were given by YHWH to Moses. The text of the Ten ...

from the

King James Bible The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version (AV), is an Early Modern English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by ...

. The commandments have been widely quoted in computer ethics literature but also have been criticized by both the hacker community and some in academia. For instance, Dr. Ben Fairweather of the Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility has described them as "simplistic" and overly restrictive.

ISC2 International Information System Security Certification Consortium, or ISC2, is a non-profit organization which specializes in training and certifications for cybersecurity professionals. It has been described as the “world's largest IT secur ...

, one of the thought leaders in the information security industry, has referred to the commandments in developing its own ethics rules.

The Ten Commandments of Computer Ethics

# Thou shalt not use a computer to harm other people. # Thou shalt not interfere with other people's computer work. # Thou shalt not snoop around in other people's computer files. # Thou shalt not use a computer to steal. # Thou shalt not use a computer to bear false witness. # Thou shalt not copy or use proprietary software for which you have not paid (without permission). # Thou shalt not use other people's computer resources without authorization or proper compensation. # Thou shalt not appropriate other people's intellectual output. # Thou shalt think about the social consequences of the program you are writing or the system you are designing. # Thou shalt always use a computer in ways that ensure consideration and respect for other humans.

References

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External links

* The Ten Commandments of Computer Ethics listed a
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility

Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility
Computing and society Ethics of science and technology Professional ethics Codes of conduct 1992 documents Internet ethics it:I dieci comandamenti dell'etica del computer