Syllabus Detail
- Ethics in use of onine databases 12 GEN
What is Ethics?
- Ethics are moral principles that influence a users behaviour
- They are what drive us as humans to act and respond in a specific way
- Ethics is "doing the right thing even when no one else is looking"
- Read The Computing Teacher's article on Ethics in development
Ethics in the use of Online Databases
- We might take for granted the amount of work and ethics shown in the development of online databases
- Without virtuous ethics, serious consequences could arise
- Databases hold vast amounts of often sensitive information
- If a developer or user with malicious intent was able to exploit the database, enormous privacy concerns would arise
How could information be leaked?
- Online databases, if not developed securely, could be susceptible to SQL injections
- SQL injections occur when carefully structured malicious data is entered in to a database
- This data has the potential to release other unprotected data, or even allow the user access to the database
- SQL injections can occur via web browser address bars, or via the submission of web forms
- Attempts at these types of attacks are due to a user's poor ethics
What are the consequences?
- Information could be leaked for various reasons
- Identity theft is a common goal - wherein a user steals the identity of an unsuspecting victim based off of the information in the online database
- Targeted marketing is also common - wherein private contact information (and even data such as a user's interests) are taken and used to target advertisements at particular users
- In today's world, these methods are particularly scary due to the growing amount of personal information stored in online databases
Further Research
- Check out NCSU's publication on Database Privacy here
- Check out NCSU's guide to Database Privacy and other resources here
Worksheet and Practice (yet to be added)
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