Question

QUESTION 28

1. As a system administrator you are installing new software on the PC used by an employee. You are not authorized to read other people's email, Web logs, or personal files. In the course of installing, you accidentally come across directories containing files with suspicious-looking names. You open a few and find they contain child pornography. What should you do?

Answer 1

Solution for the problem is provided below, please comment if any doubts:

• The given case is a complicated one, since it possess a clash of many ethics.
• The discovery of the child pornographic content from the directories that I don’t have permission to access is a critical violation of company policies and ethics.
• But there are multiple ethical background is there to reveal the detected things to higher authorities for needed actions.
• There is a possibility of punishment for the unauthorized data, but still this information will help the relevant authorities to detect the serious problems happened in their company. This will help them to avoid possible legal complications that may arise in future.
• The violated ethics are:
  • Violated company policies against the examination of computers or files.
  • No prior permission is taken before opening the suspicious directory.
• If not reported that may results in big legal complication for the company in which he is working and also a possibility of other series problems. Also it is not ethical to keep the child pornography as such without destroy it.
• Thus giving importance to common ethics, it is better to report the issue to higher authorities[i31] is the right option here.