Ethical & Legal Concerns with Website Creation

Jake & Conrad

What are ethics in programming?

Ethics are the moral principles that guide how someone makes decisions. In programming, ethics can often mean choosing between the bad and the worse.

There are some things you must never do:

  • Intentionally write code that is hard to follow
  • Make use of copyrighted code without permission
  • Deny the presence of bugs
  • Hide disputes that may affect the project
  • Take credit for someone else's work
  • Steal software
  • Force updates on a user without their consent
  • Hide the illegal activities of an employer
  • Create or distribute malware
Ethics

Ethics & Hacking

Ethical hacking is the process of hacking into a system for the purpose of finding vulnerabilities. Ethical hackers must follow the following rules:

  • Let the hardware and software vendors know about and vulnerabilities discovered
  • Let the company who hired you know about identified weaknesses
  • Obtain written permission from the owner of the computer system before hacking
  • Protect the privacy of the organization you are hacking

Management Styles

According to Daniel Goleman, there are 6 leadership styles:

  • Authoritative. In this style you define a goal and encourage people to get there, but let them figure out how. One of the best leadership styles.
  • Affiliative. This style lets you build an emotional bond with your team. You praise them for carrying out jobs and make sure they can share their views without hesitation. Effective when morale is low or team dynamics are poor.
  • Pacesetting. You work hard and demand that you do your best, and expect your team to follow. Works well with capable and motivated teams, but is often seen as a negative style of leadership.
  • Coercive. You tell your team what to do, and expect it to get done immediately. The team is not allowed to get creative. This leadership style can quickly demoralize your team.
  • Coaching. You help improve the performance of team members by helping them set achievable goals and completing those goals.
  • Democratic. The name says it all. You ask what your team members want, and use that. Good for building trust and respect.

Legal Concerns

It's important to understand the legal concerns with website creation so you can ensure you are complying with copyright, accessibility, & global laws when you publish your website.


What to look out for:

  • Make sure that you do not infringe on anyone's copyright
  • Make sure you are in compliance for any accessibility laws
  • Make sure that you are acting in accordance with the laws of the country(s) you are operating in
  • Make sure that you are acting in accordance COPPA(Children's Online Privacy Protection Act)
website legal concerns

Global laws

When designing a website you have to understand the laws of the countries you are operating in. Different countries have different accessibility, copyright, and data/security laws, so its important to make sure you are staying within those boundaries.


What to look out for:

  • Do I meet the accessibility laws?
  • Am I following copyright laws?
  • Am I only gathering data im allowed to from the user? and am I telling them how we use their data
  • Do I have proper security protocols in place? you can use Acunetix to scan for vulnerabilities in your source code
copyright