Cyberethics: Identifying the Moral, Legal and Social Issues of Cybertechnology in K-12 Classrooms

Two computer viruses that have caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage over the past four years are the Melissa and the Sasser virus. In March of 1999, the Melissa virus first appeared on the Internet and spread rapidly throughout computer systems in the United States and Europe. The virus made its way through 1.2 million computers in the United States alone. On December 9, 1999, David Smith pleaded guilty to state and federal charges associated with his creation of the Melissa virus (Vamosi, 2003). Reasons for writing the viruses; "boredom", "the challenge", and "that's what I'm good at, what I like to do. In May, 2004, the Sasser virus was released by an 18 year old in Germany (Williams, 2004). The arrest made on this "script kiddie" was the first which used Microsoft's $5,000,000 fund, even though millions has been offered for information on other viruses. Unfortunately, young virus creators are unwilling to turn one another in, claiming they write viruses because they have nothing else to do or because they just want to see what happens. The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, this paper will describe the extent of Internet/cyber use by American students. Second, this paper will present data from a resent research project showing the large amount of cyber crimes are secondary students are aware of and are participating in. Finally, this paper will present scenarios which might help the reader understand why ethical choices of today's script kiddies are not as black and white as the reader might think. (Contains 3 tables and 1 figure.)