In 2008, I created a catchall column for The Digital Filmmaker on media, old and new, that I called “Notes on a Napkin”. Starting today, I will add this as a new component to the “Notebooks.” Some items will be short. Others will be long. Some will be new. Others will be old that I will bring up to date. A few will be my columns that appeared and continue to appear on The Digital Journalist – www.digitaljournalist.org — and on The Digital Filmmaker – www.digitalfilmmaker.net — where I serve each Web site as executive editor. I plan to discuss media, old and new, the Internet, television, movies, documentary films, journalism and communication devices. I do not plan to post every hour or every day. Call it slow blogging or call it posting when the mood strikes, i.e., when I think I have something to say. I like to call what I will be doing “pointed blogging” rather than the usual scattershot approach of many blogs. Read. Enjoy. Comment.
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Notes on a Napkin 1
In this major downturn in our economy, more transgressors than ever, criminals to me, are emerging faster than we can count them. In most cases, we have never heard of these people and once we do hear their names, we have to admit we had no idea the person existed. If there is one Bernard Madoff in play, there are surely others. It seems the worst in times brings out the worst in people.
This is about ethics gone astray in the name of new technology. Several years ago, perhaps 200 students at elite universities such as Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon University used the Internet and their knowledge of fundamental hacking to go where they had no right to be. The hacked into their personal files through guile, cunning and fundamental knowledge of how the Web works. They could not wait the normal course of events to learn if they had been accepted to a graduate business school. I can understand their desire to know their future in this world of high competition and “I gotta have and I gotta know” life. Angst is a part of how many live today. However, by breaking into closed files these students told us that personal ambition outweighs honesty and good sense. I question how the new technologies affect individual ethics and how technology has an influence and a blatant disregard for time-tested moral values. Because of what I can only call greed and selfishness, should we blithely toss centuries of ethics and morality into the waste bin? I think not. Yet, in the world of the Internet some believe otherwise.
At the time, The New York Times published an Op-ed piece that in some ways excused the students for their sins. It said they should not overly suffer for, in their minds, seemingly small transgressions. Utter nonsense. Look at how especially Bernard Madoff and others manipulated their professional records for personal gain. On paper and in the world where the Internet is part of life, it seems easier than ever to cheat. Unfortunately, we have to live with what takes place on its fringes. We do not and should not accept crimes, as part of doing business on the Web or elsewhere. Acceptance of a wrongdoing, big or small, is a poor excuse for using new technology to benefit oneself.
The brave new world we live in fosters corruption in business as part of doing business. Those students should have known better. The schools should teach them a lesson. People should recognize the students as examples of wrong doing just to come in first in everything. Some students are puzzled. Others are angry. Is it because someone as smart or as knowledgeable as they thought they were, caught them? Is it because they believe they are privileged and entitled, thus above the law, even if it is university law? If that is what they think, I do not want them running my company or any other company in America. There are other ways to get ahead. Their records must remain private, but they should indicate what they did was wrong. The students must understand that the Internet, though it is free and exciting, if misused, does no one, especially the transgressors any good.
Here is the question we have to answer. Should different rules, and thus laws, apply to the Internet than to the real world. Should those who surf the virtual world be immune to common law? Finally, why do so many of America’s youth believe everything is due them without penalty and should be free for their picking at will? If I am wrong, which I hope I am, that small offense of hacking into student records does not bode well for the future.
