CS 192 Central Workbin - Leyte State University

This is the central work area for the course CS 192 Computer Ethics at Leyte State University

Sunday, January 01, 2006

Landmarking Hacking Case follow through

These are some related updates on the case. This is a real ongoing case so some new information may be found on the internet. This is the first case yet, the court has not yet reach its final decision. The following links will provide some additional information


Philippines' Landmark Hacking Case Goes To Trial
Conspiracy' Eyed In Philippines Landmark Digital Theft Case - Industry Trend or Event
Philippines' NBI Clamps Down On 'Cyberthieves'

An NBI expert examines the inside parts of a computer...
Technical jargon delays landmark hacker trial
First RP hacking case goes to pre-trial after 2 years

Monday, December 19, 2005

Landmark Hacking Case

Related to hacking, the E-Commerce Law of the Philippines will be tested in court for the first time with the landmark case Thames International Business School vs. Leilani Garcia. Here is an article from Metropolitan Computer Times that summarizes the status of this case.

Landmark Hacking Case Goes on Trial

By Melvin G. Calimag, Assistant Editor Posted 05 June 2002 14:28 +8:00

The first hacking case to be filed under Philippine laws went on trial last May 29,2002 starting off a groundbreaking legal process that is being viewed as a test case for Internet-related crimes in the country.

Charged for allegedly violating a provision of RA 8792, also known as the e-commerce act of 2000, was Leilani Garcia, a former employee of the com­plainant, Thames International Business School.Garcia was alleged to have illegally accessed the school's computer system with a password that was provided to her by co-accused Cesar Mañalac, the former IT support chief of Thames.

A similar case has been filed by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) against Mañalac and is now undergoing preliminary investigation by the prosecutor's office. The preliminary investigation, also called a pre-trial, is required before a formal case is filed in court. Garcia, a 27-year-old certified public accountant, was the school's system supervisor from January 29, 2000 until her resignation in March 23, 2001. The intrusion allegedly hap­pened December 17,24, 25, and 31, 2000 and January 1, 2001. Garcia, who posted a P6, 000 bail for her temporary liberty, did not grant interviews to the media when she attended the first hearing of the case in the sala of Judge Maria Cristina Romero of Branch 96 of the Pasig Metropolitan Trial Court.

The landmark case was filed in Pasig, a city south of Manila, since Garcia supposedly used the telephone number of her residence in subdivision lo­cated in the city to hack into Thames.
The school, an international college affiliated with universities in the United Kingdom, is owned and operated by Vivienne Tan, daughter of beer and to­bacco magnate Lucio Tan. It is located in a building in San Juan, a municipal­ity next to Pasig.

During the trial, Robert Lim, counsel for the accused, filed a motion to dis­miss the case. The presiding judge rejected the move saying the case was "only on its first day of trial."
Lim questioned the documents presented by the plaintiffs and demanded that the contending party issue a list of evidences allegedly used by Garcia to commit the unauthorized access.
The school's lawyer, Charlton Jules-Romero, argued that the evidences have already been presented in the pre-trial stage. "I'm afraid this will become a fishing expedition because we have submitted all the documents." In her counter-affidavit filed in court, Garcia said she did not commit the crime "unauthorized access" since the password to the Thames account was freely given to her by Mañalac. "He also told me to that it was common practice for other employees to sometimes access and use the account, as long as the school was not using it," she claimed.

On this basis, she said the one of the elements of hacking—unauthorized access—is not present. Garcia added the complaint was unfounded and was only filed to harass and destroy her reputation. She bewailed the fact that Thames failed to file an administrative case against her although she was still working for the school when the alleged crime happened. She said she was never subpoenaed by the NBI regarding the investigation and only read her name in the newspapers.

The second hearing has been set for June 19, wherein the prosecution is expected to present its two principal witnesses. They are Martin Salazar of Net Gen IT, the Internet service provider of Thames which was purportedly able to record the phone number used by Garcia, and Jaime Noel Santos, co-founder of Thames.

Sunday, December 18, 2005

Greetings!!!

I will be posting the last module for the subject during the Christmas break which is Philippine Related Laws in Computing. Please be guided with our schedules and other requirements. The midterm exam will cover all the modules including the online readings(References).

Have and Merry Christmas and a properous New Year....!

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Peer's Evaluations

You be will evaluating your classmates' web site. As soon as you are complete with your evaluation you should mail it to me before Jan. 13, 2006 at my email address: memargonz@yahoo.com

The format of your Evaluation will be in spreadsheet. These are the criteria
Content(50%)
Creativeness, multimedia, Effects (25%)
Color Choice, Layout, Background, organization/arrangement(20%)
Spelling and Grammar (5%)

Module 13 - Discussion

1. Are you in favor of the enactment and enforcement of laws that will regulate and control the use of computer technology? Explain your answer.

2. If you were to decide the case of Landmark Hacking, what will be you judgement? Support your answer(use jural and non-laws or ethical principles)

Module 12 Discussion

From the cases exemplified, explain what constitues a computer crime.

Module 11 Discussion

Explain why or why not the court rulings for the 4 given cases agree with theories discussed previously.

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Discussion for Module 9 & 10

Module 9
Choose one of the social issues in computing discussed and find out to what extent it is an issue in the Philippines. Find out what is being done to address it in specific countries. For example, in the case of the digital due to language differences, Soriano reports the adoption of the"unicode standard", a character coding system designed to support the worldwide interchange, processing, and display of the wirtten texts of the diverse languages of the modern world". furthermore, evaluate, what will be your role in address the social issue you have chosen.

Module 10
Discuss one of the issues taken up from the point of view of the preliminary and finalist theories (3 preliminary theories and 3 finalist theries). That is, you will come up with six perspectives on the issue you choose.

Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Discussion Modules 7 & 8

Computer Abuses
- Choose one example of computer abuse and discuss why you consider it morally wrong using any of the ethical principles you have learned in the previous modules

- Search the internet for new materials/innovation/service which you consider an abuse in computing. Support your discussion using ethical principles discussed earlier

Privacy Issues
- Think of an act, other than those already discussed in the module that would constitute a violation of privacy in computing. Explain

Friday, November 25, 2005

More on commandments in computing

if an altruist(one who looks the welfare of others) is asked to evaluate pornography on the net and hacking. How would he categorize these two issues in conjunction with the commandments of computing? Append your discussion in the module 6 session.

Note: I observe some of your posts do not contain substantial discussion. Be aware that wishy washy posts like affirming only items that have been previously discussed do not count as your own work or opinion; you need to support your answers by drawing out real life situation or experience that seems to relate our discussions

ON USING OUR NATIVE TONGUE

I know most of you are quite good in expressing your thoughts. However, I contend that we will post discussions especially in expressing thoughts in english. I am not totally saying that the native tongue is disallowed. There are cases that you want to exemplify a case scenario using visayan language especially in depicting true-to-life conversations or quoted expressions by real-life people or situations. I strongly commend that the meat of your discussions and thoughts on matters you want to explain be written in English. This is a must for technical manual preparation because you can not use visayan dialect in technical writing.
Please be guided accordingly...

M. Gonzales