ICS: Written Homework: Cybersecurity Ethics

Overview

For this assignment, you are to present an AI-generated argument about one of the cybersecurity challenges listed in part 2 of the An Introduction to Cybersecurity Ethics PDF, and then a discussion about that argument. A challenge is one single paragraph, typically 4-5 lines, with the first sentence bolded; they are all listed in part 2 of the document (pages 15-21). However, it must be one for which there are arguments on both sides (or all sides, if there are more than 2 sides) as to which path is the correct one ethically.

You will need to be familiar with the content of the Ethics slide set.

The challenge you write about is left for you to decide, although you cannot choose the one in the example below. You will need to copy and paste the challenge scenario into the top of your document; this is described in the formatting section, below.

You will want to see the homeworks policies page (md) for formatting and other details. The due dates are listed on the UVa course page (md).

Changelog

Any changes to this page will be put here for easy reference. Typo fixes and minor clarifications are not listed here. So far there aren’t any significant changes to report.

Part 1: Create a ChatGPT account

We are going to use the ChatGPT generative AI tool for this assignment. You can create an account at https://chat.openai.com/.

Play around a bit with ChatGPT to get the hang of how it works. Give it a prompt, or use one of the prompts they provide. In particular, once it generates a response, you can then modify that response (“make the answer longer” or “phrase that answer in the style of dr. suess”, “phrase that answer in iambic pentameter”, etc.).

Part 2: Choose challenge

Pick one of the challenges in the An Introduction to Cybersecurity Ethics PDF document. For the example herein, we will select the “How will we respond to ransomware attacks affecting our network or users” challenge. YOU MAY NOT USE THAT ONE! Pick any other one.

You will need to clearly state the challenge in your document (see the formatting section, below).

Part 3: Use ChatGPT

You will need to use ChatGPT to generate a response to the challenge you picked above. You have to make a good faith effort to generate a good response – one that might, say, get a good grade if that were the only part of this assignment. This will mean taking some time to carefully craft the prompt, and will likely require prompt revisions.

You have to phrase the ethical dilemma in a way that ChatGPT can generate a response to. The particular one we have chosen is phrased as such in the document (this is the very bottom of page 16):

How will we respond to ransomware attacks affecting our network or users? When, if ever, is it ethically right to pay ransoms to attackers to restore system functionality or access? How much burden should be put on users/clients to protect and consistently backup their own data on other devices, as a way of limiting ransomware vulnerability?

Typing in the bolded title doesn’t get us very far, so we entered in the first non-bolded sentence. We needed to make a few modifications to have ChatGPT rework the response. A useful modification or this assignment is: “rephrase that answer using virtue ethics, consequentalist ethics, and deontological ethics”. (Utilitarian ethics and consequentialist ethics are considered by some to be the same, which is why we only included those three).

Save all the prompts that you use – both the original prompt and the “modification” prompts.

Your ChatGPT response must be reasonable!!! While it’s fun to phrase it as if it were from Dr. Seuss, that would not be accepted as a reasonable answer to such an essay prompt. Likewise, you have to ensure that the prompts sincerely try to elicit a correct response, and that the answer is correctly to the limit of ChatGPT’s ability.

Keep in mind that you can re-generate a previous response, or make modifications. There are a few strict requirements about the final ChatGPT response that you are going to use:

Each of the cases (or situations or ethical framekworks) must have a discussion about both sides (pros and cons, etc.) of the issue, so review your ChatGPT answer to get this type of respnose.
The generated response must be 500 words or less; too much longer and we won’t grade it. This is about 1 page worth of content. Any word processor can count the words (usually in the Tools menu, or similar).

The entire ChatGPT response is to be included in the final document (see formatting, below).

Part 4: Why is ChatGPT wrong?

Explain how the ChatGPT answer is wrong. Where did it mess up the argument? Where did it not take into account some other factors? Where did it not take into account some issues on one (or both) of the sides? What nuances of the argument did it miss? The list of things it could get wrong is endless; these are only some examples.

Your analysis must be 500 words or less.

Formatting

To make this sane for us to grade, your submission must be exactly three pages in length:

Page 1 should have: your name, userid, the challenge you are studying, and the ChatGPT prompts (with any “modification” prompts). Any formatting is fine as long as it’s reasonable formatting and it is easy to figure out what is what.
Page 2 should have ChatGPT’s response in full (no more than 500 words!). Include the word count at the top of the page (the word count, and your name/userid – if there, but it’s not necessary – do not count toward the 500 word limit).
Page 3 should have your analysis about the response (no more than 500 words!). Include the word count at the top of the page (the word count, and your name/userid – if there, but it’s not necessary – do not count toward the 500 word limit).

Did you read the section about fluff in the homeworks policies page (md)? When one is grading dozens of these assignments, one becomes a great fluff detector, and will mark your assignment down – or give you a zero – for it. It’s a waste of your time and also a waste of our time.