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Essay
This article republished in full with permission from Carlton Vogt. Visit Enterprise Ethics to subscribe.
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Carlton Vogt's E-mail: feedback@enterprise-ethics.com
ENTERPRISE ETHICS
Vol. 2 Number 40 December 3, 2004
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THE CASE AGAINST VIGILANTISM
Is it ethical to use unethical tactics against someone you consider unethical?
The idea of vigilantism --taking the law into your own hands when you
feel the authorities aren't doing enough -- has its appeal, but on
closer scrutiny it also has a dark side that we may want to avoid.
I have to admit, that I was just a little intrigued when I read last
week about Lycos Europe's plan to get even with known spammers by
distributing a screen saver that would launch a mini Denial of Service
(DOS) attack against sites known to be generating large amounts of
spam.
Dubbed "Make Love, Not Spam," the effort encouraged PC owners to
download a screen saver that would use computer downtime to send page
requests to the offending sites. The plan was cleverly designed -- or
so the originators thought -- not to shut the sites down entirely,
which would be illegal, but to cost them money through the bandwidth
that would be eaten up by the massive amount of page requests.
After years of living in what must have been some kind of bubble, where
I received virtually no spam, I now get a small amount -- a couple of
emails a day that make their way through all of the spam filters that
are in place both at my ISP and on my desktop. However, I do have to
admit that I spend more time dealing with errant spam filters that seem
to block my emails from going through than I do in reporting and
deleting the spam that makes is way into my inbox.
Still, dealing with spam at all is aggravating, and it seemed like some
kind of poetic justice to be able to make the spammers' operations a
little less profitable. I checked out the Lycos site and immediately
began developing misgivings about their approach.
Initially, the proposition is appealing. After all, who isn't intrigued
by the idea of turning the bad guy's own weapon against him? But, when
evaluating propositions like this, you need to strip them down to their
essential elements to see if they work.
First, let's assume that we all agree that Denial of Service attacks
are wrong. When it happens to our company's site or to our bank's site,
preventing us from accessing our accounts, we think it's bad. So, why
would it be ethical to use it against spammers?
Well, because they're spammers, people would say. They deserve this.
Maybe they do. But let's construct the proposition without the specific
reference to spammers, which introduces an emotional elements that
doesn't really help us out. Let's get to the essentials.
The proposition then becomes: It's ethical to use an otherwise
unethical technique against people we believe are acting unethically. I
was going to add "acting illegally," but if there are legal sanctions
that work there would be even less justification for vigilante-style
behavior.
I would hope that the problems with my new, stripped-down proposition
are obvious. Who decides that someone is acting unethically? And how
does that decision have the force of suspending rules that we would
otherwise agree with?
Now, I'm assuming that Lycos, because it's heavily involved in the
business, has a good idea of who the "bad guys" are when it comes to
spam. Maybe they do. But for them to set themselves up as the arbiter
of what ethical rules we can skirt leads us into dangerous territory.
If you accept my stripped-down proposition, then what's to prevent
PETA, for example, from claiming some ethical dispensation to launch a
DOS attack against a meat manufacturer, claiming that its treatment of
animals and use of hormones in commercial meat is unethical? Why
shouldn't pacifists be able to use a similar attack against sites
belonging to military contractors? How about people who object, on
moral grounds, to gambling? Should they be allowed ethically to disrupt
online gaming sites?
So, while I carry no brief for spammers, I find the idea of using a DOS
attack to "punish" them ethically unsupportable, mostly because I think
it puts us on a slippery slope that can lead to chaos, if too many
groups start claiming some moral high ground to launch similar attacks
in their pet causes. We do need some way to combat spam, but I think
the vigilante approach isn't the right one.
One interesting note: It didn't take the spammers long to fight back.
The last I heard, the sites that had been targeted by Lycos simply
redirected the page requests back to the Lycos site --
http://makelovenotspam.com -- and apparently brought it to its knees.
At this writing, it's still out of operation.
There have been hundreds of suggestions for fighting spam. The one that
seems to have gained the most ground is charging a minuscule amount for
sending an email --something that wouldn't affect most people, but
would cost the spammers more than it's worth. I can see numerous
problems with that proposal, not the least of which is the massive
bureaucracy it would spawn. Maybe you have a better idea. Join our
online discussion -- http://www.enterprise-ethics.com -- or you can
email me at feedback@enterprise-ethics.com.
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