System Administrators Code Of Ethics

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The System Administrators’ Code of Ethics In examining the Systems Administrators’ Code of Ethics a better understand can be gained into the ethics needed in the information technology field. A system administrator is in a particularly precarious ethical position with access to virtually all data on an organizations network. Without having a straightforward ethics code, backed up by good policy, a naturally curious system administrator may be tempted to go down a path of unethical behavior. The code, published and accepted by the League of Professional System Administrators’ (LOPSA), The Advanced Computing Systems Professional and Technical Association (USENIX), and the Special Interest Group for SYSADMINS (SAGE), is an important tool that can assist the professional system administrator in making ethical decisions and maintaining professional behavior. The code contains sections addressing professionalism, personal integrity, privacy, laws and policy, communication, system integrity, education, responsibility to computing community, social responsibility, and ethical responsibility. In exploring this ethics code I will attempt to give “real-world” examples of how these codes can be used where appropriate. Professionalism, as the code spells out, is best described as treating everyone fairly and not allowing ones personal beliefs to intrude on business decisions. This means that, as a system administrator, one should not treat people unfairly because of their personal beliefs. An extreme example of unprofessional behavior would be a system administrator refusing to give increased network storage space because the user is a new young employee, and the administrator does not believe that the new employee is entitled to more space for no reason other than their age. Personal Integrity is being “honest in my professional dealings and forthcoming about my

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