Ethical Guidelines for Computer Security Researchers: "Be Reasonable"

For most of its existence, the field of computer science has been lucky enough to avoid ethical dilemmas by virtue of its relatively benign nature. The sub-disciplines of programming methodology research, microprocessor design, and so forth have little room for the greater questions of human harm. Other, more recently developed sub-disciplines, such as data mining, social network analysis, behavioral pro ling, and general computer security, however, open the door to abuse of users by practitioners and researchers.