KYOTO -- Privacy and security issues on the Internet raise complex ethical as well as technical problems, and it's a mistake to assume the Internet is an anonymous form of communication.
These were two assertions made by panelists at Tuesday's meeting of the Foundation of Information Ethics (FINE) at a Kyoto hotel. FINE is a project team established by researchers at Kyoto, Hiroshima and Chiba universities to study ethical issues related to information technology. About 60 people attended the second day of the two-day workshop.
The issue of secure communications and the matter of free speech vs. regulated use were addressed by several of the speakers. Satoshi Eguchi, a professor at Kyoto University, noted that unauthorized computer access is a growing problem in Japan because of the lack of antihacker laws. "While there are several criminal laws that prohibit the manipulation of data, there are no criminal laws that prohibit unauthorized access to computer systems per se," Eguchi said.