February 5, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Pros and Cons... I may have missed these few in someone's post, but I see a two edged sword:
Pros:
- Historically, any regulation elevates cost, pricing, pay levels, etc. Adding governmental backing usually hikes the price on both sides a great deal.
Cons:
- Things get more expensive, and the cost is shunted to the consumer.
- Historically, any regulation stifles growth, invention, and entry. Take model rocketry for example. They started with a code. The code got codified into municipal fire code, from there into consumer protection code. Now stands as a major staple in Federal code. NONE of this ever passed a law making body... it was upheld by governmental units taking power to enforce accepted standards, to the point of being able to impound and/or imprison non-compliers. It is far more complicated to get into that hobby now, but that very hobby is what drove numberless souls into taking jobs in some aspect of the space race. Now only those with great amounts of money play with anything bigger than baseball bat.
Don't get off track here - the similarity is exactly how SOX and HIPPA came into being, and neither one actually solves anything close to the pain, cost, and chaos they incur.
Honesty and integrity are good. Preaching honesty and integrity is good. Enforcing it in all but the most profanely bad situations is usually a bigger cause of bad things.
I think the AITP code suits well enough, as ethics is not about the technology, but the honor of the individual.
(edited incoherent phrase)
February 5, 2009 at 9:40 pm
Some idle & disjointed ranting on my part
A code of ethics...are things that bad? Do DBAs ever play dirty?:hehe:
In the event that such a thing comes to pass, I vote an absolute NO to the vendor setting the code of ethics, we all watch & follow the news...
Just asking ,do Presidents (of countries,that is) have a code of ethics too?
February 6, 2009 at 8:46 am
Wow, quiet a debate going on!
Brad, thanks for the break and a nice job on the editorial.
We all need to get "reset" at times, to have ourselves grounded back in our reality. It happens again and again in many situations that we spiral our thoughts and emotions about some situation. As an example, the unlicensed server. You might do one for Dev, which is allowed, it might get moved temporarily to prod, which happens, you hem and haw, "bend the line", it's only natural over time that you miht stray further than you want.
However if you had a grounded set of ethics, maybe something that was online with AITP, or even IEEE, that we published once a year to re-ground you back with something you agree, that might help some of us be sure we're acting as we want.
A code of ethics doesn't indicate failure. It provides a structured outline of how to deal with some of the "it depends" situations. I think most people have the basic "do not lie, do not steal" morals, but there are plenty of gray areas that you might not be sure about. We have obligations not just to the company, but to the people whose data we hold.
We can't force unethical people to follow a code, as Jeff Moden mentioned, but it's not for them. We can report them when we see it, and perhaps have some level of follow through. A code hosted by someone like AITP would also need a place where people can ask questions of their situation and get guidance on how far to press things.
Above all, we can agree that we do follow a code. If we police ourselves, at some point it will become fashionable to hire someone that adheres to the code. Maybe not for 20 years, but it will be a marketable item like "green" is today.
February 6, 2009 at 3:07 pm
I believe that a DBA set of guidelines could be useful. It would need to be handled by a vendor neutral group. SOX, HIPPA touch on data access and control and really are more to help the DBA and IT maintain ethical behaviour of others that the DBA works with.
I get lost on these type of discussions, as I do not tend to think about people abusing data. With being said, I have had people in position ask about things that they had no need to know and therefor they did not get that information from me. Example dialogue
Question "Hey what does the vp who is on my level who works over in accounting make for salary or benefits?
Response "Don't know."
Question "You could find out?"
Response "I could, but I won't"
Question "What if I ..."
Response "If you give me a request in writing with (ceo, cfo etc) signiture, stating you need that information, then I'll pull a report"
Their final answer "Oh, just kidding"
As far as daily duties, we all have a responsibilty to perform our jobs. Backups, design, performance to the best of our ability. Is it unethical to not have a backup? No, not if the cost of that exposure has been explained to the owner of the data. Not very smart but not unethical.
Selling data as an individual, to an outside enitity. Unethical, and should be criminal, it is not always criminal but probably should be.
February 6, 2009 at 3:15 pm
No sooner had I posted the baby blurb that I posted that I then read Steve Jones response.
Having a place to hang your hat, when being asked to do something unethical can be useful.
To be able to refer to that set of guidelines as an appeal to authority, for those asking you to step out of an ethical postion can be powerful.
I had a manger who did that when asked to do some shaky things back in the early 80's. She used the guidelines or ethics from the DPMA group.
February 6, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Steve Jones - Editor (2/6/2009)
Wow, quiet a debate going on!Brad, thanks for the break and a nice job on the editorial.
We all need to get "reset" at times, to have ourselves grounded back in our reality. It happens again and again in many situations that we spiral our thoughts and emotions about some situation. As an example, the unlicensed server. You might do one for Dev, which is allowed, it might get moved temporarily to prod, which happens, you hem and haw, "bend the line", it's only natural over time that you miht stray further than you want.
However if you had a grounded set of ethics, maybe something that was online with AITP, or even IEEE, that we published once a year to re-ground you back with something you agree, that might help some of us be sure we're acting as we want.
A code of ethics doesn't indicate failure. It provides a structured outline of how to deal with some of the "it depends" situations. I think most people have the basic "do not lie, do not steal" morals, but there are plenty of gray areas that you might not be sure about. We have obligations not just to the company, but to the people whose data we hold.
We can't force unethical people to follow a code, as Jeff Moden mentioned, but it's not for them. We can report them when we see it, and perhaps have some level of follow through. A code hosted by someone like AITP would also need a place where people can ask questions of their situation and get guidance on how far to press things.
Above all, we can agree that we do follow a code. If we police ourselves, at some point it will become fashionable to hire someone that adheres to the code. Maybe not for 20 years, but it will be a marketable item like "green" is today.
In that vein, wouldn't it be wonderful if DBA's (and other folks) could go through an agency, background check and all, to become both "bondable" and "certifiably ethical". It would have to be a strict process and a non-profit agency so that the certifications actually mean something. Think about what that would do to your resume.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
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