computer virus

Ethics Quiz: Is Beautifulpeople.com An Unethical Website?

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

"But I'm beautiful INside!"

Your ethics quiz today involves the dating site beautifulpeople.com, which is in the news for culling 30,000 applicants from its rolls because they were just too darn ugly for a site that promises qualified members that they can…

  •  “Connect with beautiful men and women in your local area and from around the world!”
  • “Chat live with other beautiful men and women!”
  • “Meet REAL beautiful people who actually look in real life as they do online!”
  • “Attend exclusive parties and events!”
  • “Be discovered!”
  • “Be part of the largest most exclusively beautiful community in the world!”
  • “Browse beautiful profiles of men and women without sifting through all the riff raff!”

Last month,  Beautifulpeople.com suffered a cyber attack in which the Shrek virus, named after the popular animated troll, disabled the software that screens applicants, allowing an invasion of new, troll-like members, or at least members not up to Beautiful People standards. Continue reading →

Unethical Website: Hillbuzz

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Hillbuzz is the right wing website leading the charge to get Bristol Palin, who can’t dance a lick, voted as the best celebrity dancer on TV’s  “Dancing With The Stars” because, illogically enough, the site’s operators like her mother. Makes sense to me! Actually, it only makes sense in that I am familiar with how self-absorbed political fanatics on the Right and Left think, which is often inherently unethical. In this case, Hillbuzz thinks it’s reasonable to louse up the fun of a dancing competition and turn it into an expression of Tea Party power. Continue reading →

NEVER the Sinner?

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

The AP reports that there is a computer virus that causes one’s computer to independently visit child pornography sites and download material.  This has caused innocent people to be prosecuted, fired from their jobs, humiliated and ruined.

I would like the conduct of a person who would create and release such a virus explained to me. I would like the explainers to be those who will describe any bad act , no matter how heinous, as “one mistake,” and who resolutely maintain that engaging in wrongful conduct, no matter how destructive and cruel, doesn’t mean an individual is personally rotten to the core. “Hate the sin, never the sinner,” Clarence Darrow said. Darrow was one of the most persuasive and articulate people who ever lived. I wonder if he could have reconciled this with his convictions.

Now I’m going to check my computer.

And my faith in human nature.