Creating viruses, copying music off the Internet and plagiarizing school papers are some of the ethical issues being debated in the complex world of the Internet. But no one is sure where to draw the line when it comes to these situations, or what to do with the offenders.

Y-Press interviewed Richard and Matthew McGowan, brothers who have investigated computer ethics. Richard McGowan is a part-time professor at Butler University who specializes in issues related to ethics and technology. He has a Ph.D. in philosophy. Matthew McGowan is a professor at Bradley University in Illinois and teaches business computer systems. He has a Ph.D. in information systems.

Richard McGowan described ethics as "rules of behavior and conduct that allow a community to hold together. . . . Ethics is a matter of knowing related to a doing." In other words, knowing what is right or wrong, and then acting in the right way. Computer ethics were rarely discussed 20 years ago. In ethics books, only a few sentences or paragraphs mentioned the topic. Now, entire books are written on the subject. However, little of this discussion is going on in schools, Richard McGowan pointed out.

"Right now my kids are at North Central High School and Northview Middle School, Washington Township, and they're learning a lot about computer use, but they're not learning a lot necessarily about the ethics involved," he said. "I see the same sort of thing in college -- kids are having a little trouble in terms of plagiarism."

Matthew McGowan says one of the reasons for a lack of such instruction is that there's been a backlash at schools that try to guide children on rules of behavior.

"It used to be that we expected schools to teach right and wrong, and I think today people feel that what's right and wrong varies so much from individual to individual and culture to culture that a lot of people are saying, 'I don't want the school to teach right and wrong. I'll teach that at home.' " But cultures have many things in common, Richard McGowan argues.

"The value of honesty is valued in Chinese culture, it's valued in American culture, it's valued all over the place," he said.

"There are patterns of conduct that transcend cultures. I mean, name one culture where you can kill somebody who's a member of the community without a good reason? You can't do it."

While the morality of murder is not debatable, computer behavior covers unexplored territory. The professors listed some of the ethical issues that need to be addressed: intellectual property rights and software theft; criminal activity involving computers; malicious use of computers, such as viruses; accuracy of information; and privacy.

The development of rules and laws to govern such behavior is critical, Matthew McGowan said.

"One of the reasons why hacking has been so successful is because we've got a new technology, but we don't have well-developed models in place for handling all the different situations, including crimes," he said.

The Love Bug virus is an example of the lack of well-developed models. "A person in the Philippines has admitted that he may have inadvertently released the Love Bug virus. The problem is the technology is new. The Philippines is one of the countries that doesn't have a lot of computers and a lot of e-mail. They don't have laws to deal with it. . . . People don't know what those rules should be yet," he added.

The "I Love You" culprit has never been charged because the Philippines has no laws on Internet behavior. Both professors say computer crimes need to be dealt with more severely.

"It seems to me that when you're dealing with crimes of this sort, we have a tendency to look a little more favorably upon the criminal. It's not an immediately violent crime. There's nobody directly injured, even though there's considerable harm done," said Richard McGowan.

"We've got to treat this sort of thing harshly, because you're dealing with educated people, and with education comes responsibility, and that's a violation of trust."

Matthew McGowan agreed. "Personally, I would like to see crimes like that dealt with severely. It's a lot of damage, and it affects a lot of people." However, two things are certain with the rapid growth of the Internet: Rules governing computer use will have to be created, and computer ethics will become more defined as a result.

ASSISTANT EDITOR: David Lasker, 16.

REPORTERS: Stuart McWhirter, 12; Stephen Miller, 11; and Andrea Phillips, 12.