Gray Areas

As technology advances, society becomes more vulnerable to cybersecurity threats. Bug bounty hunters to the rescue! Bug hunters are ethical hackers who help companies fix vulnerabilities in their systems before the bad guys find them. But Daniel Graham says some ethical hackers face a moral dilemma: should they fix the vulnerability for a modest sum or sell it on the black market for much more? And: Hypothetical scenario: You just suffered a traumatic brain injury. You’re unconscious and doctors say you’ve fallen into a vegetative state. What would you want your family to do? Andrew Peterson says we’re more likely to want to be taken off life support, because of something he calls prognostic pessimism. Later in the show: Duncan Richter says taking an ethics course is not necessarily transformative, but it will teach how to think through all sides of an issue and determine what resonates with you. Plus: If you swipe a stranger’s car and nobody sees, what do you do? Do you leave a note? Do you track the owner down? Bill Hawk and Erica Lewis study coping strategies for deciding what to do when faced with an ethical dilemma.