Distributed network effects blur the hacker’s link to harm

Evidence

In personal transactions, there is a close connection between actions and outcomes. In the cyberworld, a hacker’s actions can affect a multitude of interconnected networks in diverse distant places that, in turn, determine the outcomes via their functional properties. The hacker is the initiator rather than the sole author of the outcomes. This complex mediation blurs the link between actions and outcomes. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 475 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Additional unique features of electronic communication technologies make them perilous if used for harmful purposes. They are readily accessible, portable, easily implementable remotely by clicks, connected worldwide for far-reaching consequences, and exceedingly difficult to control as institutions. Transgressive actions that produce diffuse outcomes via circuitous paths are also less amenable to personal control than actions that beget direct, tightly contingent outcomes. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 477 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Internet anonymity weakens the perceived criminality of hacking; Distributed network causality blurs the agent’s link to harmful outcomes — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 475; Anonymity and distance from victims weaken moral restraint in cybercrime — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 474 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Distributed network causality blurs the agent’s link to harmful outcomes #corroborates (0.98) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 475
• Electronic harms carried out remotely escape personal moral control because outcomes stay diffuse #corroborates (0.92) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 477