How Are Your Security Scruples?

Do you remember the board game "Scruples"? In this game, which was popular in the '80s and early '90s, players were placed in hypothetical moral conundrums and asked how they would react. It was fun, especially if you played it as a drinking game, and the winner had to remove his or her... oh, sorry, well, that's a blog for another day.

Here at Dark Reading, we're fascinated by the wide spectrum of readers we've managed to attract in our first four months of operation. We've got button-down execs, sandals-and-socks techies, uptight security managers, all-out hackers, maybe even a few computer criminals (and probably, the law enforcement agents who watch them).

We're also fascinated by the diversity of opinion over what's right -- and what's wrong -- in the world of IT security. Some readers believe in the classic "hacker's creed," which states that information should be available to anyone with the skills to crack it. Others, such as some IT security managers, believe that only a few select users should be able to access sensitive information. Some of our readers spend their time protecting data; others spend their time trying to break into it.

What are the "rules of engagement" for IT security? Are there morals and ethics that most everyone follows, or is it really a free-for-all? What is the "right" way for an IT or security manager to behave? What decisions do their companies make when faced with an IT security conundrum?

This week, Dark Reading is running a survey that's designed to help answer these questions. In it, we ask about your attitudes and practices on the IT security front, and those of your company. And, as in the old Scruples game, we put you and your company into a series of ethical conundrums to find out how you'd respond.

We hope you'll take a few minutes to answer this important (and kinda fun) survey about your security scruples. It doesn't take long, and your anonymity is guaranteed, so you can be brutally honest. For those who want to be even more brutal, there's also an optional question at the end where you can provide contact information so our reporters can ask a few followup questions.

Please take a few minutes and answer the survey right now. We'll report on some of the preliminary results this coming Wednesday, and there will be more detailed stories in October.

The survey starts here. It might not make quite as good a drinking game as the original Scruples, but feel free to give it a try if it helps. And please, if you're taking this survey in the office during business hours, let's keep our clothes on, huh? Seriously.

— Tim Wilson, Site Editor, Dark Reading