I built my computer graphics final project in Haskell so that the TA wouldn't be able to run it and grade it. Then for our presentation, I babbled on and on about the math and went over time so we wouldn't have to give a really crappy demo.
Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?
101–110 of 520 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?
#102(I didn't go through with this, but considered) While I was a student I worked for a small shop that sold online services. I was something between an intern and a junior developer/security guy. The boss (non technical) privately asked me one day to do some research about automating some data entry processes, basically reading from excel files, some databases, formatting and putting it all in another database. I found…
There is nothing unethical about this. In fact I applaud your boss. If you can automate something instead of pay people to do it, you should do it.
Some of the reasons that stopped me:
- He asked me privately during a lunch, without telling the people that do the actual work about it.
- I only knew that he intended to fire these people later when started putting the spec of the project.
- He asked me (someone very junior/intern) instead one of his more confirmed devs, which means he didn't want the company to know yet.
- I had a lot of sympathy and even kind of a friendship with those people.
- I wasn't paid enough for it.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
From my perspective, at least you could stop going to the website if they did stuff like this, and TBH anyone's free to do whatever they want on their website. A lot of these other stories are doing things without informing customers, or using customer data illegally, and stuff like that. It's sure not great if you want people to come back to your site, but it's not morally bankrupt.
>TBH anyone's free to do whatever they want on their website That's where you're wrong, kiddo. There's laws now.
No there aren't, none relevant to this conversation at least.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?
#104I've done a lot of work involving scraping, data analysis and reversing private API access from mobile applications. A lot of this work is legally defensible (if you do it correctly) and not particularly unethical. After doing a bunch of this type of work I started to accrue subject matter expertise in the area that led other companies to come to me with more questionable projects in mind. I turned down many of these…
I'm guessing the first company is Plaid. I'm in the ACH payments space so we're a potential customer of Plaid and I vaguely remember a presentation or something where they (Dwolla + Plaid) promise merchants the ability to grab 12 months worth of transaction history from a user's bank account. Could be wrong about that. I do know for sure I made a mental note to myself to never use Plaid as a consumer.
Well, since you already guessed it: yes, it was Plaid.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?
#105I've done a lot of work involving scraping, data analysis and reversing private API access from mobile applications. A lot of this work is legally defensible (if you do it correctly) and not particularly unethical. After doing a bunch of this type of work I started to accrue subject matter expertise in the area that led other companies to come to me with more questionable projects in mind. I turned down many of these…
Thank you for sharing. This is why I never sign up for any fintech services. The amount of data I hand over is never worth the "benefits" they provide.
Most of those sorts of companies (both B2C and B2B) ultimately end up selling the user transaction data (or some derivative analytics thereof) to hedge funds. It's used (for example) to forecast the revenue of B2C companies in advance of equity earnings announcements.
NB: I don't have an issue with user data being mined for things like market research if it's a situation where the product is free and users can be easily made aware of it. But I find it dishonest if the company mining that data is doing so without direct user consent, or in a "backdoored" manner using their status as a downstream client's "affiliate" for T&C purposes.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
i wouldn't sweat it, a lot of economic activity is just information arbitrage.
Sounds like a dream job or a nice side gig if you just want a job. Login, run script, log out, bill for thousands, then go back to doing your own thing. Intentionally withholding stuff without offering an upfront option is shady though.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?
#107I worked on a penny-bidding site. These guys "auctioned" items like PlayStation, tvs, cars to the user who placed the final bid on an item after 60 seconds of no further bids. Each bid would increase the final price by 1 pence/cent, but each bid would cost 50 pence/cents. You could "win" a $20,000 car for $500.37 and the house would have taken 50,037*50 cents. It might be okay if that was it -- but I was asked to cod…
I think it's more often referred to as a Dollar auction[0] - an example where a series of rational decisions leads to irrational behaviour. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_auction
It has many names.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's more often referred to as a Dollar auction[0] - an example where a series of rational decisions leads to irrational behaviour. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_auction
It has many names. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bidding_fee_auction
And I'm a brit. I did the math in cents for greater universality. Maybe a mistake after referring to a penny.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?
#109Worked at Ticketmaster.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?
#110I've done a lot of work involving scraping, data analysis and reversing private API access from mobile applications. A lot of this work is legally defensible (if you do it correctly) and not particularly unethical. After doing a bunch of this type of work I started to accrue subject matter expertise in the area that led other companies to come to me with more questionable projects in mind. I turned down many of these…
> A lot of this work is legally defensible (if you do it correctly) Could you expand on the correctness aspect? I'm currently working in this space for what I believe to be good reasons (to improve the accessibility of a particular service for visually impaired users). But I'm eager not to abuse my position and knowledge.
To be clear, I'm talking about scraping. I think the sibling commenter is talking about developing competing products via reverse engineering ("clean room implementation"). I am also not a lawyer, so I can only tell you the guidance I received from one for the projects I worked on.
Technically speaking you can scrape data in a legally defensible way if you do not need to accept any terms of service explicitly prohibiting scraping in the course of grabbing the data. The distinction is that browsewrap T&C have plausible deniability, but clickwrap T&C do not. And if you receive a cease and desist order, you abide by it with a mea culpa. This also means you don't scrape so loudly as to be noticed, which has the happy side effect of probably not disrupting the target's service.
But again: The grey areas of ethics are a separate question from legality. Please engage a lawyer for your specific work.