Earlier quoted context omitted.
How did that work?
Don't call them "ads." Call them "promotions."
Bingo.
Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?
131–140 of 520 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?
#132Ran an illegal live streaming site for a few months. Had a lot of fun with it and used the experience to transition to a legitimate job in that space, but I probably cost some people some money, and for no other reason than "I could".
I also worked at a startup briefly that was run by a convicted con man. The business was legit but it was immediately clear he was using the same confidence techniques on everyone - clients, employees, etc. Not a good scene.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?
#133Let me answer on behalf of programmers employed by Facebook. The most unethical thing I have done as a programmer is going to work everyday.
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Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?
#134Worked at Ticketmaster.
Well, you could put LiveNation on your resume to hide the fact ;)
Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?
#135I wrote telemarketing software. Not sure if I'll go into the same circle of hell as telemarketers, or something worse. But it is an incentive to live as long as possible before going to my reward.
Ha, I write telemarketing support systems for a living and feel your pain. It might not be sexy work but sure helps to grease the wheels of commerce and put food on the table.
Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?
#136I wrote the initial SEO optimizations for reddit.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?
#137I was subcontracted as development resource to a short terms loan company. They had me implement a piece of software that lets people enter their online banking details (yes their name and password, that thing that the bank says if you reveal to anybody you have no protections on your account), store them in a database, and then use those credentials to scrape their bank records so that their loans could be approved without the user having to send their bank statements in.
I wasn't comfortable working for a company that preys on the fiscally challenged, so I found another job and quit the contracting company I worked for.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?
#138I 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.
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Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?
#139Back in the day I wrote some "AOHell style" apps for AOL and Yahoo chat.
Also trolled my non-programming friends who had computers by installing a personally developed backdoor that allowed me to open and close their cd-rom tray remotely. That was really fun.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?
#140Was fed up with Quake Live not providing any matchmaking, so I tried to make my own. Of course they didn't have any API, so I needed to scrape their website to get the match results. I sent a lot of requests.
So when they blogged about their web site becoming occasionally very slow, I sheepishly emailed them, and asked if this might be due to my scripts. I assumed that of course they'd have some sort of IP based limiter in place in case I got to greedy. Well, they didn't. They requested that I send them my scripts, which I happily did. They also banned my account, which I thought was quite petty.
They might have unbanned me a couple weeks after that, but I quickly lost interest in Quake Live.