Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is about as far from unethical as you can get...
Well, the title asked for "most unethical", so, yea. It was against the terms of service...
That's some low key ethical bragging you have there
Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?
171–180 of 520 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?
#172Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?
#173Anonymous account for obvious reason.
We're a software contractor for: DHS, ICE, CBP and more. Took the job knowing that was some of our clientèle.
Was in a tough spot. That job was hiring. Didn't have other bites. Food and living expenses is nice to have (and so is not living in a car).
I also have a clean criminal record, and nothing exciting in my history.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?
#174When I was in college I finished a couple of programming projects late. My professor said if we could prove that it was done on time he wouldn’t penalize us so I found a program that would let me alter windows time stamps.
I’m sure he knew and accepted it anyway because he was a great teacher that seemed to enjoy letting us creatively solve problems more than sticking to specific curriculum. Was my favorite class in school.
I still feel a little guilty about that though.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?
#175I was once assigned a task that had been estimated at 8 hours of development time, but only required the modification of a single line of code. I finished it in 5 minutes. My boss asked what happened, I told him, and he told me to revert the code, work on other tasks, and redo it at the end of the day so he could bill for 8 hours (in addition to billing for the other tasks I worked on). I did it and didn’t say anythi…
Guess I haven't had enough coffee -- I'm struggling to remember the joke in which the punchline is the professional telling the client something like "You're not paying me to do [one simple/small thing], but for the years of experience it takes to know that [it's that one simple thing]". The problem with trying to charge for programming work is that so much non-trivial work can be summed up as a few keystrokes, or an…
Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?
#176I 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.
I think I work with you.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
> While not a morally bankrupt thing to do Could you explain this position? (Honestly asking.)
Aside from the accessibility issues pointed out by another comment, this was mostly an annoyance upon our users that the higher-ups decided converted well. FWIW we did try to argue against it but profits dictate behavior in a large corporation. :-/ Either way, it doesn't exist any more and if you were ever bothered by it (I apologize), there are no over-arching effects that you have to worry about.
I doubt it leads to actual profits but the morons at the top think it will for some reason.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?
#178There was an ongoing prank in my high school (late 70's) to insert John Holmes' name whenever/wherever possible. For example, one trick was to ask someone in the front office to add to the end-of-day announcements "{popular girl}, John Holmes won't be able to give you a ride today". Eventually the front office caught on, and it got riskier and more difficult to do.
I was asked to write an Applesoft BASIC program to help the front office collate and remove duplicates from attendance lists taken first and second period. At some point, I added some obfuscated code that would add John's name in when the total number of names was over some threshold.
Believe me, I'm very very ashamed of myself...
Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?
#179Worked quite a while for an "Internet Cafe" SAAS company. If you're confused by the quotes, these internet cafe companies basically sell internet time to users and with each minute purchased, you also get an entry into a sweepstakes where the prize is a jackpot. The sweepstakes entries would be redeemed electronically by way of slot machines, video poker, etc. They're basically legalized gambling. I suppose that in and of itself isn't unethical, but we didn't exactly operate by by the book.
In order for this to be legal, the sweepstakes games have to have a defined number of entries as well as a defined number of winners and losers. None of our games did, it was just too prohibitive. We did provide to our customers, by law, our average payouts and our games did adhere to those through averages over time. But there were many occasions where the games didn't pay out jackpots regularly or paid them out too frequently, hurting stores that were using our software. Our recourse was to provide them more "entries" to distribute to sell to their players, which of course cost us nothing.
Business was good for quite a while, but stricter laws and states cracking down really killed profits. I just feel like any type of gambling in unethical, it seems to really pray on people's dopamine addictions. And these internet cafes, in particularly, are largely occupied by retires who, I'd wager, can't really afford to be throwing their money way.
Years later, my Aunt and Uncle became addicted to gambling on those casino boats and have now lost the house my Grandmother left to them when she passed. I don't necessarily believe in karma, but that certainly made me rethink it.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
I strongly disagree. Even if we ignore confidentiality and security issues, there is a fundamental difference between contractors and employees. Employees are generally paid less than contractors and are provided stability inn return the company gets a stable employee. Contractors are expected to be shorter term and change tasking if new opportunities arise, even for a short time. If both parties enter into a deal th…
Oh, so companies can engage in these tactics, but not the little people? How quaint.
If you have more power / control your behavior is generally more ethical.
/s