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Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?

#311

Post by brokenmachine »

iamleppert wrote: post #209

I created software that was used by call center agents to bid on “bathroom” break time slots and kept track of who was on break and actively punished those who didn’t follow the rules. It rewarded those that had higher performance and who took less breaks with higher priority. If an agent didn’t come back from their break a security guard would automatically be dispatched to find them. For the same company I also mad…

Since you mentioned it in this thread, you clearly are aware that such a system is morally "challenged". How did you rationalize it to yourself? Was it something that started innocuous and evolved to become worse, or were you aware of how insidious it was from the start?

Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?

#312

Post by user5994461 »

Rjevski wrote: post #306
user5994461 wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stolen or the oppressing government are not good arguments. It doesn't allow either party to buy or sell. We had the case of an ex student who opened a company selling electronics and mechanical parts. Some shipments were stopped at the border by the local equivalent of the NSA and the company received a visit shortly afterwards. Turns out that some stuff can be used to manufacture military equipment. That day, w…

I don't really get how this relates to my point? All I was saying is that buying on the "dark web" is not always synonymous with bad intentions. I did not say it legally (I assume that's what you meant) allowed parties to trade, although I will say that it does physically allow parties to trade, as "dark" markets have been thriving for years now.

I meant to illustrate that dealing in physical goods is well defined and regulated, any trouble will have no regards for intentions or what is physically possible.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?

#313

Post by mancerayder »

movedx wrote: post #196

Not a programmer at the time, but a system administrator. I won't mention the company. This was 2011-2012 -ish. We hosted dedicated servers and most of the time, they were mostly Plesk or cPanel servers run by people selling email and or web hosting to hundreds of clients from a single server. This one time a client joins the network, buys a server from us, and migrates from Rackspace. We wondered why he'd move from…

Fascinating story! I'm curious why this isn't massive lawsuit material, I know in the US it would be. I thought the UK was similarly litigious?

Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?

#314

Post by mindslight »

andy_ppp wrote: post #295
derefr wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, as both a writer and a programmer, I often consider implementing the systems that I’ve written dystopian fiction about. Not to create a dystopia, but for the same reason I write: to point one out, such that people can get incensed, laws can be made, etc. To put this another way: the most efficient way we could have possibly found to get the use of nuclear arms in war globally banned, was to have someone u…

You’re actually suggesting being a sociopath is a good thing because it’ll make all the bad ideas eventually die by us trying them. This is simply not true, we have to make bad ideas die by reason and logic, before we do too much harm. I suppose doubling down of fossil fuels and burning of rainforest is great, we’ll just have to adapt quicker to the super extreme weather. But we can adapt with more aircon! Yay! Maybe…

This is an extremely uncharitable reading. Infosec is a field rife with kneejerk dismissals until people actually see the exploitation in action. How long has the (ethical) tech community been warning people about the NSA and Faceboot, until Snowden and Cambridge Analytica actually happened?

Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?

#315

Post by Schwolop »

Aeolun wrote: post #255
armagon wrote: post #207

Its an entirely standard thing, but I feel it is unhappy knowing that my paycheque depends upon thousands of mobile game players watching advertising, and feel that it is ethically dubious that my job is to try to cram more ads down their throats.

It’s great. Just as long as you reward me for watching an ad as opposed to making them a forced part of the experience. E.g. watching an ad to double my score/gems, sure. Making me watch an ad after every level before I can continue, hell no, that’s an instant uninstall.

As a hypothetical since I'm working on a game that may use this, how would you feel about the following? For a multiplayer .io-style game, you get a score per level, and a cumulative score. The top few players by cumulative score are shown to everyone and celebrated, etc. If you ever get zero points in a level though, you'll lose your cumulative score - unless you watch a video ad.

Is that acceptable, or does it feel like blackmail?

(FWIW I'm discussing this with a lot of other gamedevs too, but since you brought it up I figure you might have a "different community" opinion worth my knowing!)

Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?

#316

Post by dvtv75 »

Paul_S wrote: post #160
ruskie wrote: post #145

When a deadline had passed sent blank tapes to clients and then claimed the postal services had wiped them when scanning with xrays, asking the clients to send back the tapes so we bought a few more days

This also happened more recently in the CD era with intentionally badly burned CDs.

I worked for a business that sold videos burned to very cheap blank DVDs, for a pretty high price. We tested them onsite, and had about a 20% failure rate (they cheaped out on the equipment, too) and the passing discs wouldn't work for about a third of customers anyway. I think those discs delaminate after a few years.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?

#317

Post by vanattab »

ibudiallo wrote: post #234
iamleppert wrote: post #209

I created software that was used by call center agents to bid on “bathroom” break time slots and kept track of who was on break and actively punished those who didn’t follow the rules. It rewarded those that had higher performance and who took less breaks with higher priority. If an agent didn’t come back from their break a security guard would automatically be dispatched to find them. For the same company I also mad…

hmmmm, you and I need to have a little talk... Edit: Since I am getting downvoted, I will just add context -> https://idiallo.com/blog/when-a-machine-fired-me I was on the other end of a similar system.

So your the one behind that story! Thanks for taking the time to write it I have always loved that story.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?

#318

Post by [deleted] »

hkai wrote: post #305
nyolfen wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i wouldn't sweat it, a lot of economic activity is just information arbitrage.

Where do you draw the line? My grandma was once contacted by a scammer who offered to "optimize" her laptop, and she ended up paying roughly the same as the price of a new laptop.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What is the most unethical thing you've done as a programmer?

#319

Post by jliptzin »

hjek wrote: post #189

Worked for a company that was contracted by DOW to make an app promoting some extremely toxic agrochemicals, such as Forefront. They talked about this being so poisonious that if animals eat grass sprayed with it, then crops grown with their manure will be unsuitable for human consumption. Was also asked to fake ("round up") the calculations of how much money you'd save if by those chemicals. Read up a bit about DOW…

How does not eating animal products help with your guilty conscience in this situation?
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