This is an old story that was discussed extensively when it was new (in October): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12637126
First time I'm hearing about it. October is very recent so not old at all.
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Yahoo installed a backdoor for the NSA behind the back of the security team
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Re: Yahoo installed a backdoor for the NSA behind the back of the security team
#22I seriously think that to get a CS or EE degree (or similar) B.Sci degree, you should be required to take at least one full term length ethics course. Same idea as the ethics courses taught to junior law students.
The internet is already fucked up enough with governments and rogue corporations messing with its AS-adjacency topology in non-free ways at OSI layers 1-3 , before you even get into stuff like writing backdoors at layer 4+ to pass all email to the NSA.
Re: Yahoo installed a backdoor for the NSA behind the back of the security team
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Funny, but it is actually the CIA that is attempting to throw the election. Proof is needed to change this opinion though...
How do you figure?
CIA said something that makes Trump look unfavorable hence they are obviously trying to f;ck Trump. Makes sense to me./s
Re: Yahoo installed a backdoor for the NSA behind the back of the security team
#24I seriously think that to get a CS or EE degree (or similar) B.Sci degree, you should be required to take at least one full term length ethics course. Same idea as the ethics courses taught to junior law students. The internet is already fucked up enough with governments and rogue corporations messing with its AS-adjacency topology in non-free ways at OSI layers 1-3 , before you even get into stuff like writing backd…
And yet you will find many lawyers are raketeers and extortionists.
Re: Yahoo installed a backdoor for the NSA behind the back of the security team
#25There is no moral dilemma here. If you blow the whistle on the NSA you are a traitor to your own country. How can this not be clear to people.
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." - Carl Schurz
Also, by that logic, any H1B worker that refuses to spy on his company on behalf of his country of citizenship would be a traitor. Do you really want that to be the operative ethics when most S.V. companies are made from people from all over the world? Because I certainly do not.
Re: Yahoo installed a backdoor for the NSA behind the back of the security team
#26I seriously think that to get a CS or EE degree (or similar) B.Sci degree, you should be required to take at least one full term length ethics course. Same idea as the ethics courses taught to junior law students. The internet is already fucked up enough with governments and rogue corporations messing with its AS-adjacency topology in non-free ways at OSI layers 1-3 , before you even get into stuff like writing backd…
When you get a legally-binding order from the government of the United States of America, and exhaust your legal appeals, you either comply or go to prison. An ethics course won't do you any good.
Re: Yahoo installed a backdoor for the NSA behind the back of the security team
#27What do people have to hide. That's irrelevant, ever fucking heard of privacy.
Re: Yahoo installed a backdoor for the NSA behind the back of the security team
#28There is no moral dilemma here. If you blow the whistle on the NSA you are a traitor to your own country. How can this not be clear to people.
This is a terrifying outlook and an affront to common law stretching back to the Magna Carta. I sincerely hope you never come close to me or my data.
Re: Yahoo installed a backdoor for the NSA behind the back of the security team
#29I seriously think that to get a CS or EE degree (or similar) B.Sci degree, you should be required to take at least one full term length ethics course. Same idea as the ethics courses taught to junior law students. The internet is already fucked up enough with governments and rogue corporations messing with its AS-adjacency topology in non-free ways at OSI layers 1-3 , before you even get into stuff like writing backd…
I don't know how common this is in general, but an ethics course was a required part of the engineering core curricula at my school (Case Western Reserve).
Ultimately, though, an ethics course isn't going to make people stand up for their ethics. A professional organization along the lines of the American Medical Association (at least in terms of political strength) that stands up for its members and censures those who behave unethically would do far more for strengthening engineering ethics collectively.
When there are few professional consequences for unethical behavior at the behest of your employer, taking an ethical stand is ineffective and quixotic. You will be fired and another engineer will likely complete the job.
Re: Yahoo installed a backdoor for the NSA behind the back of the security team
#30I seriously think that to get a CS or EE degree (or similar) B.Sci degree, you should be required to take at least one full term length ethics course. Same idea as the ethics courses taught to junior law students. The internet is already fucked up enough with governments and rogue corporations messing with its AS-adjacency topology in non-free ways at OSI layers 1-3 , before you even get into stuff like writing backd…
When you get a legally-binding order from the government of the United States of America, and exhaust your legal appeals, you either comply or go to prison. An ethics course won't do you any good.
People have the option to quit. The company is legally bound to obey, but individual employees can chose for themselves whether they want to be a party to it.
Yahoo may still be court ordered to implement it, just hopefully not with their best and brightest developers. I also have a theory that a lot of the recent terrible news coming out of Yahoo is due to staff complying with the letter of the legal order but not the entire thorough spirit of it, intentionally doing a quick, shoddy bug ridden job.