Tech workers pledge to never build a database of Muslims • Hacker News Board

Re: Tech workers pledge to never build a database of Muslims

#171

Post by specialist » Thu, Dec 15, 2016, 9:00 PM UTC

woofyman wrote: post #90

exabrial wrote: post #21

Unfortunately, with firearms registration and no-fly lists, Muslim registries are part of the slope we've set precedent for. A citizen should _never_ have to register with the government to exercise a freedom explicitly granted in the constitution.

Flying isn't a constitutionally protected right. Voting is though. Should you be able to vote without registering?

Should you be able to vote without registering?

Correct.

The US Govt and many others already maintain a complete list of all persons, living and dead, including useful attributes like citizenship, current address, age (aka eligibility to vote), in real-time.

Maintaining separate, duplicate, opt-in, haphazardly maintained, patchwork voter registration databases is wasteful, error-prone, and only serves the purpose of disenfranchising undesirables.

Re: Tech workers pledge to never build a database of Muslims

#172

Post by 67726e » Thu, Dec 15, 2016, 9:01 PM UTC

jnbiche wrote: post #104

edblarney wrote: post #48

What about a database of people from countries with high propensity for radicalization, for example Tunisia, or Somalia? Paradox: Tunisia is perhaps the most progressive of all the M/E Muslim countries, and yet they are the #1 M/E country in terms of Jihadis. They are overwhelmingly the greatest per/capita Jihadi producers in the world. By far. Tunisia is very small. Networks are very small. 95% chance that a young m…

> I'm more concerned about the 'populist anti-muslim sentiment' that might arise, "...that might arise"? What have we been seeing the last year, when the winning presidential candidate proposed banning Muslims from entry to the US, and as recently as a few weeks ago (and well after the election) said with respect to a Muslim registry that "he would implement that [a registry], absolutely" [1]. Meanwhile, various of h…

> proposed banning Muslims from entry to the US

I was actually at the rally when he announced this. Trump wants a freeze on immigration from countries that are actively producing a large number of jihadis which, surprise, happens to be predominantly Muslim countries. The premise being, they need more scrutiny and we need time to implement such. Of course I'm sure this whole time he's just been pulling from George W's playbook, acting like an "every guy" who doesn't use big words and wants to appeal to populism.

Re: Tech workers pledge to never build a database of Muslims

#173

Post by ryandrake » Thu, Dec 15, 2016, 9:01 PM UTC

zodPod wrote: post #122

kevinburke wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over 1000 people, some of them very prominent, have pledged to quit their jobs if they are asked to do unethical things. How is that "merely a gesture"?

Because there are millions of people in the industry.. Without factoring in any exact data, I'd say it's no less than 20% of those millions voted for Trump and of those I'd be willing to bet a portion would support this initiative. It's "merely a gesture" because it doesn't mean shit and it won't prevent anything. I do agree with the guy above that said that it'll start a conversation but I wouldn't be surprised if t…

All it takes is a tiny team of people who "need that job".

Re: Tech workers pledge to never build a database of Muslims

#174

Post by enraged_camel » Thu, Dec 15, 2016, 9:01 PM UTC

MaxfordAndSons wrote: post #75

Raed667 wrote: post #35

I just went on Facebook and created an Ad [0] that targets only people "interested in Islam" and living the US, it took 30 seconds. [0] http://i.imgur.com/NOrGA2N.png --- Edit: Direct link

Interest in Islam ≠ being a Muslim. I'm interested in Islam and not a Muslim. In fact I'd say most Trump supporters, hell most Americans of any political/religious persuasion even, have some amount of interest in Islam. I'm being somewhat facetious, but also not entirely - the point being that I don't think these consumer profiles could easily be converted into Muslim registries. But it's also all pretty moot - if Tr…

>>Interest in Islam ≠ being a Muslim.

Sure, but it would be trivial for a nefarious party to pair up "interest in Islam" with actions such as "checked in at local mosque" and other such signals.

Re: Tech workers pledge to never build a database of Muslims

#175

Post by mistermann » Thu, Dec 15, 2016, 9:01 PM UTC

edblarney wrote: post #155

goatsi wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be illegal to collect that data. https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/08/17/a-thorny-history... >Fantino, then head of 31 Division, told North York’s committee on community, race and ethnic relations that, while blacks made up 6 per cent of the Jane-Finch population, they accounted for 82 per cent of robberies and muggings, 55 per cent of purse-snatchings and 51 per cent of drug offences in the previous yea…

There are some legal and political difficulties around the topic. But the Police are very aware of who is up to what. Cops in Toronto work with various groups all day, every day, they know what is going on. They know when it's 'Asian gang' vs. 'Bikers' vs. 'Somalis' vs. 'Mafia' etc.. Somalis have formed an ad-hoc kind of organized crime syndicate, maybe somewhat similar to the Sicilian folks, but with totally differe…

It's surreal, the reality of the situation is blatantly obvious, yet anyone in any sort of an official position that is privy to the facts would be well advised to keep their mouth shut if they'd like to keep their job. And simultaneously, most people simply can't fathom why "Trump supporters" tend to believe their government is not being truthful with citizens.

Re: Tech workers pledge to never build a database of Muslims

#176

Post by kevinburke » Thu, Dec 15, 2016, 9:01 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #109

kevinburke wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over 1000 people, some of them very prominent, have pledged to quit their jobs if they are asked to do unethical things. How is that "merely a gesture"?

Have they destroyed any of this data yet? As much fun as it may be to pretend this is a Trump problem, it's a Silicon Valley problem. It's Silicon Valley waking up and realizing that it's all fun and games until someone you don't like gets the data that they have already painstakingly collected, polished, and devoted billions of dollars to processing and extracting features of interest. The existence of people you do…

Sure; I signed the pledge. I've asked about companies' privacy policies, data retention and security policies during the course of interviewing. I've told recruiters the reason I am not interested in a company is because of their approach to privacy. I've discussed the implications of data collection and data management with colleagues at companies that collect lots of it.

At the last company I worked at I promoted the use of HTTPS everywhere, when we had more pressing feature work to do. I shamed someone who shared around that a famous customer had signed up, and made it clear internally that we shouldn't be looking at or commenting on that data. I gave company-wide talks on security, phishing, the implications of storing our data in Slack, and realistic and unrealistic security threats.

Not the next coming of Claus von Stauffenberg but I don't think everyone needs to be; just conscious of the choices they make and the consequences.

Re: Tech workers pledge to never build a database of Muslims

#177

Post by Raed667 » Thu, Dec 15, 2016, 9:02 PM UTC

edblarney wrote: post #130

Raed667 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Tunisian I would like to add a comment: 1- Yes, there is a number of Tunisians that went to Syria. As you have said per/capita it is a large number. There are around 10 Million Tunisians and from 3000 to 8000 fighting in Syria (depending on the source). 2- This is due to several factors: Post-revolution politics, poverty, mistrust in the state institutions and the police, and -most importantly- a previous govern…

Thanks for your comment. And to be clear - I'm not 'blaming' anyone, I spent some time in Tunisia a couple of years ago. I'm just indicating that 'cultures' and 'centers of activity' and 'relationships' are important. So 'I hear you' on that. Still though - Tunisians tend to be great people, much more open minded and educated than, for example Algerians or Moroccans ... and the Tunisian government is not nearly as ba…

I was just adding some details to the valid points you have mentioned.

And indeed, I personally don't understand that paradox as well.

Re: Tech workers pledge to never build a database of Muslims

#178

Post by Mz » Thu, Dec 15, 2016, 9:02 PM UTC

CamperBob2 wrote: post #167

Mz wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, HN seems to be not nearly as interested in hearing about things actually going on outside the US. I posted this earlier this morning and it has not a single upvote (at this time): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13186741 I do what I can to post international news and I try hard to mot make it just about negative things going on out in the larger world. Sometimes, those stories do get some small attention,…

Sometimes, those stories do get some small attention, but there is a serious diversity issue on many discussion boards in terms of what kinds of topics get attention, if that makes sense. Well, it is called "Hacker News," after all. Perhaps this just isn't the right venue for discussion of that particular story. If so, that's OK. There are plenty of others.

Original full comment that I was replying to before the substantial edit by CamperBob2: Well, it is called "Hacker News," after all.

That's true. But it is not called "American Hacker News." I do try to post international tech news when I can find a good article on the subject. They tend to get not anywhere near as much attention as American subjects.

Please don't try to justify this to me. The number three guy on the leaderboard is Dutch. The number four guy is Australian and lives in Great Britain. The number two guy is an American living in Japan. (And I think the current lead mod is Canadian in origin and Paul Graham himself is an immigrant from England.)

Programming does not only happen in the U.S. There is absolutely no justification whatsoever for the degree of bias on this forum in terms of what people are willing to read and discuss.

Re: Tech workers pledge to never build a database of Muslims

#179

Post by mistermann » Thu, Dec 15, 2016, 9:03 PM UTC

steve_b wrote: post #98

edblarney wrote: post #48

What about a database of people from countries with high propensity for radicalization, for example Tunisia, or Somalia? Paradox: Tunisia is perhaps the most progressive of all the M/E Muslim countries, and yet they are the #1 M/E country in terms of Jihadis. They are overwhelmingly the greatest per/capita Jihadi producers in the world. By far. Tunisia is very small. Networks are very small. 95% chance that a young m…

"Some social workers have observed that they simply have absolutely no respect for authority - it's meaningless to many of them" Sounds like a bunch of Richard Feynmans.

Indeed, not to mention Richard's penchant for organized crime.

Re: Tech workers pledge to never build a database of Muslims

#180

Post by kevinburke » Thu, Dec 15, 2016, 9:04 PM UTC

imdsm wrote: post #121

kevinburke wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over 1000 people, some of them very prominent, have pledged to quit their jobs if they are asked to do unethical things. How is that "merely a gesture"?

Perhaps because no matter how prominent you or the company you work for is, there are 1000s of other IT workers who are less scrupulous, less conscious, and more motivated by money than you are. And they would do it. That being said, who is to say that it would be those people who were asked to do it? Most unlikely. It'd be the grey people, those you don't even know about. Those already doing it. And finally, it's al…

This is a really fatalistic and deterministic argument. The tragedy of the Holocaust is that so many people went along with it. In many other scenarios around the world people haven't gone along with unethical requests and things stopped far short of there.

People have agency. The whole point of the pledge is to make people aware that their colleagues aren't going along, and maybe send a signal to management about what employees will and won't accept. Hopefully others who haven't signed the pledge will have a clearer idea about what their colleagues think is unethical.