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When the Judge Distrusts Your Lawyers

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Re: When the Judge Distrusts Your Lawyers

#61

Post by praptak »

pimmen wrote: post #30

I just don’t get why engineers want to work for Uber. They have treated their drivers poorly (eg. under paying them and fighting benefits other cab companies have to pay), their riders poorly (eg. not telling them their personal data was stolen), their engineers poorly (eg. giving zero fucks about sexual harassment without the press getting involved), local governments poorly (eg. dodging law enforcement and regulato…

There's probably a "boiling the frog" aspect in this too. You probably don't get to implement the shady stuff right after joining the company.

Re: When the Judge Distrusts Your Lawyers

#62

Post by pdkl95 »

rdiddly wrote: post #29
tehlike wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It all comes to personal ethics.

Let's not ignore the group dynamic though either. People's moral convictions can be somewhat flexible when it comes to fitting in and blending in with a group, including a company. Yes it's true that if your personal ethics are strong enough, you'll resist or exit a group whose ethics conflict with your own. It's also true that if the company has good ethics, you won't have to. Meanwhile the weak-minded as Obi Wan mi…

> both individual and group ethics have to fail

However, they don't have to fail at the same time or in a single step. This type of problem can creep in slowly over years as the "normalization of deviance"[1].

Richard Cook presented[2] a very useful model for how this type of problem creeps into complex system. The pressure from economic and workload concerns never goes away, so unless there is a proactive, explicit counter force, way to push back against that force, the system will inevitably be pushed toward failure. Therefor it's important to stop problems early when they are small. The magnitude of the counter force increases rapidly as behavior becomes increasingly deviant.

[1] http://www.rapp.org/archives/2015/12/normalization-of-devian...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGLYEDpNu60

Re: When the Judge Distrusts Your Lawyers

#63

Post by uiri »

chrismcb wrote: post #26
uiri wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, copyright infringement isn't theft even if it has been characterized as "stealing intellectual property". Intellectual property is a broad term without any real meaning. Copyrights don't have to be registered to have effect. Patents do. Trademarks can be either. If you don't defend a trademark, you lose it. If you don't defend against copyright or patent infringement, you can just wait. Patents last for 20 years.…

What do copyright, trademark and patents have to do with trade secrets? You accuse the op about not knowing anything about trade secrets then you proceed to talk about things that aren't related to trade secrets. Trade secrets aren't protected by copyright, as something needs to be published, therefore no longer a secret, to be copyrighted. Trademarks, well they just aren't a secret. Patents are the opposite of a tra…

That's exactly my point. The term intellectual property groups all of these things together as if the laws surrounding them are in any way similar or related.

Yes, trade secrets are generally things which are patentable which the inventor chooses to keep secret for one reason or another - generally for some sort of competitive advantage.

Re: When the Judge Distrusts Your Lawyers

#64

Post by uiri »

erik_seaberg wrote: post #18
uiri wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, copyright infringement isn't theft even if it has been characterized as "stealing intellectual property". Intellectual property is a broad term without any real meaning. Copyrights don't have to be registered to have effect. Patents do. Trademarks can be either. If you don't defend a trademark, you lose it. If you don't defend against copyright or patent infringement, you can just wait. Patents last for 20 years.…

IANAL but you can't just wait indefinitely if it's viewed as letting evidence deteriorate or setting a kind of trap for the infringer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laches_(equity)

I am also not a lawyer.

There is a distinction between wait indefinitely between an individual infringement occurring and suing for that incident versus picking and choosing which infringers to go after. The latter is not an option for trademarks.

Also, that appears to be an equitable defense. If successful, it would prevent an injunction to remedy the infringement but the holder of the rights in question could still pursue monetary damages. Again, I'm not a lawyer so I could be way off base here.

Re: When the Judge Distrusts Your Lawyers

#65

Post by nkurz »

pimmen wrote: post #48
trhway wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>armed defense force do you mean the force managed by Department of Peace which buys only defensive bullets, bombs, missiles, etc. built by engineers possessing true integrity who would never build offensive bullets, bombs, missiles? Or do you think Leonardo was going to build only "defensive" cannons and bombs for the "saint" Duke? And weapons not necessarily should explode. Trade, political and economic actions can…

Working for an arms contractor is something I would never do because I don't want to make things that kill people, however if someone else thinks that the military is a necessary institution for public safety those engineers can also proudly tell their grandchildren 30 years from now what they did and why it was ethically justified to do so without resorting to "I had a mortgage". When you just shrug and say "tragedy…

How many layers of indirection do need the money to pass through before you would feel ethical? That is, and using your example of "arms contractors" as an example an unethical business, would you feel comfortable working for a company who has arms contractors as customers? Or a company who has customers who have arms contractors for customers?

I ask this seriously. I personally often feel that there is no way to be a part of the modern economy without being complicit in an awful lot of evil. An issue that frequently bothers me is whether it's moral to make money by catering to the desires of those who made their money doing things that I would personally consider immoral. Then what about those who made their money doing business with those you find immoral?

Is there any solution other than abandoning morality or avoiding gainful employment? Are there useful references to read about these issues?

Re: When the Judge Distrusts Your Lawyers

#66

Post by pimmen »

nkurz wrote: post #65
pimmen wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working for an arms contractor is something I would never do because I don't want to make things that kill people, however if someone else thinks that the military is a necessary institution for public safety those engineers can also proudly tell their grandchildren 30 years from now what they did and why it was ethically justified to do so without resorting to "I had a mortgage". When you just shrug and say "tragedy…

How many layers of indirection do need the money to pass through before you would feel ethical? That is, and using your example of "arms contractors" as an example an unethical business, would you feel comfortable working for a company who has arms contractors as customers? Or a company who has customers who have arms contractors for customers? I ask this seriously. I personally often feel that there is no way to be…

I don’t think there’s a simple answer to that question. I feel like two layers of inderiction is too little personally (i.e I don’t want to make things murderers use even though I’m technically not selling stuff to murderers or pull the trigger myself) but other people have other answers.

But I, and the law, is of the opinion that organizations are responsible entities by themselves. When you join an organization and knowingly help facilitate its illegal activities it’s 0 indirections. The solution is to avoid organizations doing this shit by acting like any rational actor is expected to do in the economy; researching the alternatives. If you don’t like what you find, I could point you to the nearest office to apply for a business permit.

Re: When the Judge Distrusts Your Lawyers

#67

Post by nabla9 »

pimmen wrote: post #30

I just don’t get why engineers want to work for Uber. They have treated their drivers poorly (eg. under paying them and fighting benefits other cab companies have to pay), their riders poorly (eg. not telling them their personal data was stolen), their engineers poorly (eg. giving zero fucks about sexual harassment without the press getting involved), local governments poorly (eg. dodging law enforcement and regulato…

"It should be noted that no ethically-trained software engineer would ever consent to write a `DestroyBaghdad` procedure. Basic professional ethics would instead require him to write a `DestroyCity' procedure, to which `Baghdad' could be given as a parameter."

– Nathaniel S. Borenstein

Re: When the Judge Distrusts Your Lawyers

#69

Post by ggvhbbhh »

tajen wrote: post #36
pimmen wrote: post #30

I just don’t get why engineers want to work for Uber. They have treated their drivers poorly (eg. under paying them and fighting benefits other cab companies have to pay), their riders poorly (eg. not telling them their personal data was stolen), their engineers poorly (eg. giving zero fucks about sexual harassment without the press getting involved), local governments poorly (eg. dodging law enforcement and regulato…

I personally had to leave a company because women were promoted all the time and men were ostensibly discriminated against. Both ends of the spectrum are annoying, those who don’t care about progressism (Uber), and those who give all power to accusers (90% of SV). If given the choice, I’d work for the workplace that gives me equal chances of promotion and recognizes presumption of innocence against the one which disc…

I’d bet you’re useless and they were just looking for an easy excuse to fire you.

Re: When the Judge Distrusts Your Lawyers

#70

Post by richardknop »

pimmen wrote: post #28
olliepop wrote: post #12

> Uber has a team dedicated to collecting trade secrets from competing companies. Allegedly, the people involved use disappearing-message apps, anonymous servers, and secret computers and phones to communicate without leaving a trail. If true, then this is absolutely unreal. Add it to the growing list of dodgy Uber tactics: Ride-hailing company (Uber) hit by revelations it used custom-built tool to deceive law enforc…

If you implement any of this shit as an engineer and you try to Nuremberg your way out of responsibility, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Comparing Uber engineers to Nuremberg trials is little bit too much.
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