Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I Worked for a Criminal Organization

openmonstervision.github.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 234 posts

Re: I Worked for a Criminal Organization

#121

Post by hawkice »

hackermailman wrote: post #13

Not uncommon in some cities in Canada to find out you're working for a criminal outfit if writing point of sale/restaurant software where they want you to produce one receipt for the customer and a different one for the restaurant or salon or shady car mechanic that then pockets the unreported tax aka a 'zapper'. Profitek was busted once, InfoSpec Systems, zappers are in high demand

I resigned from a software development job after being asked to write this dual receipt system for an AdTech company. Works for a lot more than tax avoidance in an industry where standard terms are revenue share agreements.

Re: I Worked for a Criminal Organization

#122

Post by wongarsu »

spottybanana wrote: post #111
scandox wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a funny one because it's potentially one of the most serious crimes. You're stealing from everybody, undermining the basis of trust in the entire system in which we live and probably in the long term eroding the basis of democracy. You're creating a non-level playing field. On the other hand, black and grey market activity are also I think quite an important counter-balance to the possibility of totalitarian gov…

> It's a funny one because it's potentially one of the most serious crimes. No. How about serial killers, real theft etc. > You're stealing from everybody No, tax evasion is not theft. It is primarily your earned income where you pay taxes from. Tax evasion is tax evasion, no reason to confuse it with other crimes. Think about it this way: easiest way to avoid taxes is not to work at all. Are all those who are slacki…

> It is primarily your earned income where you pay taxes from.

Income you were able to earn because infrastructure allows businesses to operate, police forces protect their property, physical safety and the shipment of goods, a court system allows peaceful resolution of conflicts, armed forces protect you from invasion, fire departments prevent entire cities from burning down by putting fires out early etc.

Taking the benefits without paying the democratically set price for a wide array of services is not that different from stealing.

Re: I Worked for a Criminal Organization

#123

Post by amelius »

normalnorm wrote: post #75
Koremat6666 wrote: post #15

May be I missed it but can someone tell me what was the crime the company was committing ? Almost any company will have defensive strategies such as stalling LEOs and Warrants in whatever way they can. A lot of this is not really "crime" as in kidnapping people or shooting people dead in some alley. Is having shell companies a crime ? I know a ton of bay area "startups" than engage in these sort of tricks to maximize…

Am I the only one getting depressed with all the excuses and rationalizations in this thread? It's the same with "adtech" and the like... "Hey, I'm not killing anyone, what's the harm?" Technology has the potential to raise humanity above its current conditions and limitations. But we can't have it, because we are selfish and short-sighted monkeys. Take a big dump on all the ideals if this delivers the paycheck. "Bus…

Imo, the basis of the problem is that we look at the GDP as a major health indicator of the economy, while this works against the idea that we should be consuming less, not more. From this follows adtech, and indirectly people being rewarded for doing stupid stuff.

Re: I Worked for a Criminal Organization

#124

Post by jotm »

iovrthoughtthis wrote: post #71
PappaPatat wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first sale of my selfwritten software (about 35 years ago) was for a car driving instructor. The initial sales conversations where difficult. I thought they did not see the advantages of having their planning & bookkeeping in a computer... How wrong I was. It was their "creative bookkeeping" that worried them. When I offered to make that all possible ('zapping' as it is called now), they loved it. Based on their r…

Ethics. Where were yours?

Yeah, look, ethics is great and all but when you risk being homeless or hungry, it quickly goes out the window. Especially for "victimless" (i.e. no one is directly affected) illegal activity.

Re: I Worked for a Criminal Organization

#125

Post by catalogia »

scandox wrote: post #96
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tax evasion is a fairly soft crime, it’s shouldn’t be surprising there are people okay with facilitating it. It’s not difficult to find people who believe, rightly or wrongly, the tax system is unfair.

It's a funny one because it's potentially one of the most serious crimes. You're stealing from everybody, undermining the basis of trust in the entire system in which we live and probably in the long term eroding the basis of democracy. You're creating a non-level playing field. On the other hand, black and grey market activity are also I think quite an important counter-balance to the possibility of totalitarian gov…

> [tax evasion is] potentially one of the most serious crimes.

This reminds me of a joke I heard on Jerry Seinfeld's Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljaP2etvDc4

Re: I Worked for a Criminal Organization

#126

Post by mantas »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #102
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're talking the usual defrauding of the commons through tax evasion. Giving ‘The Government’ less money is seen by some as a moral duty . Governments do a whole lot of giving other people other people’s money . I’m sure there’s people who would argue this can be problematic.

There's plenty of such people. Most that I met are simultaneously unhappy about giving their government the money, and very happy to use all the services provided by the government from that money[0]. I would appreciate their views more if their argument involved pointing out that nobody asked them to sign the social contract, and that they have no meaningful way to opt out. But very few of such people I talked to ra…

If you do pay (even if unhappily), it makes sense to use the service that you had to pay for.

It'd be kinda dumb to pay up and refuse service on principle.

Re: I Worked for a Criminal Organization

#127

Post by arethuza »

wongarsu wrote: post #122
spottybanana wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a funny one because it's potentially one of the most serious crimes. No. How about serial killers, real theft etc. > You're stealing from everybody No, tax evasion is not theft. It is primarily your earned income where you pay taxes from. Tax evasion is tax evasion, no reason to confuse it with other crimes. Think about it this way: easiest way to avoid taxes is not to work at all. Are all those who are slacki…

> It is primarily your earned income where you pay taxes from. Income you were able to earn because infrastructure allows businesses to operate, police forces protect their property, physical safety and the shipment of goods, a court system allows peaceful resolution of conflicts, armed forces protect you from invasion, fire departments prevent entire cities from burning down by putting fires out early etc. Taking th…

I love J.K Rowling's views on paying tax:

https://www.taxfairness.ca/en/news/j-k-rowling-paying-taxes-...

Re: I Worked for a Criminal Organization

#128

Post by sneak »

notriddle wrote: post #47
sneak wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thing is... you don’t “get” an IP address. Having ARIN reserve you a netblock in their database doesn’t get you anything that you didn’t have prior to them doing that. IP “ownership” is not a real thing.

That's... really irrelevant. The point is that they were using shell companies to trick ARIN into reserving more netblocks than normal.

If an ARIN reservation doesn’t get you anything, then tricking ARIN to get more of them isn’t fraud.

Re: I Worked for a Criminal Organization

#129

Post by bonzini »

spottybanana wrote: post #117
spottybanana wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that governments often tolerate because they don't see a threat to their power. You think for example the North Korean government happily tolerates the black markets there? No way. If it would be easy for them to control them they would close them down. The black/grey markets happening in totalitarian countries are more like compromises - it would be too difficult to stop the activity without murdering half of the…

The point was happily . North Korean regime is at the point where they don't have any other sensible option than to tolerate the black markets.

There's also another reason: black markets and widespread corruption make everyone a possible target of regime purges. Remember Al Capone, folks...

Re: I Worked for a Criminal Organization

#130

Post by nkrisc »

normalnorm wrote: post #75
Koremat6666 wrote: post #15

May be I missed it but can someone tell me what was the crime the company was committing ? Almost any company will have defensive strategies such as stalling LEOs and Warrants in whatever way they can. A lot of this is not really "crime" as in kidnapping people or shooting people dead in some alley. Is having shell companies a crime ? I know a ton of bay area "startups" than engage in these sort of tricks to maximize…

Am I the only one getting depressed with all the excuses and rationalizations in this thread? It's the same with "adtech" and the like... "Hey, I'm not killing anyone, what's the harm?" Technology has the potential to raise humanity above its current conditions and limitations. But we can't have it, because we are selfish and short-sighted monkeys. Take a big dump on all the ideals if this delivers the paycheck. "Bus…

The issue is when people try to stack-rank the "badness" of crimes. "Is bankrupting a thousand people through fraud worse than killing someone?" The answer is: it doesn't matter which is worse. Both destroy lives in different ways.

Fraud and spam are crimes that ruin lives in their own ways.

Post reply on HN