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Ask HN: What is the thing you've built that you regret the most?

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Ask HN: What is the thing you've built that you regret the most?

#1
Given the very interesting comments on the "Ask HN: What is the most impactful thing you've built?", I was wondering about something similar: Things you regret based on ethical implications, bad technical decisions you made convinced you were right but regret/cringe about later, failures on miscalculations on budgets that provoked a bad outcome in the company etc whatever.

Thanks in advance.

Re: Ask HN: What is the thing you've built that you regret the most?

#3
The Qatar slave helmet.

My company built the smart helmet used to track Qatar’s army of abused workers. The claim is GPS and accelerometer where used to track if a worker stopped moving or fell due to an accident; the geo fencing was supposedly for tracking if they had enough workers in an area for the job.

The reality is the helmets where/are used as mass surveillance tech to ensure workers are continuously active and never leave their assigned areas for petty things like going to the bathroom or finding shade to prevent heat stroke.

Re: Ask HN: What is the thing you've built that you regret the most?

#4
post #3

The Qatar slave helmet. My company built the smart helmet used to track Qatar’s army of abused workers. The claim is GPS and accelerometer where used to track if a worker stopped moving or fell due to an accident; the geo fencing was supposedly for tracking if they had enough workers in an area for the job. The reality is the helmets where/are used as mass surveillance tech to ensure workers are continuously active a…

Eh... Was it really that hard to guess what they're gonna do with it? How long ago was that? It's not like their abuse of [foreign] workers is anything new.

Re: Ask HN: What is the thing you've built that you regret the most?

#5
post #3

The Qatar slave helmet. My company built the smart helmet used to track Qatar’s army of abused workers. The claim is GPS and accelerometer where used to track if a worker stopped moving or fell due to an accident; the geo fencing was supposedly for tracking if they had enough workers in an area for the job. The reality is the helmets where/are used as mass surveillance tech to ensure workers are continuously active a…

Eh... Was it really that hard to guess what they're gonna do with it? How long ago was that? It's not like their abuse of [foreign] workers is anything new.

7-8 years ago. I was a lot more naive back then and knew very little about any of the Middle East petro states.

Re: Ask HN: What is the thing you've built that you regret the most?

#6
post #3

The Qatar slave helmet. My company built the smart helmet used to track Qatar’s army of abused workers. The claim is GPS and accelerometer where used to track if a worker stopped moving or fell due to an accident; the geo fencing was supposedly for tracking if they had enough workers in an area for the job. The reality is the helmets where/are used as mass surveillance tech to ensure workers are continuously active a…

What is the official name of that product?

Re: Ask HN: What is the thing you've built that you regret the most?

#7
post #3

The Qatar slave helmet. My company built the smart helmet used to track Qatar’s army of abused workers. The claim is GPS and accelerometer where used to track if a worker stopped moving or fell due to an accident; the geo fencing was supposedly for tracking if they had enough workers in an area for the job. The reality is the helmets where/are used as mass surveillance tech to ensure workers are continuously active a…

Wow, 2 posts in and we may have a winner already! That’s really, really bad. I have a friend (well, not anymore) who worked for Palantir for a long time and was very proud of it, and I was gonna ask him if he regrets anything, but this is a whole other level.

Re: Ask HN: What is the thing you've built that you regret the most?

#8
I built a crypto invoice system that was originally targeted towards our freelance dev clients, which was soon overrun with drug sellers, weapons sellers, and when it reached a point where some of the invoice descriptions included words like "8yo.mp4" we realized it was time to put it down. We reported the IPs of the people involved and shut down the servers. Luckily I live in a third world country and not somewhere I could get in trouble for.

Re: Ask HN: What is the thing you've built that you regret the most?

#9
post #3

The Qatar slave helmet. My company built the smart helmet used to track Qatar’s army of abused workers. The claim is GPS and accelerometer where used to track if a worker stopped moving or fell due to an accident; the geo fencing was supposedly for tracking if they had enough workers in an area for the job. The reality is the helmets where/are used as mass surveillance tech to ensure workers are continuously active a…

What is the official name of that product?

This article lists a few products in that space:

https://www.conexpoconagg.com/news/improving-jobsite-product...

Re: Ask HN: What is the thing you've built that you regret the most?

#10
post #3

The Qatar slave helmet. My company built the smart helmet used to track Qatar’s army of abused workers. The claim is GPS and accelerometer where used to track if a worker stopped moving or fell due to an accident; the geo fencing was supposedly for tracking if they had enough workers in an area for the job. The reality is the helmets where/are used as mass surveillance tech to ensure workers are continuously active a…

What is the official name of that product?

Sounds like https://www.wakecap.com/.
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