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The White Hat's Dilemma

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Re: The White Hat's Dilemma

#41

Post by Phlarp »

dylangs1030 wrote: post #25
cgag wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about this vantage point leads you to say no when Narus asks you to help with their spy software or whatever?

It's categorical rejection. Instead of opening up that venue and having to navigate the murky waters of cognitive dissonance and moral obligations against lucrative opportunity, you simply don't open the door. You stick to a client base that is meaningful (relatively so) but not highly impactful and potentially dangerous down the road.

This is an excellent basic strategy. I've applied it to my own work; obviously avoiding government or defense contracting work is a good first step, cutting out Wall St. proper and stock/bond/asset trading is likely a prime second candidate.

To call this position as "non-participation" or "categorical rejection" is intellectually dishonest, and to say this stance is some kind of blanket protection from future ethical considerations is borderline trolling.

Re: The White Hat's Dilemma

#42

Post by nonchalance »

I question the slide regarding trade secrets:

* the names are misspelled: first person is Sergey Aleynikov (not alinikov) and second person is Samarth Agarwal (not agrawal)

* in each circumstance, there was actual trade secret theft. That part is clear. The slide itself seems to suggest something beyond that, but they essentially took code that they wrote for their employer (and they signed contracts clearly saying that it belongs to the employers)

Re: The White Hat's Dilemma

#43

Post by black4eternity »

clicks wrote: post #27
tptacek wrote: post #20

Here's an alternative vantage point, my vantage point, one I think makes these kinds of ethical quandaries easier to navigate: * I'm not a "white hat" or a "black hat" * I'm not deliberately involved in any kind of "cyber" conflict * I don't do what I do because I'm battling the forces of evil, or organized crime, or anything else Instead: I do engineering. The same way a contract driver developer does, or a Rails de…

Reading what you just wrote reminded me of the famous Edmund Burke quote: "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing". If it had not been for the acquiescence of engineers who took part in the creation of PRISM, XKeyscore, etc. we... well, we would not have PRISM, XKeyscore, etc. Increasingly there is no such thing as an "amoral" position when it comes to a lot of these things -- you're…

Probably they were told it was for the greater good, misled into creating a surveillance tool.

Re: The White Hat's Dilemma

#44

Post by osivertsson »

lmartel wrote: post #36
Qantourisc wrote: post #28

Why do people even sign NDA's ?

Have you ever worked for a company that didn't ask you to sign one? That's not rhetorical, I'm curious--it seems that virtually every company has some amount of proprietary information, isn't that what drives competitive advantage in software?

I signed them when I was younger, but have been able to avoid them since a couple of years. In my opinion, the law should be enough in most cases.

Recently I was offered a good and well-paying job. Late in the recruitment phase there was this far-reaching NDA I would have to sign. I asked to be given two days to read and evaluate it, which apparently labeled me as someone very strange, I should just flip through it in 10 seconds and sign like everybody else.

Two days later when I questioned their HR/Legal about some of the clauses they got very uncomfortable, and tried to avoid making a big deal out of them, saying it was "standard" and "at this site, they had never taken anyone to court based on it".

I didn't sign, and hence they could no longer offer me the job. Oh well, their loss, they would have to do without the value I could provide to their business.

Re: The White Hat's Dilemma

#46

Post by lawnchair_larry »

throwaway3902 wrote: post #8

I used to work for Blizzard. The Chinese government requested that we modify the WoW client so that they could intercept all chat. As far as I know, no-one said anything, including me - and Blizzard, of course, was more than happy to comply, given the size of the market and the risk of being forbidden to do business there. There were plenty of other MMOGs happy to play ball and eat that cake. I didn't say anything. I…

But much like with the US government spying, China's laws permit them to spy. It was all legal. So what's the big deal? ;)

Re: The White Hat's Dilemma

#47

Post by mdt »

clicks wrote: post #27
tptacek wrote: post #20

Here's an alternative vantage point, my vantage point, one I think makes these kinds of ethical quandaries easier to navigate: * I'm not a "white hat" or a "black hat" * I'm not deliberately involved in any kind of "cyber" conflict * I don't do what I do because I'm battling the forces of evil, or organized crime, or anything else Instead: I do engineering. The same way a contract driver developer does, or a Rails de…

Reading what you just wrote reminded me of the famous Edmund Burke quote: "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing". If it had not been for the acquiescence of engineers who took part in the creation of PRISM, XKeyscore, etc. we... well, we would not have PRISM, XKeyscore, etc. Increasingly there is no such thing as an "amoral" position when it comes to a lot of these things -- you're…

>If it had not been for the acquiescence of engineers who took part in the creation of PRISM, XKeyscore, etc. we... well, we would not have PRISM, XKeyscore, etc.

Oh, come on, man. If you think this is true in the fullest sense, you are not a thinking individual. Mere technological feasibility is 99% of the battle; implementation is the last, most inevitable step.

>the famous Edmund Burke quote: "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing".

Googler. The quote may be famous, but Burke is not. Like most men with noble fighting words, he had more noble words in him than he did noble fighting.

Re: The White Hat's Dilemma

#48

Post by icelancer »

mdt wrote: post #47
clicks wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading what you just wrote reminded me of the famous Edmund Burke quote: "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing". If it had not been for the acquiescence of engineers who took part in the creation of PRISM, XKeyscore, etc. we... well, we would not have PRISM, XKeyscore, etc. Increasingly there is no such thing as an "amoral" position when it comes to a lot of these things -- you're…

>If it had not been for the acquiescence of engineers who took part in the creation of PRISM, XKeyscore, etc. we... well, we would not have PRISM, XKeyscore, etc. Oh, come on, man. If you think this is true in the fullest sense, you are not a thinking individual. Mere technological feasibility is 99% of the battle; implementation is the last, most inevitable step. >the famous Edmund Burke quote: "All that is necessar…

Huh? Burke is pretty famous even without that quote. He was one of the most influential politicians during the Revolutionary War era.

Re: The White Hat's Dilemma

#49

Post by mdt »

icelancer wrote: post #48
mdt wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If it had not been for the acquiescence of engineers who took part in the creation of PRISM, XKeyscore, etc. we... well, we would not have PRISM, XKeyscore, etc. Oh, come on, man. If you think this is true in the fullest sense, you are not a thinking individual. Mere technological feasibility is 99% of the battle; implementation is the last, most inevitable step. >the famous Edmund Burke quote: "All that is necessar…

Huh? Burke is pretty famous even without that quote. He was one of the most influential politicians during the Revolutionary War era.

Obviously not; if only a third of American supported their own revolution, how fringe do you think he was in Britain? I'm going with 'extremely'.

Re: The White Hat's Dilemma

#50

Post by PavlovsCat »

mdt wrote: post #47
clicks wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading what you just wrote reminded me of the famous Edmund Burke quote: "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing". If it had not been for the acquiescence of engineers who took part in the creation of PRISM, XKeyscore, etc. we... well, we would not have PRISM, XKeyscore, etc. Increasingly there is no such thing as an "amoral" position when it comes to a lot of these things -- you're…

>If it had not been for the acquiescence of engineers who took part in the creation of PRISM, XKeyscore, etc. we... well, we would not have PRISM, XKeyscore, etc. Oh, come on, man. If you think this is true in the fullest sense, you are not a thinking individual. Mere technological feasibility is 99% of the battle; implementation is the last, most inevitable step. >the famous Edmund Burke quote: "All that is necessar…

Mere technological feasibility is 99% of the battle; implementation is the last, most inevitable step.

Inevitable? As in, happens all by itself? How is that thinking?

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