71–80 of 115 posts
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…
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…
or you do something to defeat the evil as you see it (or, at least refuse to take part in it)
Refusing to take part doesn't absolve you of anything, according to your philosophy. That's exactly what Thomas says he does - refuses to take part. And by refusing to take part, you're still doing nothing to thwart what you see as evil.
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…
I don't know about the original commenter, but I fell into this position as being the best for me based on, "I am overwhelmed by the number of things that I need to know to make a judgement of good/bad over here, but don't or cannot know. There is too much random chance in my life to figure out how my actions play out. Until I grow wiser, let me do what that chance has laid my way, knowing fully well that I am operating in the dark."
The big, muddying parameters for me to answer 'is what I am doing right?' were:
1. In what context?
2. Over what timeframe?
The larger the context, the longer the timeframe, the more the number of competing principles I had to prioritize, often in inconsistent ways over different aspects of life. In the end, I defaulted to the original commenter's position, with the blind optimism that I would somehow, somewhere in the future get more clarity and wisdom through experience.
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…
I think your philosophy is the more dangerous one. "Evil" and "Good" are highly subjective and not nearly as straightforward as you're imagining. You see yourself as battling evil. So do the creators of PRISM. Nobody does anything because they think it's bad for the country, or humanity. We are all the heroes of our own story. The greater good has been used all through history to justify horrific acts, and those peop…
> Refusing to take part doesn't absolve you of anything, according to your philosophy
I think in this context it's fair to interpret a refusal to work on something you deem evil not as inaction but as an act that makes it difficult for evil to prevail. If most good men did this they either would not find persons to complete the work or only be able to find persons who cannot do it well or do it completely.
To further clarify, what I am really saying is one's decisions at work which are detached from any ethical considerations is a problem, they're not just engineering problems -- they affect people, in good ways or bad. I hope everyone would make an earnest effort to determine the morality of tools, laws, policies, etc. they're in charge of creating or maintaining by accessing existing literature, discussing the moral considerations of their work with their peers and others, and then decide if they really want to be a part of that. And, as it happens, the chances are that since a lot of this stuff work requires high competency, whenever you find yourself in a situation where determining the morality of your work is exceedingly difficult, there is good chance you can easily find good work elsewhere that will give you the right engineering challenges without the difficult ethical questions.
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 t…
The point of that slide is that trade secret theft is a very old problem, and that there is a long history of criminal and civil case law to look to when punishing that kind of action. Those individuals were all charged under the Economic Espionage Act and face extreme penalties. I see this as another version of overcharging under the CFAA; the Federal Government has one standard for doing something on paper and a much harsher one for the same activities while using an SVN repo.
I am not defending the actions of those men, I just feel that the civil remedies that have been used for decades are more appropriate than having the soul-destroying power of the US DOJ turned against them on behalf of their employers.
The ethical dilemma exists for the technologist who performs the investigation and testifies against her former co-worker. What responsibility does she have to see justice done? I don't have an answer, but that was the question posed by the slides on justice.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What did you hope to accomplish with this post? "Here's someone who did something bad, who can't undo it, and who feels bad enough to come clean - let's rub it in so as to discourage others from doing so"?
I was very very clear about what I hoped to accomplish: a repentance from the actor in this case, and to highlight their stupidity to others. And I wish more people would stand up and say it to their friends and relatives when those people graduate college and start talking about working for the Military Industrial Complex, "Cyber" anything, or various other companies who build bombs, agents of war, or devices used t…
You now say that the aim was to get repentance, when he's already stated he regrets it. At no point do you give advice about what he could/should do now to 'make up for his sins', apart from 'feel really bad'.
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…
Fuck it, I'll go ahead and say it: First, thanks for coming clean. You're a human being who's made a really bad decision. You should feel terrible for this. "They" are not merely your possible friends, or your relative's relatives, or your neighbors' cousins... "They" are other human beings who might someday decide to stand up for their human rights. "They" are millions of people you sold out for easy "dinner" & "ren…
() he who has the gold, makes the rule.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree, and I'd also like to mention the other usually cited experiment along those lines - the Milgram obedience experiment. http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_Experiment
Thanks for the reminder. If you are ever placed into a situation psychologically and ethically analogous to these experiments--a possibility that in a militarized and capitalist world it seems wise not to dismiss--and you want to acquit yourself better, what can you do? One option is to just have faith that you'll turn out to be an exceptionally good person. But that doesn't seem to me to be much wiser than assuming…
"If you were raised in the deep South during the 18th and 19th centuries, would you be aggressively racist, ambivalent or abolitionist in your views towards Black enslavement?"
The immediate gut feeling that people feel is important, because it doesn't end there. You then ask if that gut feeling can be reasoned to be consistent with their behavior, or if it's just a feel-good response. If someone really feels they'd be abolitionist, this should be at least somewhat reflected in small examples of day to day behavior. People don't reserve "goodness" for large deeds, they are usually the kind of people who help out in small, less noticeable/outspoken ways as well.
NB: This is not a test designed to prove how good someone is to another person, it's a self-assessment. It's asked to help the person learn more about themselves.
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…