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Asked to do something illegal at work? Here's what these software engineers did

blog.pragmaticengineer.com

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Re: Asked to do something illegal at work? Here's what these software engineers did

#11

Post by philipallstar »

overscore wrote: post #8
OskarS wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that you have a moral and ethical responsibility to say no when your manager asks you to do something illegal, even if it does cost you your job. The law is the law, and there is no excuse for breaking it. Your manager is certainly culpable, but if you act against the law, you are culpable as well. The exception is if you fear literal physical violence against you or others, or are being blackmailed or…

> I would argue that you have a moral and ethical responsibility to say no when your manager asks you to do something illegal, even if it does cost you your job. When your access to food, housing, heating and healthcare for your family are dependent on your income, you may find yourself facing very difficult decisions. Most parents will risk whatever legal ramifications to care for their kids and that's inherent mora…

> When your access to food, housing, heating and healthcare for your family are dependent on your income, you may find yourself facing very difficult decisions

This is the time when your ethics are tested. Anyone can do the right thing when they're getting paid for it.

Re: Asked to do something illegal at work? Here's what these software engineers did

#12

Post by mc3301 »

sltr wrote: post #3

Software developers should sign a code of ethics, like other professions do and then cite it when asked to do unscrupulous things. This would work for activities that aren't illegal but still unethical, like defaulting user privacy choices to open/public. Citing professional organizations like ACM or IEEE would deter retaliation.

The author talks alot about this is this book: https://www.ruinedby.design/

Re: Asked to do something illegal at work? Here's what these software engineers did

#13

Post by potato3732842 »

comrade1234 wrote: post #6

I was working with someone on a large government project. At the beginning I told him that we cannot pad our hours at the end of the year to run the contract out and then make up for it with extra hours in the next year like we do with business clients because it is illegal and further because it's a $1M+ contract could lead to prison. Of course I found out that he was going into our billing software and adding hours…

You had record of your correspondance with the lawyer. All you had to do was report it to the liaison and keep punching the clock. Unless you were getting paid more because of the overages the enforcers dgaf about you.

Re: Asked to do something illegal at work? Here's what these software engineers did

#14

Post by comrade1234 »

potato3732842 wrote: post #13
comrade1234 wrote: post #6

I was working with someone on a large government project. At the beginning I told him that we cannot pad our hours at the end of the year to run the contract out and then make up for it with extra hours in the next year like we do with business clients because it is illegal and further because it's a $1M+ contract could lead to prison. Of course I found out that he was going into our billing software and adding hours…

You had record of your correspondance with the lawyer. All you had to do was report it to the liaison and keep punching the clock. Unless you were getting paid more because of the overages the enforcers dgaf about you.

There were other issues... this was the final straw.

Re: Asked to do something illegal at work? Here's what these software engineers did

#15

Post by cess11 »

overscore wrote: post #8
OskarS wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that you have a moral and ethical responsibility to say no when your manager asks you to do something illegal, even if it does cost you your job. The law is the law, and there is no excuse for breaking it. Your manager is certainly culpable, but if you act against the law, you are culpable as well. The exception is if you fear literal physical violence against you or others, or are being blackmailed or…

> I would argue that you have a moral and ethical responsibility to say no when your manager asks you to do something illegal, even if it does cost you your job. When your access to food, housing, heating and healthcare for your family are dependent on your income, you may find yourself facing very difficult decisions. Most parents will risk whatever legal ramifications to care for their kids and that's inherent mora…

Right, saying outright that Thoreau was wrong and also that pretty much every famous person who took him to heart was wrong too is a rather strong position to take and likely very, very hard to defend.

Or, for a more obscure example, that Antigone should just have said 'yes daddy' and left it at that with the play ending somewhere in the initial conversation with Ismene.

Re: Asked to do something illegal at work? Here's what these software engineers did

#16

Post by barney54 »

overscore wrote: post #8
OskarS wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that you have a moral and ethical responsibility to say no when your manager asks you to do something illegal, even if it does cost you your job. The law is the law, and there is no excuse for breaking it. Your manager is certainly culpable, but if you act against the law, you are culpable as well. The exception is if you fear literal physical violence against you or others, or are being blackmailed or…

> I would argue that you have a moral and ethical responsibility to say no when your manager asks you to do something illegal, even if it does cost you your job. When your access to food, housing, heating and healthcare for your family are dependent on your income, you may find yourself facing very difficult decisions. Most parents will risk whatever legal ramifications to care for their kids and that's inherent mora…

It is not moral to break the law in the furtherance of fraud. That’s the point.

Re: Asked to do something illegal at work? Here's what these software engineers did

#17

Post by baobun »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #5
sltr wrote: post #3

Software developers should sign a code of ethics, like other professions do and then cite it when asked to do unscrupulous things. This would work for activities that aren't illegal but still unethical, like defaulting user privacy choices to open/public. Citing professional organizations like ACM or IEEE would deter retaliation.

The code of ethics would need to be absolute, enforceable, unambiguous (without lawyers to interpret), and universal to really eliminate these activities.

If you are to be found in violation by DAO jury vote, you will be blocked from all private torrent trackers and usenet groups (we just have to make sure all of them mods are onboard mkay), with threat of ban for repeat offenders.

You may also find your support tickets everywhere languishing and x months of CAPTCHA-hell on every website.

Re: Asked to do something illegal at work? Here's what these software engineers did

#19

Post by OskarS »

overscore wrote: post #8
OskarS wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that you have a moral and ethical responsibility to say no when your manager asks you to do something illegal, even if it does cost you your job. The law is the law, and there is no excuse for breaking it. Your manager is certainly culpable, but if you act against the law, you are culpable as well. The exception is if you fear literal physical violence against you or others, or are being blackmailed or…

> I would argue that you have a moral and ethical responsibility to say no when your manager asks you to do something illegal, even if it does cost you your job. When your access to food, housing, heating and healthcare for your family are dependent on your income, you may find yourself facing very difficult decisions. Most parents will risk whatever legal ramifications to care for their kids and that's inherent mora…

We're not talking about living in a totalitarian state and breaking the law by aiding the resistance here. The cases in the article is like committing financial fraud or faking customer data. And then, yeah, I do think there is no excuse for going along with it, you have a duty as a member of society not to do such things, even if it costs your your job. It's not easy, and as I said I have enormous sympathy for a person in this position, but there is a clear right thing to do, and you have an obligation to act accordingly.

Re: Asked to do something illegal at work? Here's what these software engineers did

#20

Post by pydry »

Rygian wrote: post #2

> If you take one lesson from this, it’s that you can always say no. I fully understand why this is true, but it seems to ignore any retaliative measures that the management could take against the person who says no. With the benefit of hindsight, any such retaliation would be weaker than ending up in an orange suit. But the person has to find the guts to say "no" without that hindsight.

This is why whistleblower laws need to be stronger (e.g. retaliation means automatic jailtime even if the whistle was wrongly blown) and rewards need to be larger.
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