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The White Hat's Dilemma

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Re: The White Hat's Dilemma

#101

Post by elbear »

mr_spothawk wrote: post #35
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…

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…

I consider your comment very unproductive. You basically berated someone who already came out and said they were sorry for what they did. He realizes his mistake and repents. The fact that you want to make him feel even more guilty doesn't help at all and I find it very sad.

Re: The White Hat's Dilemma

#102

Post by lmm »

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?

> 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?

Very rarely in the software side IME. Software is basically a commodity at this point - sure, there are better and worse ways to write it, but given the requirements and UI, any vaguely competent company could implement it in comparable timeframes. Competitive advantage tends to lie either in a faster turnaround time on making changes (but there's no secret to how you do that - hire good programmers and keep your codebase clean - taking a competitor's code is not going to help with this), or in the non-software side of the business (client relationships etc.)

Re: The White Hat's Dilemma

#103

Post by treenyc »

Thank you ALex for bring up these issues. I just would like to point out that ethics and morality are both normative propositions (in the sense that they are different cross culture and society). Basically what is consider desirable vs. undesirable behavior. As we all must have found out by now, what is consider desirable and undesirable that very different from place to place.

It would perhaps to be more constructive to consider a positive model of integrity (Positive as in positive theory in economics). In many ways we have confused morality and ethics with integrity. Integrity when distinguished in the positive model it can be apply consistently across culture, societies, groups or organization (kind like the law of gravity).

For those who are interested, you download the short paper by Dr. Mike Jensen on social science research network related to positive model of integrity:

http://ssrn.com/abstract=1511274

Re: The White Hat's Dilemma

#104

Post by __--__ »

clicks wrote: post #74
__--__ wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You bring up good points, and I agree that a lot of these issues are very difficult to grapple with: it's difficult to pin down how evil something is, how much you're contributing to it, and whether you should take part in it when you've got mouths to feed at home. But I also think that an informed and learned individual in this day and age will recognize that dragnet surveillance encroaches on fundamental rights of…

> it's difficult to pin down how evil something is

You completely missed my point. You can't know how "evil" something is because "evil" is a point of view, not an objective fact.

> 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.

I think you would prefer that this were the case, but it's not. It assumes that everybody else in the world with the type of training required to do the task also turns it down. It also assumes that a young, idealistic programmer with a talent for [crypto/big data/whatever] isn't convinced he's helping to protect his fellow americans by taking the very job you turned down. In a nutshell, it assumes everybody has the same moral values you do, which is demonstrably not the case.

This brings up the question, if somebody is going to do that job anyway, is it enough that it's not you? In other words, is turning down the job enough to resolve your ethical dilemma? Personally, I choose Thomas's method of avoiding jobs that even make me think about it, especially when it comes to surveillance and privacy.

Re: The White Hat's Dilemma

#106

Post by oinksoft »

tptacek wrote: post #96
oinksoft wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His authoritarian tone squares nicely with his approach to ethics as expressed in threads like these.

I think you think this is a stinging comment, but it really says more about you than it does about me.

My comment being sincere, I don't expect it to sting you in the least. What a petulant reply.

Re: The White Hat's Dilemma

#107

Post by blake8086 »

Sven7 wrote: post #56
blake8086 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What answers would you give to the questions he posed? How would you hope other people would answer them?

Engineers need to learn the art of building social and political capital. Also patience. Just the finances, scientific mindset and a moral conscience doesn't get you real change. I have seen too many bright people "rant and run" when confronted with morally ambiguous/uncomfortable situations. The only way to deal with this, if you really believe in something, is to stick around and convince others in the group, one b…

That doesn't asnwer any of the questions.

Re: The White Hat's Dilemma

#108

Post by codyb »

mr_spothawk wrote: post #89
jwatte wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selling out for "so little"? I bet he sold out for over hundred thousand dollars, or more (depending on how long he wirked tgere.) The need to know where food and rent are coming from is strong in humans, and the system takes full advantage of it. If you want to go against that, it will take a lot more than some ultimately futile work stoppage and sacrificing your future career. The system is what it is, the golden r…

>The system is what it is, the golden rule applies, and to change the system, it would take prolonged civil war. I'd that what you want? I want people to wake up and realize that this is absolutely farcical. We still live in a democracy, and we still have the power to stop this behavior by 'the system'. It took generations of stupidity to get here and it will take generations to get us out, but, cynical as I am, I do…

When former President Jimmy Carter is on the record stating America simply has no functioning democracy at this point, it might be more of an uphill battle than voting. And anyways, there's not much to vote for. I vote green because Republicans are terrible, Democrats at least seem to pretend they care but won't stop any of this, Libertarianism scares me. So even though I don't agree with everything the Green party says, at least it's different. But we don't have socialist factions really, or pirate party candidates yet.

President Carter's quote: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/17698-president-carter...

Re: The White Hat's Dilemma

#109

Post by javajosh »

dylangs1030 wrote: post #29
javajosh wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it would be great if someone with money in Silicon Valley were to make public statements along the lines of, "If you blow the whistle, and it's legit, you won't have to worry about your career. We want people who are driven to do the right thing. We want to hire heroes." If Google really wants to make a statement about being not-evil, make Snowden a generous offer for employment while he's in Russia.

Eh...well intentioned, but no. There would be severe consequences for just offering employment to such sensitive individuals. People like Snowden are not branded untouchable because people are ideologically opposed to his actions - that's a misrepresentation of what's actually going on. Whistleblowers become shunned because whoever they come into contact with will be elevated to accomplice status. Google doesn't want…

What's wrong with saying, "Hey, we are always looking for good sys admins, and clearly here's an out-of-work sysadmin, and despite the drama surrounding him, we're willing to look at him for a job at [Google]."

Re: The White Hat's Dilemma

#110

Post by Sven7 »

blake8086 wrote: post #107
Sven7 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineers need to learn the art of building social and political capital. Also patience. Just the finances, scientific mindset and a moral conscience doesn't get you real change. I have seen too many bright people "rant and run" when confronted with morally ambiguous/uncomfortable situations. The only way to deal with this, if you really believe in something, is to stick around and convince others in the group, one b…

That doesn't asnwer any of the questions.

Welcome to the real world.
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