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Honey's Dieselgate: Detecting and tricking testers

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Re: Honey's Dieselgate: Detecting and tricking testers

#131

Post by square_usual »

zaphirplane wrote: post #39
Aurornis wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my experience, it’s more likely that the engineers who got far enough in the company to be working on this code believed that their willingness to work on nefarious tasks that others might refuse or whistle-blow made them a trusted asset within the company. In industries like this there’s also a mindset of “Who cares, it’s all going to corporations anyway, why not send some of that money to the corporation that…

Do you know of anyone declining to work on a project For ethical in their view ( non military non killing) ? I’ve led a sheltered life and never met one, people have told me they wouldn’t apply for a role with a company for ethical reasons maybe they even believed they would get the job

I've often been contacted by recruiters for companies in the gambling (in India it's called "skill-based web gaming") or the crypto/web3 space, and I've always denied those for ethical reasons.

Re: Honey's Dieselgate: Detecting and tricking testers

#132

Post by zero_shift »

zaphirplane wrote: post #39
Aurornis wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my experience, it’s more likely that the engineers who got far enough in the company to be working on this code believed that their willingness to work on nefarious tasks that others might refuse or whistle-blow made them a trusted asset within the company. In industries like this there’s also a mindset of “Who cares, it’s all going to corporations anyway, why not send some of that money to the corporation that…

Do you know of anyone declining to work on a project For ethical in their view ( non military non killing) ? I’ve led a sheltered life and never met one, people have told me they wouldn’t apply for a role with a company for ethical reasons maybe they even believed they would get the job

Sure, it happens all the time. Speaking personally, for example, I walked out of an interview when I realised it was for The Sun's betting site (Sun Bet)

Re: Honey's Dieselgate: Detecting and tricking testers

#133

Post by webstrand »

ocschwar wrote: post #124
Waterluvian wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what the engineers thought when doing design reviews for a "selective stand down" feature. Possibly a version of, “I lack the freedom to operate with a moral code at work because I’m probably replaceable, the job market makes me anxious, my family’s well-being and healthcare are tied to having a job, and I don’t believe the government has my back.”

This is why we need Professional Engineer licenses for software. There are times when a product design needs to be reviewed and approved by someone who cares more about his license than about his job. It doesn't happen as often with software as it does with civil engineering, but often enough that it needs to become a thing.

And what happens when the licensing board gets politically compromised? You cant fix broken incentives by papering over another layer of administration. If the underlying incentives are opposed, the administration layer will be adapted to fit.

Civil engineering licensing works because underneath it all the incentive structure is aligned with the goals of the license. Its not about imposing morals, its about ensuring that buildings and devices are constructed to not fail, and to not fail catastrophically. The motivations of the ones who hire engineers are mostly aligned, they don't want the devices to fail either, and expose them to liability.

Medical doctor licensing also works because the incentives are mostly for patients not to be dying. But in the pharmaceuticals industry the incentive structure is different, where some rate of fatality is considered an acceptable cost of doing business, we see examples of subversion.

Sure software engineering licenses could be a great addition. But alone it will fail unless the incentive structure for those employing software engineers is aligned with the licensing goals.

Re: Honey's Dieselgate: Detecting and tricking testers

#134

Post by stronglikedan »

mikkupikku wrote: post #117
freehorse wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I click on an affiliate link that I want to use and the extension changes that without me knowing, that’s malware for me. The intent of the user may be to use a specific affiliate link.

What's the ratio of people deliberately clicking affiliate links, to people who just click links and have no clue what an affiliate link even is? I already thought Honey was scummy so I never used it in the first place, but I honestly don't get the particular outrage over these specific practices. You're already using the extension to effectively scam online stores, by using coupons the company gave to somebody else,…

> What's the ratio of people deliberately clicking affiliate links, to people who just click links and have no clue what an affiliate link even is?

I don't know what the ratio is, but I do know it doesn't matter in this context, it's still malware.

Re: Honey's Dieselgate: Detecting and tricking testers

#135

Post by BiteCode_dev »

Waterluvian wrote: post #26
bryan_w wrote: post #22

I used to work for an ad tech company (which I know already makes me the devil to some around here), and even I think that they crossed a line with this. A lot of industry terms are coded in corporate speak to make them sound better (think "revealed preferences" or "enabling personalization"), but I would genuinely like to know what the engineers thought when doing design reviews for a "selective stand down" feature.…

> what the engineers thought when doing design reviews for a "selective stand down" feature. Possibly a version of, “I lack the freedom to operate with a moral code at work because I’m probably replaceable, the job market makes me anxious, my family’s well-being and healthcare are tied to having a job, and I don’t believe the government has my back.”

It's a very charitable explanation.

My experience with the people around me who are in this situation is rather either:

- They just don't care. Society and others are not on their radar.

- They don't think it's that bad.

- They think it's not great, but the benefit is too good so they ignore the voice at the back of their head. Or they have a lifestyle and that takes priority.

- They think it's bad, but the friction to live according to their own moral view of the world is higher than their desire to adhere to such a moral view.

When I was 20, I declined interview offers from Facebook and Google. Huge opportunity cost. My friends looked at me like I was dumb.

I have friends regularly coming to me with ideas that are about spamming, selling personal data or basically fraud. They don't see a problem with it.

When you talk to people and say "advertising is basically normalized lying at the scale of the entire society", people just give you a blank stare.

There is no need to look for coercion every time you see something bad to explain it. The human population is diverse and they all draw the line of what's acceptable in different places.

It's not rocket science.

Re: Honey's Dieselgate: Detecting and tricking testers

#136

Post by imiric »

croes wrote: post #94
bryan_w wrote: post #22

I used to work for an ad tech company (which I know already makes me the devil to some around here), and even I think that they crossed a line with this. A lot of industry terms are coded in corporate speak to make them sound better (think "revealed preferences" or "enabling personalization"), but I would genuinely like to know what the engineers thought when doing design reviews for a "selective stand down" feature.…

> but I would genuinely like to know what the engineers thought when doing design reviews for a "selective stand down" feature. First comes a full stomach, then comes ethics.

It's unfortunate then that the stomach is a bottomless pit for many people.

Re: Honey's Dieselgate: Detecting and tricking testers

#137

Post by immibis »

Aurornis wrote: post #29
Waterluvian wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what the engineers thought when doing design reviews for a "selective stand down" feature. Possibly a version of, “I lack the freedom to operate with a moral code at work because I’m probably replaceable, the job market makes me anxious, my family’s well-being and healthcare are tied to having a job, and I don’t believe the government has my back.”

From my experience, it’s more likely that the engineers who got far enough in the company to be working on this code believed that their willingness to work on nefarious tasks that others might refuse or whistle-blow made them a trusted asset within the company. In industries like this there’s also a mindset of “Who cares, it’s all going to corporations anyway, why not send some of that money to the corporation that…

And they are right. It's not like anyone outside of the affiliate marketing "industry" was hurt by this - noting that some of your parasocials are likely to be in that "industry" and so you feel hurt on their behalf.

Re: Honey's Dieselgate: Detecting and tricking testers

#138

Post by cwal37 »

bedelman wrote: post #49
cwal37 wrote: post #2

Archived link: https://web.archive.org/web/20251230214339/https://vptdigita...

Was the VPT site not working for you, so you had to resort to archive.org? Original link https://vptdigital.com/blog/honey-detecting-testers/ . Anyone having trouble -- contact Ben Edelman (easily found by web search) and I will genuinely value the opportunity to get to the bottom of what is wrong.

Yup, was just dead for me and stayed dead, so I went and grabbed an archived link.

Don’t recall precisely how it was dead, but I assumed via traffic.

Re: Honey's Dieselgate: Detecting and tricking testers

#139

Post by immibis »

stronglikedan wrote: post #134
mikkupikku wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the ratio of people deliberately clicking affiliate links, to people who just click links and have no clue what an affiliate link even is? I already thought Honey was scummy so I never used it in the first place, but I honestly don't get the particular outrage over these specific practices. You're already using the extension to effectively scam online stores, by using coupons the company gave to somebody else,…

> What's the ratio of people deliberately clicking affiliate links, to people who just click links and have no clue what an affiliate link even is? I don't know what the ratio is, but I do know it doesn't matter in this context, it's still malware.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malware

Re: Honey's Dieselgate: Detecting and tricking testers

#140

Post by freeopinion »

zaphirplane wrote: post #39
Aurornis wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my experience, it’s more likely that the engineers who got far enough in the company to be working on this code believed that their willingness to work on nefarious tasks that others might refuse or whistle-blow made them a trusted asset within the company. In industries like this there’s also a mindset of “Who cares, it’s all going to corporations anyway, why not send some of that money to the corporation that…

Do you know of anyone declining to work on a project For ethical in their view ( non military non killing) ? I’ve led a sheltered life and never met one, people have told me they wouldn’t apply for a role with a company for ethical reasons maybe they even believed they would get the job

Beyond that, I now accept that many employers screen candidates with questions like, "Have you ever been fired?". Answering the why with, "I refuse to do things I consider to be unethical" is typically enough to screen you out.

While this can be irritating, I have come to see it as a good thing. It helps me screen out candidate employers. It is taxing to work in an environment that constantly challenges your ethics. Imagine having access to all your customers' supposedly private emails and being tasked with mining them without your customers' knowledge. Imagine being tasked with adding an obscurely worded line item to the monthly bill of all customers that your logging indicates haven't accessed their billing statement in the last 12 months.

Now imagine working at a job where you are tasked to find all customers who haven't used an optional paid feature in the last 12 months and notifying them that there might be an opportunity to reduce the amount you bill them. Imagine working for an insurance coop that actively scours for ways to charge members less money without compromising their protection and without taking advantage of somebody else.

Imagine that your personal life choices automatically disqualify you from exploitative employers and lead you to more fulfilling employment. This is a real thing that many people don't have to imagine. They live it.

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