Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Entropic Engineering DEFCON 32 Statement

entropicengineering.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 187 posts

Re: Entropic Engineering DEFCON 32 Statement

#161

Post by threatofrain »

krisoft wrote: post #95
red_trumpet wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The firmware author themselves write[1]: > I was not anybody’s contractor or subcontractor. I’m not employed by entropic nor by you [DEFCON]. I did this in my free time so attendees could have a fun badge. [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/Defcon/comments/1ep00ln/def_cons_re...

I’m aware of that claim. I can’t verify it of course. But even if I take it as true, doesn’t mean that DEFCON couldn’t have believed he was subcontracting for EE. Similarly if it was DEFCON who introduced the firmware author to EE, EE might believe the firmware author is with DEFCON. Obviously the contracts should be crystal clear about who is with who, and who is responsible for what. We hear that the fimware develo…

What's strange is that Dmitry continued to work for defcon after a stop work order, and also that Dmitry was originally invited to speak on stage (smells like consideration).

Based on the sum of all statements it continues to be very plausible that Dmitry basically had no on-paper relationship with anyone... and did everything on a pure friends and family basis. If so that is a huge awkward fuckup.

Also unfortunate is the possibility that if Dmitry is just some detached party trying to defend Entropic's honor, he basically started a firestorm which burned bridges between Entropic and defcon.

Once Dmitry started the whole thing, defcon immediately attacked the reputation of Entropic by saying they exercised bad faith in business and were incompetent and profligate. Defcon attacked so hard that there was no way to unring that bell. Then Entropic had no choice but to respond to defcon.

Re: Entropic Engineering DEFCON 32 Statement

#162

Post by firesteelrain »

oefrha wrote: post #71
firesteelrain wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a time and materials contract. DEFCON has the right to cancel at any time for any reason.

No one posted any contract (that I’ve seen). And even if true, there’s still nothing amicable about it. Btw you may have been commenting too much on something that’s “none of our business” according to you.

Ha gal

Re: Entropic Engineering DEFCON 32 Statement

#163

Post by ranger_danger »

krisoft wrote: post #95
red_trumpet wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The firmware author themselves write[1]: > I was not anybody’s contractor or subcontractor. I’m not employed by entropic nor by you [DEFCON]. I did this in my free time so attendees could have a fun badge. [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/Defcon/comments/1ep00ln/def_cons_re...

I’m aware of that claim. I can’t verify it of course. But even if I take it as true, doesn’t mean that DEFCON couldn’t have believed he was subcontracting for EE. Similarly if it was DEFCON who introduced the firmware author to EE, EE might believe the firmware author is with DEFCON. Obviously the contracts should be crystal clear about who is with who, and who is responsible for what. We hear that the fimware develo…

> We hear that the fimware developer had no contract with anyone.

I see this occasionally with small companies, usually it's more of a personal request from one of the employees to provide some code on a volunteer basis, perhaps solely because they are passionate about that sort of thing and someone knew that about them.

In the end, if the favor is upheld and they provide the code/binary/whatever to the company (who has a contract to deliver such code), then that company's upstream contract is still fulfilled, technically it doesn't matter that the coder was not an employee or contractor. The only real downside I see for this is legal liability for the company if they end up unable to provide for their customer, but that's between the two of them and their contract, the coder is basically not on the hook for any problems.

Re: Entropic Engineering DEFCON 32 Statement

#164

Post by commercialnix »

DandyDev wrote: post #65
koonsolo wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do a lot of hiring, and the moment I have to take race, gender or sexual preferences into account, is the moment I will give a big fuck you. I will not discredit the competencies of anyone that I hired or will hire in the future.

The thing is, there is a lot of unconscious bias where race and gender are taken into account already, in a way that reduces hiring changes for people who are not white cis hetero males. At least that has been the case in the past sadly. So companies are now sometimes over-correcting by applying positive bias towards minorities

[dead]

Re: Entropic Engineering DEFCON 32 Statement

#165

Post by maxlin »

neilv wrote: post #115
maxlin wrote: post #110

Who starts an article, especially one questioning responsibility with the lines in the sort of "woman-owned, queer- and POC-driven ... " ?? It's impossible to try to remove the sense of entitlement one gets from this company after that, given the rest of the situation seems to weight in to that way especially given I've heard of procurement of these badges having no such problems before. EDIT: That said, Defcon doesn…

> Who starts an article, especially one questioning responsibility with the lines in the sort of "woman-owned, queer- and POC-driven ... " ?? It's impossible to try to remove the sense of entitlement one gets from this company after that, [...] FWIW, I noticed that line as I read it, but it didn't make me prejudge the situation. I mostly noted it as a potential interesting bit of info that might reflect well on DEFCO…

>Are you critiquing the writer's PR savvy -- that they should know that progressive references can both help and hurt them, due to political polarization?

Yes. This is something that appears extremely defensive / conflict-seeking and just increases the chance of escalation. It's the kind of similar thing if they wrote something like "an engineering firm where 70% of the engineers have proudly summitted Mount Everest, something most people are only hope to do", that has zero relevance to the issue at hand but by default sets a setting where they are trying to appear somehow holier-than-thou and whatever they say is put under undue scrutiny even if that is the only snafu.

In making clarifications like this, one must be as possibly humble as they can and only talk about things with immediate relevance to the issue. That should be so unbelievably obvious. What they say on their frontpage, like trying to give some "vibe" might be something else of course, and doesn't as necessarily have to do with their craft. This PR person confused these two and should probably be fired, for the same reasons of doing the opposite of their job as for example some Helldivers 2 community manager semi-recently did. If a golden retriever in their position would do less damage, they are not the person for the job.

Re: Entropic Engineering DEFCON 32 Statement

#166

Post by tptacek »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #135
tptacek wrote: post #3

I regret that I have only two eyes to roll at this: We are especially grateful that Dmitry was not hurt in the physical removal he was subjected to as a result of his demonstration of solidarity. We want to extend our thanks to all attendees who have been asking questions, reaching out, attending surprise side-walk cons, displaying the about page badge on the con floor, and, especially, keeping a community eye on law…

Omg, someone didn't follow the rules at a hacker convention! That's what's kind of interesting about this entire drama. The entire conference is based on people that break systems, bend the rules, bask in pseudo outlaw rider cache, and an amorphous alternate shadow moral code. And yet here we have Internet lawyers arguing formal contracts between contractors and suppliers. There's obviously greed involved here somewh…

Tell me you don't know much about the culture of DEF CON without telling me that: the "security guards" here were DEF CON "Goons".

Re: Entropic Engineering DEFCON 32 Statement

#167

Post by neilv »

maxlin wrote: post #165
neilv wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who starts an article, especially one questioning responsibility with the lines in the sort of "woman-owned, queer- and POC-driven ... " ?? It's impossible to try to remove the sense of entitlement one gets from this company after that, [...] FWIW, I noticed that line as I read it, but it didn't make me prejudge the situation. I mostly noted it as a potential interesting bit of info that might reflect well on DEFCO…

>Are you critiquing the writer's PR savvy -- that they should know that progressive references can both help and hurt them, due to political polarization? Yes. This is something that appears extremely defensive / conflict-seeking and just increases the chance of escalation. It's the kind of similar thing if they wrote something like "an engineering firm where 70% of the engineers have proudly summitted Mount Everest,…

Good point about relevance.

I can make a few guesses why they put it out there (including, but not limited to, a kind of defensive signal "please hear us out, we're good people here", which would be understandable, since they're threatened).

But it's predictably inviting both biased/triggered negative reactions, as well as other people who wonder why you're leading with that when allegations are about something else.

I'm not a PR expert, so I can only guess at what all nuances they have to juggle. As a person, I imagine the situation has been pretty rough on a number of people.

Re: Entropic Engineering DEFCON 32 Statement

#168

Post by koonsolo »

DandyDev wrote: post #160
koonsolo wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I explicitly didn’t mention sexual preference. I based it on your statement of "white cis hetero males". That's also why I did the WTF. I agree with you it doesn't serve the discussion much :). > we should remove bias from the hiring process I agree with you on that one. In the end, capitalism will favor hiring for competence and not the other attributes discussed here, either avoiding certain groups or favoring th…

No worries! Regarding capitalism favoring hiring for competence, I’m afraid history has not shown this. I’ve seen in my own environment that male candidates were hired where more competent female candidates were available. And this has been consistently shown throughout history. Minorities really did have less chances in the past, despite capitalism. So I think the question is how we can hire for competency while giv…

What I meant with capitalism is that the company that hires the more competent female candidates will have an advantage over the one who refuses.

Re: Entropic Engineering DEFCON 32 Statement

#169

Post by [deleted] »

iwontberude wrote: post #159
harshreality wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Let's see the formal contract. The deliverables, the payment schedule, and any emails indicating DC agreement to subsequent requests for changes of terms. The way EE phrases it, they were paid much less than they were owed, but owed according to what? Their internal accounting, or what they'd mutually agreed on with DC? Only the latter matters. Emails saying "it's going to cost $X more", if any of EE's email…

If they said it will cost more and DC took delivery, that is sufficient. There is such a thing as unjust enrichment and DEFCON is responsible for paying for the goods and services they receive. You simply cannot stiff someone because the original agreement didn’t include the extra work. As with almost any project, it’s inevitable DEFCON wanted changes and those could make the original contract obsolete.

[deleted]

Re: Entropic Engineering DEFCON 32 Statement

#170

Post by rasz »

vextea wrote: post #85
flumpcakes wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a very balanced take and probably one that most people should follow. However, I do slightly favour defcon in this mess - why did Entropic take on a project that was nearly "impossible". Why did the firmware engineer add a crypto beg for a "joke".

Entropic wasn't the people that added the hidden screen with the credit

That would require DC sign a contract for a badge with no firmware.
Post reply on HN