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Accountability Sinks

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Re: Accountability Sinks

#221

Post by yusina »

The squirrel example sounds terrible, but people don't realize the danger that moving pathogen-carrying specimen across ecosystems poses. Introducing a disease into your local environment can have devastating consquences for wildlife or farming or both.

Example: Dairy farms have strict rules about not letting anybody in who was abroad within the last 48 hours because of possible spread of foot-and-mouth disease. There are many such examples and similar examples exist for wild ecosystems.

So, while it may seem cruel to kill a few hundred squirrels, the precaution is justified. The "guilt", if there is any, is with whoever didn't ensure all the paperwork is in order.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#222

Post by stackskipton »

werrett wrote: post #198
TeMPOraL wrote: post #66

My go-to example of a whole mesh of "accountability sinks" is... cybersecurity. In the real world, this field is really not about the tech and math and crypto - almost all of it is about distributing and dispersing liability through contractual means. That's why you install endpoint security tools. That's why you're forced to fulfill all kinds of requirements, some of them nonsensical or counterproductive, but necess…

This is the ultimate nihilistic take on security. Yes, 'cyber' security has devolved to box checking and cargo culting in many orgs. But what's your counter on trying to fix the problems that every tech stack or new SaaS product comes without of the box? For most people when their Netflix (or HN) password gets leaked that means every email they've sent since 2004 is also exposed. It might also mean their 401k is siph…

Actual accountability. Do not let companies be like "Well, we were SOC2 compliant, this breach is not our fault despite not updating Apache Struts! Tee Hee" When Equifax got away with what was InfoSec murder by 6 months of jail time suspended, Executives stopped caring. This is political problem, not technology one.

>So -- how do we get rid annoying checkboxes and ensure people do the right thing as a matter of course?

By actually having the power to enforce this, if you pull our SBOM, realize we have a vulnerability and get our Product Owner to prioritize fixing it even if takes 6 weeks because we did dumb thing 2 years ago and tech debt bill has come due. Otherwise, stop wasting my time with these exercises, I have work to do.

Not trying to be mean but that's my take with my infosec team right now. You are powerless outside your ability to get SOC2 and we all know this is theater, tell us what piece of set you want from me, take it and go away.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#223

Post by praptak »

lazide wrote: post #77
praptak wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, ass cover as a service. There's a classic article (2010) about it: https://thetech.com/2010/04/09/dubai-v130-n18 (HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1257644 ) The difference is that while the decision has been made, it isn't necessarily very good.

Often, getting a decision (ANY decision) made is both absolutely critical, and with all the ass covering and office politics involved, nearly impossible. Even if (or sometimes especially ) it’s patently obvious to everyone what the decision should be.

Yeah I guess there's a continuum between a) hiring someone impartial and not entangled politically to advise on an important decision and break the deadlock and b) paying someone to justify an obviously crappy decision while providing ass cover.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#224

Post by ethbr1 »

yusina wrote: post #221

The squirrel example sounds terrible, but people don't realize the danger that moving pathogen-carrying specimen across ecosystems poses. Introducing a disease into your local environment can have devastating consquences for wildlife or farming or both. Example: Dairy farms have strict rules about not letting anybody in who was abroad within the last 48 hours because of possible spread of foot-and-mouth disease. Ther…

The acute guilt levied wasn't about following orders and exterminating the ground squirrels...

... but using an industrial shredder to do it. (on 440 of them)

For reference, this is an industrial shredder: https://m.youtube.com/shorts/I15kCJyl6po

Anyone who did that to a live animal deserves to be in prison, orders or no. There are innumerable compassionate, humane ways to kill animals, if it's necessary.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#225

Post by crazygringo »

oleggromov wrote: post #37

I once booked a plane ticket from my home town airport to another country. The purchase notification said something like "PVA" instead of "POV". I looked it up and turned out, the newly built airport that had this exact code was about to open. In a week or so, so I assumed that I'm indeed flying from the new one and forgot about it. The purchase was made through a booking aggregator similar to Expedia. On the day of…

> So I thought that the problem could be solved by just arriving there by any other flight, which I booked almost immediately.

Why did you do that? Especially when that cost you extra money?

You should have talked to the airline directly, explained you'd missed your flight because they gave you the wrong airport, and the airline would have rebooked you and everything would have been fine. People miss flights all the time and this is an entirely normal process.

It's been standard practice for a long time if you miss a first leg, that you forfeit the rest. They're going to reuse those seats for e.g. other people who missed their original flights. It's a type of flexibility built into the whole system.

Connecting flights are super useful because you can work with the airline to reschedule the whole thing, and the airline is responsible if you can't make a connection because an earlier leg is delayed.

I truly don't understand why you would have taken it into your own hands to buy a separate replacement ticket on your own, instead of talking to the airline. Even in your second example, why didn't you work with the airline to reschedule your missed flight? Even if they for some reason can't reschedule, they will often keep your return flight valid if you have an obviously good reason (e.g. a visa issue during COVID). But you do have to contact them immediately.

I'm sorry you didn't know how all this worked, but when in doubt, contact customer service ASAP to see if they can help. Don't just go buy separate tickets on your own, and then assume later legs will still be valid. That's not how it works.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#226

Post by OhMeadhbh »

Also... there was this discussion several months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43877301

Both that item and this item add the unique perspectives of the authors, but both are about issues raised by Dan Davies' Unaccountability Machine. So if you like this thread, you might like that thread.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#227

Post by lazide »

praptak wrote: post #223
lazide wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Often, getting a decision (ANY decision) made is both absolutely critical, and with all the ass covering and office politics involved, nearly impossible. Even if (or sometimes especially ) it’s patently obvious to everyone what the decision should be.

Yeah I guess there's a continuum between a) hiring someone impartial and not entangled politically to advise on an important decision and break the deadlock and b) paying someone to justify an obviously crappy decision while providing ass cover.

In any sufficiently large organization, these are the same thing.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#228

Post by bee_rider »

goldfishgold wrote: post #174
lantry wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's different in every state, but mostly it's an outdated stereotype that still sticks around even though it's not really indicative of reality. Most states let you do almost everything online, and when you do have to go in you can usually schedule an appointment and not wait in line at all.

Lol. I went the NY DMV a month ago to exchange my out of state license. Even with an appointment, a preapproved application completed online, and all the correct paperwork I had to wait 2 hours. My experiences with the CA DMV were similar. Only in IL have I had quick, easy visits to the DMV

I had an ok time with the NY DMV. I think it just depends on when you go. If less people would go when it was busy, I guess the reputation would be better, haha!

Re: Accountability Sinks

#229

Post by ornornor »

Ocha wrote: post #214
macNchz wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having been on both sides of this—working behind a counter and answering phones at various jobs long ago, and being someone who often surprises family and friends with my ability to extract good outcomes from customer service—I think it’s somewhat of a misconception that being as unpleasant as possible is actually effective at getting results. I fully understand that the godawful CS mazes many companies set up wind u…

I was patient and calm for 30 minutes trying to get same day flight after Turkish Airlines bumped me off my connecting flight and told me to wait 24h in airport for next one. They kept giving me different excuses why they cannot put me in airport hotel, why they can’t put me on a different airline that had flights and only gave me $12 food voucher. After yelling at them for 5 min I was booked on KLM flight departing…

TK is so heinous I will never ever fly them or go through IST ever again. I’ve been stranded 36 hours in IST, put in the shittiest hotel after queuing 3h for said hôtel and 3h again for a meal voucher that no restaurant accepts.

And they just plainly ignored me when I demanded later they compensate us for the cancelations as per the aviation rules. They did the same when our lawyer got involved.

I’ll never fly TK again and tell anyone whenever this came up. Look reviews up for yourself online, hundreds of people report being stranded, abused, and disrespected in IST by TK the way we were.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#230

Post by amluto »

macNchz wrote: post #195
t_luke wrote: post #153

The conclusion of Davies' second extract — about e.g. being bumped off a flight — is recognisable but the conclusions are actually wrong. The situation in these cases is actually more subtle. The person you're speaking to does normally have some capacity to escalate in exceptional cases. But they can't do it as a matter of course, and have to maintain publicly that it's actually impossible. The people who get what th…

Having been on both sides of this—working behind a counter and answering phones at various jobs long ago, and being someone who often surprises family and friends with my ability to extract good outcomes from customer service—I think it’s somewhat of a misconception that being as unpleasant as possible is actually effective at getting results. I fully understand that the godawful CS mazes many companies set up wind u…

As an exception to the exception, a lot of automated telephone systems have a tree of options, and they try really hard to avoid giving you a real person, and none of the options are helpful. But some of them are programmed to detect swearing and direct users to a representative.

So a valid strategy is to swear at the automated system and then be polite to the real human that you get.

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