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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

#261

Post by adrianN »

thfuran wrote: post #186
adrianN wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is my understanding that in the US many common health issues can cost you millions of dollars.

A few million dollars would probably cover months in the ICU, so not exactly common. A few tens of thousands would be a more plausible ambulance ride to ER followed by emergency surgery and a few days in the hospital, which still isn’t very common. Carrying a pregnancy to term and delivery can be similarly expensive though.

My twins spent a month in the ICU but my insurance covered it.

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

#263

Post by IshKebab »

comprev wrote: post #226
mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you live with yourself?

How is it any different from working at a gambling company writing addictive software? There will always be someone willing to do the work if the pay is good enough.

It's probably slightly worse because opioids actually kill people whereas gambling just financially ruins them (which can lead to suicide, but still I know which I would pick).

But it's only a slight difference. I don't think people who work at predatory apps/gambling systems should be able to sleep at night either. Not all gambling though; I don't have any objection to occasional sports betting for example.

But if you work for one of those pay-to-win apps and find some customers are spending thousands of dollars on it (whales), you know you're being immoral.

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

#264

Post by bluefirebrand »

kstenerud wrote: post #258
bestouff wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, but having their families profit from the money earnt via these evil actions doesn't seem fair either.

We already have long-established legal precedent for dealing with such issues and much more. It can actually get quite complicated - which is why we defer to the experts and move slowly on such subjects.

It really seems like it's only complicated because there are an awful lot of people who want to do as evil things as possible and not go to prison for it

Loopholes and lawfare are the tools of the corrupt

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

#265

Post by sgarland »

The sub-linked legal document about Frank’s synthetic data generation was quite interesting, specifically how much difficulty their hired consultant (a Data Science Professor) had in creating it.

It can indeed be a tricky problem to do in a manner that’s both fast and accurate, but it’s absolutely possible once you have the right datasets, which aren’t even that large. U.S. ZIP codes, telephone area codes (with enough out-of-place ones to mimic people who’ve moved and kept their cell phone number), common names, and a word list will get you rows that look plausible. Matching street addresses requires a much larger dataset, but again, it’s not impossible.

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

#266

Post by LadyCailin »

closewith wrote: post #69
ndriscoll wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in the case of engineers, we're talking about highly compensated people. You should have a solid emergency fund put together within a few months of starting your career. From there, it's on you to not put yourself into an economically precarious position. People who are making multiples of the median household don't have food/shelter as an excuse. Not that it's much of an excuse for everyone else either, but…

Globally, most software developers are not highly paid and certainly not enough to be above financial pressure. Becoming a whistleblower or refusing unethical demands can also lead to being blacklisted, as in most industries, loyalty is valued more highly than ethics.

And the more people that buy into that, the worse it gets. That’s why this has to be fought tooth and nail from day one.

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

#267

Post by walleeee »

andy99 wrote: post #24

It's easy to armchair quarterback these things, and in retrospect, the actions that innocent people should take are probably obvious. At the time I don't think it would be so easy. There is lots of pressure not to take action, because of the feeling you're overreacting, because you've had things explained to you in a way that minimizes or removes the criminality, and because your job is at stake. And crucially there…

> we all should hope

If you're serious about anything, you do more than hope. You do diligence on your prospective employer before going to work for them. You think through a litany of contingencies and prepare a plan of action for each. Jobs in this industry are uniquely amenable to this by virtue of their relatively higher compensation and the autonomy often afforded to employees. If you spend an hour every day on HN, you can spend an hour meditating upon your conscience.

Predicting one's response to stressful and unexpected circumstances is hard. So try to anticipate circumstances and cultivate relevant virtues in advance.

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

#268

Post by cebert »

mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #201
peterpeppers wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the 2010s, we had a similar situation but it wasn’t illegal. I used to work for a large drug distributor both pre and during the opioid epidemic. At the time (pre-SUPPORT Act), distributors weren’t required to notify the DEA about anomalous ordering so we didn’t provide data to law enforcement unless they sent a subpoena. To increase profits, we identified our best customers of opioids and updated our inventory tr…

How do you live with yourself?

If you think about it enough, most industries are doing terrible things. Work for an auto company? Thanks for the CO2 emissions accelerating climate change. Work for a consumer manufacturer? Thanks for the plastic waste choking oceans and landfills. Defense contractors? Thanks for enabling wars and killing innocents. Banks? Thanks for enslaving folks to debt and perpetuating economic inequality. Tech giants? Thanks for surveilling billions and eroding privacy on a massive scale. Social media platforms? Thanks for amplifying misinformation and fueling mental health crises. Fast fashion? Thanks for exploiting sweatshop labor and polluting waterways with toxic dyes. Pharma companies? Thanks for price-gouging drugs and prioritizing profits over access. Oil and gas? Thanks for fracking communities into environmental ruin and lobbying against renewables.

Almost everyone is contributing to terrible activities. Just different degrees of bad.

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

#269

Post by jeffrallen »

Here's another thing to think about: if you are in IT ops, you might have access to private data that could be requested, without proper judicial review, by a three letter agency. When you receive a National Security Letter with a gag rule attached, how will you react? What action can you take that is both legal and also ethical?

Because it is not just bosses that might try to pressure you into taking unethical actions, it is also the state itself.

For my part, I have a plan, and I've told my boss enough to trust him to read between the lines and revoke my access to make it impossible for me to turn over customer data without a warrant.

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

#270

Post by deaux »

cebert wrote: post #268
mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you live with yourself?

If you think about it enough, most industries are doing terrible things. Work for an auto company? Thanks for the CO2 emissions accelerating climate change. Work for a consumer manufacturer? Thanks for the plastic waste choking oceans and landfills. Defense contractors? Thanks for enabling wars and killing innocents. Banks? Thanks for enslaving folks to debt and perpetuating economic inequality. Tech giants? Thanks f…

What is your point, besides potentially making yourself feel better about your industry? Those "different degrees" are what it's all about. They're the whole point.

Yes, voluntarily working in an industry where that "degree" is undeniably magnitudes higher than average just for personal gain, does make you quite the awful human. And "helping maximize the number of pills pushed to confirmed opioid addicts" is indeed a large number of standard deviations of "terrible" removed from the work the average person does.

Yup, working on recommender sysrems at places like Meta is also quite high up there. Luckily the number of people who do this kind of work is minuscule when taken as part of the global population. Even more luckily, thousands of people on HN alone will forego such jobs even if it means earning less. I've done so myself.

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