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

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

#331

Post by tengwar2 »

fragmede wrote: post #328
tengwar2 wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. I oppose any formal requirement to practice software development. And this isn't because I disagree about the requirement to be ethical, but because it would draw a moat of "professionalisation" around software development, excluding new entrants. It's a fashionable trend across many disciplines: it starts innocuously with informal groups and seminars. Then someone starts one or more professional bodies which dev…

Those are all fair points, but the Internet and smartphones happened. Software is a necessity for existing in society these days. Yeah it sucks that we'd be pulling up the drawbridge. Donate some of your software developer salary to non-profits to make testing accessible to whichever groups you see as the younger version of you to assuage your guilt. Crowdstrike shouldn't have been possible. Mulitple airlines going d…

There you are discussing ability and responsibility. Those are entirely different matters from a professional association requiring you to sign up to a code of ethics.

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

#332

Post by pavel_lishin »

Rygian wrote: post #2

> If you take one lesson from this, it’s that you can always say no. I fully understand why this is true, but it seems to ignore any retaliative measures that the management could take against the person who says no. With the benefit of hindsight, any such retaliation would be weaker than ending up in an orange suit. But the person has to find the guts to say "no" without that hindsight.

> But the person has to find the guts to say "no" without that hindsight.

Not that I would recommend a night's stay at a local lockup (2/5 stars, the beds are awful, the toilet facilities are worse, and the roommates leave much to be desired), but doing so certainly puts things in perspective going forward.

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

#333

Post by lux-lux-lux »

teiferer wrote: post #282
hvb2 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that exactly how the criminal justice system works? Because you know you're not going to catch all the criminals you want the punishment to serve as a deterrent? Punishing more of them is easily said, when the crime is much harder to prove than shoplifting for example. And I'm skipping the fact that the shoplifter will be represented by an overworked public defender while the exec has a team of lawyers lined up…

> Isn't that exactly how the criminal justice system works? No, it's not. We don't catch everybody guilty of petty theft, but those we do catch still don't end up in prison for life. There was a time when we chopped their right hand off, but I'm glad those days are behind us. (Reading many of the reactions here though, we are just a thin layer of judges away from mob rule.)

Petty theft nets up to a year in jail, which is far more extreme than - relatively speaking - than handing out lifetime sentences for the damage being discussed here.

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

#334

Post by henry2023 »

cess11 wrote: post #18

This is good advice not only for people who encounter fraud, but also those whose employers are profiting from war crimes and the like.

You were downvoted for saying it's bad to profit from war crimes. I'd like to understand how people could possibly disagree with that.

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

#335

Post by jkaplowitz »

em-bee wrote: post #251
jkaplowitz wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you benefit from receiving stolen property, does the law force you to return it? The general answer to that is: it depends on a lot of factors, but sometimes yes and sometimes no. The specific answer varies between jurisdictions, I think even between different US states and certainly between countries. It's often relevant whether you knew or should reasonably have known at the time of purchase that the property…

well it depends, if you buy a car stolen from me, then i should get the car back, no matter what. if you didn't know that it was stolen, you have a claim against the person who sold you the car, but not me. but if that person can't return the money, then you are out of luck, just as when you are falling for a scam. not your fault, but your damage nontheless.

As I said, not every jurisdiction follows the rule you describe for all types of property and all types of illicit transfers. After all, innocent purchaser victims are just as non-culpable as innocent theft victims, and society doesn't always decide to prioritize the original owner's ease of having the maximum number of people to sue for recovery over the reliability of that jurisdiction as a place to innocently buy things without fear of unexpectedly being sued by a third party.

To be clear, I'm not expressing any kind of personal opinion here - I'm saying how the world actually works. Sometimes that matches what you are advocating, but sometimes not.

Of course, in both the mindset you advocate and in the other mindset, you have a claim against the person who stole your car, for sure, as well as anyone else who knowingly trafficked in the stolen goods.

Sometimes the relevant rules are different for real property vs personal property, and sometimes it matters whether the property's ownership has been registered in some register which the purchaser can verify before purchase. I don't think US car title records are generally publicly verifiable.

It's also usually relevant how the property was stolen - theft in the sense of actual larceny often has harsher consequences for the eventual bona fide purchaser (and more protections for the original owner) than if the property was stolen by fraudulently inducing the original owner to sign a deed of sale.

I'm avoiding giving specifics here because, again, the details vary by jurisdiction and by the particular facts and circumstances.

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

#336

Post by rswail »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #180
rswail wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US it's unconstitutional for the government to do that, it's what the ban of laws of attainder is partially about.

> it's what the ban of laws of attainder is partially about. Not really; attainder occurs when you're convicted by a legislator as opposed to a judge.

Well convicted without due process, which requires being tried by the judicial system, not the political one.

But true, attainder is not directly related to kin punishment.

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

#337

Post by freehorse »

overscore wrote: post #8
OskarS wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that you have a moral and ethical responsibility to say no when your manager asks you to do something illegal, even if it does cost you your job. The law is the law, and there is no excuse for breaking it. Your manager is certainly culpable, but if you act against the law, you are culpable as well. The exception is if you fear literal physical violence against you or others, or are being blackmailed or…

> I would argue that you have a moral and ethical responsibility to say no when your manager asks you to do something illegal, even if it does cost you your job. When your access to food, housing, heating and healthcare for your family are dependent on your income, you may find yourself facing very difficult decisions. Most parents will risk whatever legal ramifications to care for their kids and that's inherent mora…

> […] that's inherent moral and ethical, even if the downstream outcome is not. That is because it is the socioeconomic system rather than the individual who is acting immorally.

Wow. This is incredibly dangerous way of thinking. Are any “downstream outcomes” justified as moral in such a case? How about outcomes involving people dying eg due to safety or quality rules broken? People may do things like that “to feed their kids” but that does not make it ethical, especially when we actually talk about preservation of certain social status rather than real survival.

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

#338

Post by fragmede »

tengwar2 wrote: post #331
fragmede wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are all fair points, but the Internet and smartphones happened. Software is a necessity for existing in society these days. Yeah it sucks that we'd be pulling up the drawbridge. Donate some of your software developer salary to non-profits to make testing accessible to whichever groups you see as the younger version of you to assuage your guilt. Crowdstrike shouldn't have been possible. Mulitple airlines going d…

There you are discussing ability and responsibility. Those are entirely different matters from a professional association requiring you to sign up to a code of ethics.

They are not. That's the point of a professional association, to connect ability with responsibility. It defines what competence looks like and how to enforce it when it fails. Without that link, you just have people claiming skill with no mechanism for accountability. Most of software already looks like that which is the entire problem!

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

#339

Post by hvb2 »

teiferer wrote: post #282
hvb2 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that exactly how the criminal justice system works? Because you know you're not going to catch all the criminals you want the punishment to serve as a deterrent? Punishing more of them is easily said, when the crime is much harder to prove than shoplifting for example. And I'm skipping the fact that the shoplifter will be represented by an overworked public defender while the exec has a team of lawyers lined up…

> Isn't that exactly how the criminal justice system works? No, it's not. We don't catch everybody guilty of petty theft, but those we do catch still don't end up in prison for life. There was a time when we chopped their right hand off, but I'm glad those days are behind us. (Reading many of the reactions here though, we are just a thin layer of judges away from mob rule.)

If the chances of getting caught are small, and the chances of being convicted are even smaller, should the punishment be harsher to have the same deterrent?

You do understand how the petty theft criminal represented by a public defender is at a disadvantage to the white collar criminal with an army of lawyers paid by the company?

"We should just catch more of them" is like saying we should just solve our energy problem by making nuclear fusion work. Sure, everyone agrees with that but that's just wishful thinking

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

#340

Post by lazyasciiart »

teiferer wrote: post #205
jcz_nz wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the very least, these folks need to have their names permanently attached to this atrocity. These weren’t decisions made by “a corporation” - these people sat across a meeting room table and actually concluded that targeting breast cancer patients was an acceptable means to an end. Lori A. Beer was the CIO at the time. Now at JP Morgan.

"permanently" "ever again" For good reason, modern law systems rarely issue punishments that last a lifetime. People can and do change, and something stupid (and illegal) you did 30 years ago shouldn't be held over your head today. These are rare cases for the absolutely worst crimes. For anything else, you receive a punishment, be it money or months/years in jail, and after that, you deserve a chance to live a life…

In the US it is perfectly normal to impose lifetime penalties for crimes - a felony record can prevent people from voting, housing, employment, and when all those penalties fuck up their life, they are sometimes still barred from receiving welfare. It is only four years since the law changed to allow student loans for people with drug convictions.

And it is absolutely reasonable that a crime committed in the course of your profession could prevent you ever working in that profession again.

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