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Honey's Dieselgate: Detecting and tricking testers

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Re: Honey's Dieselgate: Detecting and tricking testers

#91

Post by victorbjorklund »

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.”

Those poor guards working in the concentration camps in nazi germany just wanted job security. They can’t be blamed for their actions.

Re: Honey's Dieselgate: Detecting and tricking testers

#92

Post by PUSH_AX »

bedelman wrote: post #48
ZoneZealot wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For context, Ben Edelman the author of the blog post was in the video at https://youtu.be/qCGT_CKGgFE?t=1980 Their personal site is also linked in the video description https://www.benedelman.org/honey-detecting-testers/

Ben here. My real (substantive) write-up is https://vptdigital.com/blog/honey-detecting-testers/ . Happy to discuss / answer questions / etc.

Getting “vptdigital.com unexpectedly closed the connection. ” errors on your site currently just fyi

Re: Honey's Dieselgate: Detecting and tricking testers

#93

Post by phoronixrly »

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.…

> I used to work for an ad tech company (which I know already makes me the devil to some around here)

Yes, thank you for making the web objectively worse for everyone. Yo should feel bad.

Re: Honey's Dieselgate: Detecting and tricking testers

#94

Post by croes »

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.

Re: Honey's Dieselgate: Detecting and tricking testers

#95

Post by sitzkrieg »

immibis wrote: post #80
throwaway81523 wrote: post #19

Apparently this thing got approved for the chrome store, which confirms that "store" approvals are near worthless for malware filtering.

It's not malware. Marketing companies stealing commission from each other isn't malware. Giving the user less than the best possible deal isn't malware. It doesn't even upload your cookies to see if you're a tester - it does that on the client.

it is textbook definition of malware. what's the argument for sending a users coupon code to a server regardless of sharing setting?

Re: Honey's Dieselgate: Detecting and tricking testers

#96

Post by gilrain »

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.…

Ethically bankrupt software engineer startled that others aren’t holding the line of civilisation for them.

Re: Honey's Dieselgate: Detecting and tricking testers

#97

Post by nilslindemann »

golem14 wrote: post #37
quesera wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disable JavaScript, reason #99e99. Works for me here, and in 90% of the cases where someone complains of annoying page behaviour (cookie banners, revenue optimizations, subscription solicitations, "click here to ...", paywalls, ads, et alii ad nauseam). Seriously, just disable JavaScript on unknown/untrusted/undeserving sites. It makes the web tolerable.

Is there actually a whitelist of sites where it's OK/necessary to enable JS ? I'd love to use that (although, I don't know how to load that list into safari or chrome.)

Why use a whitelist from someone else, I disable it manually per page by using something like https://github.com/maximelebreton/quick-javascript-switcher, but there are more of those in the chrome webstore.

Re: Honey's Dieselgate: Detecting and tricking testers

#98

Post by bluecalm »

immibis wrote: post #79
rundev wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference being that yt-dlp isn't a business partner (and/or competitor) of YT.

Of course it's a competitor of yt. If you download a video, they don't get ad revenue.

I've had Youtube Premium since it was introduced and I still use yt-dlp because it's the most convenient way for me to make an mp3 from a video so I can listen to it offline. I don't think they care. They probably care about music industry getting worked up about it if it was more mainstream though. This is annoying because I don't even download music, just podcasts and interviews.

Re: Honey's Dieselgate: Detecting and tricking testers

#99

Post by shrubby »

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.…

A nice set of examples can be found in Guido Palazzo's Dark Pattern.

“The Dark Pattern by Guido Palazzo and Ulrich Hoffrage teaches us about the power of context, which is stronger than reason, values, morals, and best intentions. It is an uncomfortable and painful lesson about the root causes of 'corporate infernos.' "

The context matters.

Think of the banality of evil in WW2 Germany.

We are capable of doing almost anything, good or bad, as long as the shoal around does it and pretends it normal.

Re: Honey's Dieselgate: Detecting and tricking testers

#100

Post by [deleted] »

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

[deleted]
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