4 ms·

I was honestly a bit unhappy when Stamos left Yahoo in the middle of a bunch of (what seemed like) cool projects for users -- seemed like he was just jumping sh

by rdl 10y ago

I was honestly a bit unhappy when Stamos left Yahoo in the middle of a bunch of (what seemed like) cool projects for users -- seemed like he was just jumping ship from an objectively pretty crappy company to a continuing-to-accelerate rocketship, presumably for career reasons. However, if it went down like this -- he did probably the least destructive thing possible. I probably would have gone public or done something stupider, but at the very least not being a party to ongoing abuse of users' trust is necessary. I'd like to see what other senior execs at Yahoo! were aware of the program and supported or at least tolerated it, so I can avoid ever working with any of them.

zmanian 10y ago
This should forever taint Marissa Meyer's reputation. Failure to save Yahoo is understandable. Disregard for user privacy and safety at this scale is unforgivable.
- utefan001 10y ago
  Don't forget this story. Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio who <edit> claims to have </edit> resisted NSA spying is out of prison (2013) https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/09/30/a-ceo-who-resisted-nsa-spying-is-out-of-prison-and-he-feels-vindicated-by-snowden-leaks/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/09/30...
  - tptacek 10y ago
    Nacchio is no hero. He ran a $50MM pump-and-dump scam that personally netted him millions of dollars in profits at the expense of common shareholders, and he was indicted in a wave of similar prosecutions in the wake of the Enron fiasco. His offenses are there in black and white: with full knowledge that his company faced materially adverse changes unknown to his investors, he not only promoted the company but privately (and illegally) sold his own shares. You do people like Stamos a huge disservice by drawing this comparison. People like Nacchio are exploiting the good work real privacy advocates do, for their own personal enrichment.
    - kafkaesq 10y ago
      People like Nacchio are exploiting the good work real privacy advocates do, for their own personal enrichment. Or it's possible for people to be dual-natured: capable both of flagrant chicanery and abuse, as well as acts of conviction and principled defiance.
      - tptacek 10y ago
        The entangling of the FISA order and the insider trading scandal actually makes things worse. His most significant trades came just months after he refused the FISA order --- after which he claims NSA arranged to have DoD contracts with Qwest terminated. He did something with an obvious material impact on his shareholders, and secretly profited from it. The reality, though, is that his tenure at Qwest appears broadly similar to the kinds of bullshit that was rife in corporate America at the time: accounting scandals, entirely unrelated to Qwest's government contracts, that boosted apparent growth and drove share prices higher than the fundamentals of the business could possibly justify. Google, for instance, [qwest kmc telecom].
        hackuser 10y ago
        If you know, what was his defense against the fraud case? It could have been retribution (yes, that's completely speculative).
        tptacek 10y ago
        His claims included: * That he was simply very optimistic about the business he was running that that he believed there would be an uptick in the stock long term after the company weathered the downturn he knew to be coming. * That he was "set up" by NSA: yes, he sold at a high price anticipating a sector-wide downturn, but he did so because he'd been assured that Qwest would be part of a multi-billion NSA modernization program called "Groundbreaker", led by CSC, which contract would surely rescue Qwest's stock and even out his sale. * That his board had demanded that he sell his stock, and that such sales were routine at Qwest. * That he was distraught over the suicide of his son and sold the stock as part of an effort to immediately disentangle himself from the CEO position which he hoped to leave. Against that, you have the black-and-white record of his trades and the testimony of numerous high-level Qwest executives all saying they'd been urgently warning him to revise Qwest's targets downwards. He not only maintained the unrealistic targets, and participated in channel-stuffing-style schemes to fake up earnings numbers, but profited personally by trading against those bogus numbers.
- kafkaesq 10y ago
  As the saying, attributed to Burke (but whose precise origins are unknown) goes: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good [men and women] do nothing." Both Meyer and Stamos made their choices, on this issue.
  - chopin 10y ago
    How did Stamos' action help the cause? He did better than Meyer but I fail to see how his move bettered the world. It helped him not longer being part of something nefarious. But he left all users he had responsibility for in the unclear.
    - kafkaesq 10y ago
      At least he managed to say, if only privately, "I'm not going to be a party to this" (most likely leaving a significant pile of cash and/or equity on the table in doing so). Which is way more than many CIOs/CSOs do in similar situations. Of course you or I might like to believe we would have taken a more overtly defiant stand (by going public for example). But then again, we weren't there, in his shoes - now were we?
- mason240 10y ago
  Did they really have a choice? It's pretty much a given now that 3-letter agencies get firehose access to any data they want.
  - frandroid 10y ago
    If they did, they wouldn't be issuing these court orders.
    - samsonradu 10y ago
      They probably start with the court orders.
rdl 10y ago
The person I'd question the most, after Marissa, is Yahoo!'s general counsel Ron S. Bell (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronsbell https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronsbell).
- rdl 10y ago
  CA hasn't adopted the ABA Model Rules. However: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=bpc&group=06001-07000&file=6060-6069 http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=bpc&gr... http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=bpc&group=06001-07000&file=6125-6133 http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=bpc&gr... "It is the duty of an attorney to do all of the following: ... To employ, for the purpose of maintaining the causes confided to him or her those means only as are consistent with truth ..." "Every attorney is guilty of a misdemeanor who either: (a) Is guilty of any deceit or collusion, or consents to any deceit or collusion, with intent to deceive the court or any party."
astrobe_ 10y ago
> users' trust "Promises only bind those who believe in them" - Henri Queuille

by rdl 10y ago

zmanian 10y ago

This should forever taint Marissa Meyer's reputation. Failure to save Yahoo is understandable. Disregard for user privacy and safety at this scale is unforgivable.

utefan001 10y ago
Don't forget this story. Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio who <edit> claims to have </edit> resisted NSA spying is out of prison (2013) https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/09/30/a-ceo-who-resisted-nsa-spying-is-out-of-prison-and-he-feels-vindicated-by-snowden-leaks/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/09/30...
- tptacek 10y ago
  Nacchio is no hero. He ran a $50MM pump-and-dump scam that personally netted him millions of dollars in profits at the expense of common shareholders, and he was indicted in a wave of similar prosecutions in the wake of the Enron fiasco. His offenses are there in black and white: with full knowledge that his company faced materially adverse changes unknown to his investors, he not only promoted the company but privately (and illegally) sold his own shares. You do people like Stamos a huge disservice by drawing this comparison. People like Nacchio are exploiting the good work real privacy advocates do, for their own personal enrichment.
  - kafkaesq 10y ago
    People like Nacchio are exploiting the good work real privacy advocates do, for their own personal enrichment. Or it's possible for people to be dual-natured: capable both of flagrant chicanery and abuse, as well as acts of conviction and principled defiance.
    - tptacek 10y ago
      The entangling of the FISA order and the insider trading scandal actually makes things worse. His most significant trades came just months after he refused the FISA order --- after which he claims NSA arranged to have DoD contracts with Qwest terminated. He did something with an obvious material impact on his shareholders, and secretly profited from it. The reality, though, is that his tenure at Qwest appears broadly similar to the kinds of bullshit that was rife in corporate America at the time: accounting scandals, entirely unrelated to Qwest's government contracts, that boosted apparent growth and drove share prices higher than the fundamentals of the business could possibly justify. Google, for instance, [qwest kmc telecom].
      - hackuser 10y ago
        If you know, what was his defense against the fraud case? It could have been retribution (yes, that's completely speculative).
        tptacek 10y ago
        His claims included: * That he was simply very optimistic about the business he was running that that he believed there would be an uptick in the stock long term after the company weathered the downturn he knew to be coming. * That he was "set up" by NSA: yes, he sold at a high price anticipating a sector-wide downturn, but he did so because he'd been assured that Qwest would be part of a multi-billion NSA modernization program called "Groundbreaker", led by CSC, which contract would surely rescue Qwest's stock and even out his sale. * That his board had demanded that he sell his stock, and that such sales were routine at Qwest. * That he was distraught over the suicide of his son and sold the stock as part of an effort to immediately disentangle himself from the CEO position which he hoped to leave. Against that, you have the black-and-white record of his trades and the testimony of numerous high-level Qwest executives all saying they'd been urgently warning him to revise Qwest's targets downwards. He not only maintained the unrealistic targets, and participated in channel-stuffing-style schemes to fake up earnings numbers, but profited personally by trading against those bogus numbers.
kafkaesq 10y ago
As the saying, attributed to Burke (but whose precise origins are unknown) goes: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good [men and women] do nothing." Both Meyer and Stamos made their choices, on this issue.
- chopin 10y ago
  How did Stamos' action help the cause? He did better than Meyer but I fail to see how his move bettered the world. It helped him not longer being part of something nefarious. But he left all users he had responsibility for in the unclear.
  - kafkaesq 10y ago
    At least he managed to say, if only privately, "I'm not going to be a party to this" (most likely leaving a significant pile of cash and/or equity on the table in doing so). Which is way more than many CIOs/CSOs do in similar situations. Of course you or I might like to believe we would have taken a more overtly defiant stand (by going public for example). But then again, we weren't there, in his shoes - now were we?
mason240 10y ago
Did they really have a choice? It's pretty much a given now that 3-letter agencies get firehose access to any data they want.
- frandroid 10y ago
  If they did, they wouldn't be issuing these court orders.
  - samsonradu 10y ago
    They probably start with the court orders.

rdl 10y ago

The person I'd question the most, after Marissa, is Yahoo!'s general counsel Ron S. Bell (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronsbell https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronsbell).

rdl 10y ago
CA hasn't adopted the ABA Model Rules. However: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=bpc&group=06001-07000&file=6060-6069 http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=bpc&gr... http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=bpc&group=06001-07000&file=6125-6133 http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=bpc&gr... "It is the duty of an attorney to do all of the following: ... To employ, for the purpose of maintaining the causes confided to him or her those means only as are consistent with truth ..." "Every attorney is guilty of a misdemeanor who either: (a) Is guilty of any deceit or collusion, or consents to any deceit or collusion, with intent to deceive the court or any party."

astrobe_ 10y ago

> users' trust "Promises only bind those who believe in them" - Henri Queuille