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> internal pushback I'm really curious what you're imagining the corporate structure to be like here - what kind of "internal pushback" are you envisioning? I

> internal pushback I'm really curious what you're imagining the corporate structure to be like here - what kind of "internal pushback" are you envisioning? In particular, I don't see engineers as particularly getting paid to or even having access to the parameters of the specs they're fulfilling. Anyone bothering to wonder would likely just assume the system they'd be working on to do this would be fully covered by 'legal' in specific agreements with firms to track that info, or if asked would be told that the spec is what it is and not anything about the use case. Legal, meanwhile, isn't going to take money to tell MS what they can't or 'shouldn't' do; but rather just to ensure they don't have exposure in doing whatever they want to do. So I guess that just leaves the leadership - which you could argue you're surprised by, if the board/C-levels/etc were individuals particularly known for being privacy-oriented. (Yeah. At Microsoft.) Meanwhile, you have a likely strong potential profit motive in a platform able to shift that kind of control to devs, though at the 'cost' of potentially losing privacy-concerned users - and their profit motive believes they can just EEE those users out of a market of competing products, so they give the go-ahead. So if there's a 'pushback' module that failed in this scenario, perhaps I don't see it; but I don't really see at what point you'd expect something like this to be 'stopped' internally.

Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
I seriously hope not. That sounds like a really fucked up culture, that's definitely not normal. Moral integrity as an engineer should cause you to speak up regardless of your salary and with enough internal noise higher ups should rethink their strategy.
- nebabyte 10y ago
  "Moral integrity" doesn't really have anything to apply to to the day-to-day work of an engineer. A moral compass can't work without a magnetic field of context. Considering most engineers' main concern is just to meet a spec and get it shipped, I don't really see how the burden of ethical justification falls to them, when they don't even necessarily know how it'll be used. Can't really see how they could act as moral gatekeepers in a corporate structure.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- hedora 10y ago
  Engineering tends to assume it works for the "good guys", and I suspect the people that rolled this out did not consider NSL's and the other onerous legal implications of giving themselves access to everyone's hard drives. I'm not saying it is right, but I suspect a lot of naive engineers and middle management designed the telemetry system. They produced a product most people cannot use in good conscience; in the long run, it will be Microsoft's loss.
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
  That's extremely idealistic. We humans are so lacking in moral integrity that we participate in wars, domestic violence, substance abuse, abuse of power, organised crime, the list of morally reprehensible shenanigans we get up to is as long as you want it to be. Thinking the average software developer at large-software-company is an angel and prepared to put their head on the chopping block is fanciful.
  - Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
    >We humans are so lacking in moral integrity that we participate in wars, domestic violence, substance abuse, abuse of power, organised crime, the list of morally reprehensible shenanigans we get up to is as long as you want it to be. What are you getting at? Are you telling me that I shouldn't think poorly of people who participate in wars, domestic violence, substance abuse, abuse of power, and organized crime? >Thinking the average software developer at large-software-company is an angel and prepared to put their head on the chopping block is fanciful. Healthy companies don't have a chopping block they put your head against for speaking up. Jesus christ people.
    - nebabyte 10y ago
      > What are you getting at? Are you telling me that I shouldn't think poorly of people who participate in wars, domestic violence, substance abuse, abuse of power, and organized crime? Probably just that you should recognize that the human potential for depraved self-interest being what it is, arguing for what "should be and can be" will never supplant what is, because 'what is' has a near-endless supply of eager workers to support it. > Healthy companies don't have a chopping block they put your head against for speaking up "The chopping block" equates to being fired and not able to earn enough to pay off student loans/debts/bills, which are potential costs to a person in the software engineering position you describe as the one that 'should be' taking a stand for your ethics. Job market forces will simply replace this person with minimal cost, and the effort will keep humming along without them. Not everyone has the privilege of being able to think of idealism and earnings as a tradeoff. Many in the field are trying to earn their way to a better life than the one in their past home, for their families, etc. Idealism is several steps beyond what they can (literally) afford to be thinking about.

Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago

I seriously hope not. That sounds like a really fucked up culture, that's definitely not normal. Moral integrity as an engineer should cause you to speak up regardless of your salary and with enough internal noise higher ups should rethink their strategy.

nebabyte 10y ago
"Moral integrity" doesn't really have anything to apply to to the day-to-day work of an engineer. A moral compass can't work without a magnetic field of context. Considering most engineers' main concern is just to meet a spec and get it shipped, I don't really see how the burden of ethical justification falls to them, when they don't even necessarily know how it'll be used. Can't really see how they could act as moral gatekeepers in a corporate structure.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
hedora 10y ago
Engineering tends to assume it works for the "good guys", and I suspect the people that rolled this out did not consider NSL's and the other onerous legal implications of giving themselves access to everyone's hard drives. I'm not saying it is right, but I suspect a lot of naive engineers and middle management designed the telemetry system. They produced a product most people cannot use in good conscience; in the long run, it will be Microsoft's loss.
TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
That's extremely idealistic. We humans are so lacking in moral integrity that we participate in wars, domestic violence, substance abuse, abuse of power, organised crime, the list of morally reprehensible shenanigans we get up to is as long as you want it to be. Thinking the average software developer at large-software-company is an angel and prepared to put their head on the chopping block is fanciful.
- Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
  >We humans are so lacking in moral integrity that we participate in wars, domestic violence, substance abuse, abuse of power, organised crime, the list of morally reprehensible shenanigans we get up to is as long as you want it to be. What are you getting at? Are you telling me that I shouldn't think poorly of people who participate in wars, domestic violence, substance abuse, abuse of power, and organized crime? >Thinking the average software developer at large-software-company is an angel and prepared to put their head on the chopping block is fanciful. Healthy companies don't have a chopping block they put your head against for speaking up. Jesus christ people.
  - nebabyte 10y ago
    > What are you getting at? Are you telling me that I shouldn't think poorly of people who participate in wars, domestic violence, substance abuse, abuse of power, and organized crime? Probably just that you should recognize that the human potential for depraved self-interest being what it is, arguing for what "should be and can be" will never supplant what is, because 'what is' has a near-endless supply of eager workers to support it. > Healthy companies don't have a chopping block they put your head against for speaking up "The chopping block" equates to being fired and not able to earn enough to pay off student loans/debts/bills, which are potential costs to a person in the software engineering position you describe as the one that 'should be' taking a stand for your ethics. Job market forces will simply replace this person with minimal cost, and the effort will keep humming along without them. Not everyone has the privilege of being able to think of idealism and earnings as a tradeoff. Many in the field are trying to earn their way to a better life than the one in their past home, for their families, etc. Idealism is several steps beyond what they can (literally) afford to be thinking about.