5 ms·

Just Say No

563 points by janvdberg 10y ago

minikites 10y ago
>Fortunately, now the EU has made odometer fraud illegal It only became illegal recently? I find that surprising.
- midgetjones 10y ago
  I think the car manufacturers made it a lot more difficult, just by adding an extra 0. This is predating digital displays, of course.
  - ghaff 10y ago
    It's also interesting to reflect that getting a car to 100,000 miles used to be considered a sufficient outlier that it wasn't worth spending a few more cents to design odometers that handled that case.
- rwmj 10y ago
  Weirdly I find that it's not illegal in the UK. The illegal thing is not disclosing it when you sell the car on (straightforward fraud). http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/consumer-news/88547/car-clocking-is-mileage-correction-legal http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/consumer-news/88547/ca...
  - adrianN 10y ago
    That sounds ok to me. It's your car, you should be able to set the odometer to whatever you want. Using that ability to defraud people of their money is what should be illegal.
    - lisper 10y ago
      That's how it is in the U.S. (at least in California). When you sell a car you have to write down the odometer reading on the paperwork and indicate whether or not it is accurate to the best of your knowledge. But actually changing the reading is not illegal. It makes sense: the reading could be off due to mechanical failure.
      - LyndsySimon 10y ago
        Makes sense. I drive a Jeep, and the speedometer on it is off by 12% due to the larger-than-stock tires that are on it. The odometer reads 160k, but I would assume that it was 170-180k on it in reality, depending on when the tires were originally installed.
        waterphone 10y ago
        Unless you've simply decided this isn't important to you, changing the speedometer gear on a Jeep to an appropriate size for your tires is generally a several minute job with minimal tools.
        lisper 10y ago
        On the other hand, what one really should be caring about is not the mileage per se, but how many cycles are on the drive train. The distance the chassis has moved doesn't really matter.
        waterphone 10y ago
        Correct—but having a functioning speedometer is generally useful.
        markrages 10y ago
        But each cycle represents more wear with the larger tires, since the drivetrain torque is higher. You can't cheat physics.
        adrianN 10y ago
        It's probably not a linear relationship though.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - waterphone 10y ago
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - praptak 10y ago
      I believe my insurance company took the odometer reading into account when calculating the rate for next year, so I wouldn't even have to sell the car to turn clocking into fraud.
  - sambe 10y ago
    The UK is (for now) part of the EU. If we believe the original article that it's illegal in the EU, then it's illegal in the UK (this is likely to be the case even after Brexit, judging by what is being said about the legal process). That doesn't always mean that action is taken, unfortunately. I also don't immediately find any EU laws about it (http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getAllAnswers.do?reference=E-2011-008741&language=MT http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getAllAnswers.do?referen... suggests that there wasn't any in 2011 and the new road-worthiness harmonisation only made it easier to detect)
    - rwmj 10y ago
      Apparently the law's going to be changed in 2018. Good job we'll finally be able to throw off the shackles of EU laws and have fraudsters sell us hooky cars. [Is this right?]
- petercooper 10y ago
  I think it might be more that it's a specific criminal offence now. But it was always regular 'fraud' beforehand if you said a car had done X miles but had done Y, just like lying about anything you're selling.
  - nommm-nommm 10y ago
    Good point, it would certainly be considered "unfair business practice" and I am assuming most developed countries have those sorts of laws on the books.
- Someone 10y ago
  There are (at least) three aspects: 1) rolling back an odometer; 2) trying to sell a car with a fraudulent odometer value; 3) when asked, claiming that the reading is accurate. I would expect #3 always was illegal anywhere in the EU. #2 may have been a gray area in some countries or even legal; #1 may have been legal in quite a few (similarly, printing fake money was, and maybe still is, legal in the Netherlands, too. Printing it with the intent to spend it as real was a crime), if alone because many mechanical odometers would roll back when the car drove backwards. The EU likely wrote a directive that instructed EU members to harmonize laws across the EU, that, once implemented, filled a few holes in international law. For example, if laws aren't harmonized, one could do the rolling back in country C, where #1 was legal and #2 was illegal, and sell the car in country D, where #1 was illegal, but #2 was legal, and neither country C or country D could prevent the car from being ex/imported because of free trade within the EU. I think the EU also has worked towards making such fraud harder by requiring the odometer reading to be recorded whenever cars get up for mandatory checks (which are yearly for older cars), and require those readings to be brought forward when a car is moved between countries (otherwise, country D would not have any way to detect that rolled back odometer)
- kalmari 10y ago
  it was probably just not on the books.
DoofusOfDeath 10y ago
> If you’re reading this as a technical person: there will always be technically clueless people who will attempt to use you and your skills as tools to commit some crime. You may be overstating that a bit. I've been doing tech for a while, and I can't recall anyone ever asking me to abuse my skills for ill-gotten gain.
- pavel_lishin 10y ago
  I remember it happening as a kid, but mostly being asked by other kids who want me to hack into a ex's email account - nothing (so far!) of the sort of thing that would get me dragged into a shadowy underworld.
- hartator 10y ago
  Except that the law is so complicated, the company might have itself asked you unlawful things unknowingly.
  - DoofusOfDeath 10y ago
    I agree, but I don't think the OP was trying to include (practically) unknowable laws in his main point.
- gutnor 10y ago
  Probably, but you didn't realise. There are a lot of people interested that simply lack the technical insight to know exactly how to approach you or if what they want is even possible. If you are not the kind to boast about work at the pub, they will simply fail to find an opening that let them know: that their scheme is possible, that you can do it, and that you would do it. Of course, I comes from a relatively bad area too. It is filled with people that share the spirit of Valley Startup Founders: nothing is ever really idle chat, every conversation is an opportunity and every minute must be productive. Their business model and area of expertise are a lot more shady though.
  - copperx 10y ago
    On that last line you're referring to MLMs, right?
pavel_lishin 10y ago
I wonder what happens once you've already done the illegal thing, perhaps not even realizing that what you're doing is against the law.
- k-mcgrady 10y ago
  Ignorance is (generally) no excuse for breaking the law.
Intermernet 10y ago
I have this wonderful image of the family member in question, after Jacques said "No", trying the Ferris Bueller method of putting the cars on blocks, putting them in reverse, and locking down the accelerator.
bigjimmyk3 10y ago
My alma mater added a course requirement on professional ethics shortly after I left, partly due to multiple "incidents" at the university (not because of me... this time). Ethics is the difference between Dr. Spock and Dr. Frankenstein.
- dsacco 10y ago
  Dr. Frankenstein really wasn't that bad a guy. Mary Shelley consistently portrays him as a tragic character beset with guilt and grief for his experiments. He started out with the same natural longing many people have - to understand life and how it works. He lost his way, but he's quite a sympathetic character. You'd have to be a hard consequentialist to consider him unethical.
edw519 10y ago
My first co-founder was a brilliant engineer. One day I borrowed his car (a fancy late model sports car) for an errand because mine was blocked in. But the speedometer didn't work which made for some strange driving. When I asked him about it, he said, "Oh I disconnected it to improve it's resale value." We didn't remain together much longer. To this day, the value of a relationship with another businessperson = sum(assets) * EthicsFactor. EthicsFactor is 1 or 0. There is no in-between. Nice post, Jacques. It sure feels nice to comment in one your threads again.
- taylorwc 10y ago
  I love the formula you pose for thinking about this, and it's so true. Ethical behavior is binary, and a lack of ethical behavior isn't compartmentalized into one small area.
  - graphitezepp 10y ago
    My moral system is so incredibly far away from viewing ethical behavior as binary that I can not relate to how someone would think that way. How do you place the line, where an instance of behavior you don't agree with makes you view someone as not ethical?
    - tuxxy 10y ago
      When you come from a place of privilege, it's easy to think human behavior is binary. For example, I would never steal a car! I can afford one, and to be quite honest, I don't need one. If I was deep into poverty, and needed a car for a job or to be able to provide some function to my family, that temptation might be there. It might be so great that it distorts the ethics of the person so much so they don't see it as unethical. Instead of stealing a car, they're borrowing it or the other person can just get another one. They would legitimately not see wrong because they feel like they have been wronged when they do not have the ability to get a car. TL;DR: Ethics are not binary. To even suggest that undermines the entirety of the philosophy dedicated to studying it.
wohlergehen 10y ago
There is an incredibly powerful German anti-war poem titled "say no" [1], that I instantaneously associated with the title. I think it's important for people involved with technology to have an ethical compass that of course includes criminal activities, but ideally also goes beyond that. 1: http://www.swans.com/library/art13/xxx123.html http://www.swans.com/library/art13/xxx123.html
gregwtmtno 10y ago
It's not just crime that you shouldn't use your skills for, it's all immoral or unethical activity. It's a surprisingly urgent problem in a field that enables mass government surveillance, dark patterns, big data aggregation, and cyber warfare. As an attorney, I wonder if software engineers should consider implementing some kind of rules for professional conduct and an organization to enforce it like the lawyers have.
- jacques_chester 10y ago
  There is such a code, jointly published by the ACM and IEEE CS[0]. It's simple and sound. In many ways anyone of ordinary decency can intuit the principles. It has no teeth and I expect it never will, despite numerous attempts by national bodies to entrench an accounting/legal/medical style of enforceable professional standards. [0] http://www.acm.org/about/se-code http://www.acm.org/about/se-code
  - sevensor 10y ago
    This was entirely moderate, reasonable, and well thought-out! To be honest, I was expecting vague committe-written platitudes. I was wrong. This is well worth a read.
    - jasonkostempski 10y ago
      You'd need some insane malpractice insurance if you agreed to some of the things in there. The first rule alone is way too broad "Accept full responsibility for their own work."
      - sevensor 10y ago
        That's an interesting point. I wasn't reading this as a binding legal framework. That would be a recipe for disaster. This document is full of sound ethical advice. It's not unreasonable to say that you're morally responsible for the code you write. If you work for a bad company that does bad things, I'm going to judge you for that, just as I expect to be judged. And this document sets up a reasonable standard by which we can judge software developers. But legally? That's a whole other can of worms. Giving this document the force of law would just make it easier to shift the blame in a crooked organization onto the people writing its software. At most, I could see affirmation of this document and an oath to abide by it as the basis for membership in a voluntary professional organization.
codezero 10y ago
I've had people try to get me to do illegal things for 25 years. It was much more aggressive and enticing when I was young. It's easier for adult me to recognize and reject these advances than it was for teenage me. It wasn't always even money that was on the table, but recognition and acceptance which can make you do crazy things.
saosebastiao 10y ago
I don't wish for the feeling of desperation on anybody. Even for someone who has morals, desperation can warp your sense of reality. Back when I was a truck driver, I had a substantial offer from someone to transport a duffle bag in my utility lock box across state lines. I was desperate, and it was a lot of money. I rationalized, told myself it was just gonna be some drugs, and I never get pulled over anyway. No big deal, I told myself. Until I grabbed the bag, and realized it wasn't drugs. Took a peek once I was out of sight, and it was definitely submachine guns. I started panicking and about 10 miles down the road came up with my plan. I pulled over, punctured a cooling hose, ran my engine til I overheated, and then called my contact and told him I had overheated and steamed out all my coolant and wasn't going to make it. That interaction was probably the most terrifying experience of my life. Never again.
- drzaiusapelord 10y ago
  Depends on the drugs. A duffel bag of weed isn't going to hurt anyone. A duffel bag of meth or oxy will most likely kill many more people than a bag of machine guns. Unless your country was in a civil war at the time, I imagine those weapons never saw use. Hard drugs, on the other hand, get consumed and regularly kill people and destroy lives.
  - saosebastiao 10y ago
    Don't be naive. I heard guns like these from my bedroom window growing up, and that was in Stockton CA. And the Central Valley, along with AZ, NM, and TX have a huge problem with transporting guns to Mexico where they are in a civil war.
  - nommm-nommm 10y ago
    Those guns were probably going to the drug cartels in Mexico.
- taway_1212 10y ago
  > Took a peek once I was out of sight, and it was definitely submachine guns Can't you order that stuff over the mail in the US?
fiatjaf 10y ago
If you're offered a job from Facebook should you say "no"?
- Dzugaru 10y ago
  Yes.
- beobab 10y ago
  If you believe that Facebook is unethical, yes. Stand up to what you believe. It's harder in the short run, but it's much easier so sleep at nights in the long run. I suspect lots of people would like to go back and change things they did.
- sevensor 10y ago
  I certainly would. Strip-mining social graphs might have some interesting technical challenges, but I'd go back to factory work before doing that.
- throwaway6390 10y ago
  Yes, same goes for Amazon.
- gnode 10y ago
  Up to you. Follow your heart.
HillaryBriss 10y ago
This article enters a difficult grey area. What should one do when a family member requests something illegal and there's a possibility of retribution for refusing to do it? The solution: lying can be an acceptable way to avoid unethical behavior. I applaud the author for doing the right thing. I'm not sure I would have been as ethical. That said, my favorite line is: Salmon, French cheese, party time.
sphinx65 10y ago
What an incoherent article
aub3bhat 10y ago
Meh, this is just ridiculous moral posturing. Which laws are scared and which aren't? Are you telling me that you never violated copyright, or say helped a friend install torrenting software ("technically clueless people who will attempt to use you and your skills as tools to commit some crime"). "Just say no" was the famous anti-drug slogan, we all know how that War On Drugs attitude ended up afflicting american society. Finally even Supreme Court justices find this type of hard-line attitude ridiculous. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/us/politics/supreme-court-naturalization.html?_r=0&mtrref=t.co&mtrref=www.nytimes.com&gwh=5EB6517587B933A83FACF0BCCB8DCC6A&gwt=pay https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/us/politics/supreme-court...
- adrianmonk 10y ago
  Even if you don't think 100% of laws are sacred, you can still draw a dividing line somewhere. A rational, consistent dividing line. Anyway, the guy made it clear he had ethical problems with it because he could see how it was unfair to whoever ended up buying the car. So he wasn't avoiding it just because it was illegal.
  - yannyu 10y ago
    Can you? I'm not sure most people are as consistent with their views on what laws are "good" or "bad" as you might think. Most people tend to judge the morality of their actions by intent, and judge the morality of others' actions by consequence, and thus form a picture of "I am more moral than most people". I'm sure that a deep analysis of pretty much anyone's morality will show a few logical inconsistencies.
    - foreigner 10y ago
      > Most people tend to judge the morality of their actions by intent, and judge the morality of others' actions by consequence, and thus form a picture of "I am more moral than most people". Wow that really moved me.
  - aub3bhat 10y ago
    He is making a simple cost-benefit trade-off that everyone including criminals routinely do. The only difference is he pontificating and posing as a saint who made some great sacrifice.
iliketosleep 10y ago
I believe the author’s post is a little condescending and ignores the nuances of such situations. Sure, it's easy enough to "just say no" if you're already pretty successful and have a lot to lose by engaging in illegal activity. But what about the talented hacker who has failed career wise and is going through a really tough phase financially. It might seem that there's everything to gain and nothing to lose. If you have a choice of being able feed your family or “just say no” to modifying an odometer, what would you choose?
- senko 10y ago
  > If you have a choice of being able feed your family or “just say no” to modifying an odometer, what would you choose? Let me generalize that for you: If you have a choice of being able to feed your family or "just say no" to commit a crime, what would you choose?
  - oblib 10y ago
    Depends. If it's a Robin Hood scenario it can be morally justifiable. If the crime is stealing from anyone, rich or poor, so I can live easier, then no.
- ifoundthetao 10y ago
  Are you kidding me? I would just say no. It's much more to lose your family and life by going to jail than it is to use public services to get assistance for food and shelter. Even if you don't go to jail, the amount lost in legal expenses are going to far outweigh the money brought in from said activities. Moreover, it's going to seriously impair your ability to get a job in the future, in the particular field that you've currently been experiencing failure in.
  - Someone 10y ago
    That assumes you live in a country where "public services to get assistance for food and shelter" exist. Not everybody is so lucky. It certainly isn't always _just_ say no.
atmosx 10y ago
> I grew up in Amsterdam, which is a pretty rough town by Dutch Standards. I stopped reading after the first phrase because I disagree with the premise. Amsterdam ranks 12th in the "most liveable cities" according to the Telegraph[1]. [1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/galleries/The-worlds-most-liveable-cities/amsterdam/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/galleries/The-worlds-most-...
- educar 10y ago
  Did you miss the "Dutch Standards" part?
  - atmosx 10y ago
    Yes, I missed that part.
- orbitur 10y ago
  You even quoted "by Dutch standards" so I'm not sure what you think you're pointing out.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    Amsterdam was also much seedier 25-30 years ago.
    - fjdlwlv 10y ago
      It was much speedier before the new odomoter laws
DonHopkins 10y ago
So that explains why that taxi cab was driving backwards down my street in Amsterdam. I thought it was because it was a one-way street that was blocked around the corner.
- kalmari 10y ago
  i was thinking pulling a Ferris Bueller's Day Off. you would probably have to take it out and apart and get another one and reverse engineer it and maybe get your hands on some schematics.
jawns 10y ago
> Just say no. And lie if you have to. I'm extremely interested in the modern morality of lying, because on the one hand, we find some lies to be so heinous that they are career-ending (plagiarism among them), and some lies to be so necessary that _not_ lying is viewed as heinous (e.g. "Would you lie to an S.S. soldier about whether you were hiding Jews in your house?") Here, Jacques spends the entire blog post trying to persuade people to avoid immoral behavior -- but then advocates lying. Is lying not immoral anymore? I would be very interested in knowing what percentage of people view lying as objectively wrong, and how that has changed over time.
- zdean 10y ago
  Killing someone is a bad outcome no matter how you look at it. But we make a moral distinction between defensive and offensive killing and allow for "justifiable homicide". Similarly, I think the same test would hold true for lying. If you're doing it offensively, it's bad and wrong. If you're doing it defensively (as is the case in this story), I don't think anyone would question that it was morally justifiable.
- yannyu 10y ago
  In philosophy of ethics, this is still something people think about. In utilitarian style ethics, the ends (mostly) justify the means, so if in lying you are overall increasing utility/happiness for more people than if you told the truth, then it would be considered an ethical action. By contrast, Kant's Categorical Imperative states "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law". By that logic, lying is viewed as an unethical action, because if everyone lied then no one would trust each other, resulting in an unworkable universe. There's a lot more to both sides and many attempts to create more nuanced systems, but ethics is and will likely continue to be an important field of study with not a lot of hard answers.
  - jessaustin 10y ago
    ...if everyone lied then no one would trust each other, resulting in an unworkable universe. The universe worked just fine before humans invented proscriptions against lying. Biological organisms lie to each other all the time. Predators appear harmless; prey appear harmful, etc. Actually most humans would be well-served by both lying more and being more perceptive of the lies that are told them.
pjungwir 10y ago
I have a story of temptation and pressure---not as good as Jacques's but maybe interesting anyway. I was leaving grad school (not for tech) and getting back into programming. I had two new kids, and I was really ready to stop living on $21k/yr (my student stipend), but I didn't have a lot of work yet, and I wasn't sure how my 5-year hiatus would look. I had done a few projects for a small agency, and the owner was having me spec & quote work for potential new customers. One of these customers wanted us to build a "dashboard" to control a fleet of machines that would generate fake reviews for sites like Yelp or Amazon. I'm not even sure if that is illegal, but it didn't seem good. I told him it didn't sound like work we could do. If he had been just my customer, it would have been easy, but it raised my anxiety to say it to my customer's customer. I think Jacques's conclusion about "a bad beginning" is very wise, and I'm glad he had to foresight to see all that. I hope his story helps keep other people out of trouble. His writing it up is really a gift to them.
educar 10y ago
I am curious how much this extends to: A) Facebook and Google mining people's data B) Cisco building extensive survellance systems C) Microsoft was blatantly abusing it's monopoly I could go on but all these had many many engineers involved. And best of it all, most of it was .. legal. When something is outright illegal, it's easy to say no.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
liotier 10y ago
Just say no, but not for moral reasons: say no because, unless you are absolutely desperate, it is the most profitable choice. Relationships with dangerous people who gain blackmail leverage over you will end badly - probably badly enough to offset all prior gains.
- cuspycode 10y ago
  Isn't ultimate profit the same as moral reasons?
whatupmd 10y ago
No, you should not be breaking the law.
- dsp1234 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_from_Birmingham_Jail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_from_Birmingham_Jail One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
  - icebraining 10y ago
    Regarding the Boston Tea Party, These are the folks who led the Revolution. These were not the downtrodden. These were not the oppressed. These were people who stood to lose huge amounts of wealth because of the King's policies. And so they fought a Revolution. Which was, by the way, not very popular. Sixty percent of the colonists either were neutral or opposed to the Revolution. http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2016/12/bruce_bueno_de_1.html http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2016/12/bruce_bueno_de_1.ht...
    - dsp1234 10y ago
      I hope I never live in a place where only people of certain economic class are allowed, or not allowed, to fight unjust laws. I also hope I never live in a place where because the majority are neutral or opposed, that unjust laws go unquestioned.
      - gled 10y ago
        Are there any places in the world where these two things aren't true?
      - zepto 10y ago
ericb 10y ago
Great advice. I once let a company license legitimate software (a history cleaner before browsers offered this functionality) I wrote and they wrapped it in adware and caused a lot of people headaches. It felt gross. They didn't make it clear what they were going to do with it beforehand, but there were signs I should have noticed--their business model description sounded too good to be true. You can't just wash your hands of these things and have a clear conscience because you didn't do it personally. The low point was finding their adware on my mom's computer. Personally, I made it a rule after that to avoid business relations with the morally questionable. They drag you down.
charles-salvia 10y ago
Ethics aside, at a certain point, you realize you can make a lot more money legally and legitimately using your technical skills than through any sort of "clever" technical scheme that involves hacking odometers or scamming people in some way.
- eldavido 10y ago
  Yep, because we (US/Western Europe) have a good legal system that supports this. This is also why we don't have Nigerian pirates in the US. It's also why our math/science teachers suck. The good ones would rather work in the private sector. They had great math teachers in the soviet union because they didn't have AmaGooFaceSoft competing for talent.
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  Case in point: https://www.wired.com/2008/05/man-allegedly-b/ https://www.wired.com/2008/05/man-allegedly-b/
deleted 10y ago
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mathattack 10y ago
I had similar in school. A friend who was applying to grad school thought it would be easier to break into school systems than to study for class. I told him no. He eventually found his way into law school and politics.
SadWebDeveloper 10y ago
meh... low risk = low reward, high risk = higher reward. Morality/Ethics is POV problem.
nnd 10y ago
I've never done anything explicitly illegal in the context of programming, but some opportunities which fall in the gray area of legality are just too tempting to pass upon. I did consulting in reverse-engineering and provided documentation and tool too exploit certain vulnerabilities. Provided that I never used those tool myself for profit, the liability falls onto my clients, considering that I also signed a contract explicitly stating that. The reason why I loved doing this work so much is because it was highly challenging, considerably more complicated than any software engineering job I ever had before. And more importantly I was extremely good at it, and more often than not I discovered something which no one ever did before. It felt like a mix of software development and scientific research. Unfortunately when it comes to reverse-engineering, there are not many strictly "white hat" applications for it, besides pentesting and security audit. And naturally I missed building things and creating something which would actually make people's lives better.
israrkhan 10y ago
During my undergrad I took a course "Ethical and Legal dimensions of Engineering". At that time I thought it was boring, but now I realizes how important such a course can be. A lot has changed over the past decade. Engineers have much more influence over the society than it used to be. There is definitely a need to develop a global code of conduct that does not change across geographic boundaries. All engineers should be taught that.
oblib 10y ago
When I was a teen I was offered cash to turn back speedometers many times, and always refused. This started after I set the speedo on my own car back to zero, but I was customizing it for myself, not flipping it for a fast buck, and it was already 25 years old anyway. Back around the turn of the century I was offered a bit of cash to build a "Revenge Porn" site. The guy who called me sounded very mild and calm, even nice. He did say he'd been turned down a few times but he also seemed determined to make the site. I had never heard of this idea at the time and was pretty surprised with the concept. I turned him down, of course, but what surprised me most was how many friends and acquaintances told me I should've taken the cash when I told them the story. I'm 58 years old now and the number of people who've asked me to help with their scams, and have tried to scam me, is far more than I can remember. With all that experience I can spot them easily now but it never ceases to amaze me how willing some people are to do that.
- shanemhansen 10y ago
  The only scam I've ever been asked about was at an SEO conference. I was talking about how awesome selenium and browser automation was. Someone asked if I could make selenium log into gmail and click "not spam".
  - oblib 10y ago
    That is hilarious. I would've been speechless, and at the same time resisting the urge to punch them in the nose :D
  - jessaustin 10y ago
    What are the odds, that a potential scam would be proposed at an SEO conference?
- 55555 10y ago
  > what surprised me most was how many friends and acquaintances told me I should've taken the cash when I told them the story. This has been my experience as well. It doesn't inspire confidence in people.
- 10y ago
okreallywtf 10y ago
This must be a much more difficult offer to turn down if you are in an economically depressed nation where job prospects are not good. In the US, even though there are plenty of rough areas, if you are skilled and/or well educated you have a lot of opportunities so it is a lot easier to say no. If its the difference between basic necessities for your family or not its not so easy to "just say no".
gpsx 10y ago
Is it safe to report the crimes of dangerous people publicly and non-anonymously?
- jewbacca 10y ago
  Sorry: there is not an will never be a general answer to that question.
  - gpsx 10y ago
    I hope not.
ryanisnan 10y ago
Are you not worried that your family member reads hacker news? ;)
- jacquesm 10y ago
  He's dead. His son is also dead (shot by one of his buddies as a result of a disagreement over the division of the loot from a very large robbery). But his wife and daughter are still alive so I wrote the article in such a way that it is not easy to pinpoint who this is about.
  - jessaustin 10y ago
    You do link to this discussion from TFA, and you can't have had that many relatives who were shot...
    - jacquesm 10y ago
      I don't think my family is reading my blog. Let's just say we're not exactly close for obvious reasons. But no need to make it easy on outsiders to make the link.
cuspycode 10y ago
TL;DR A person is tempted to make financial gains through corruption, but says no for moral reasons. News at 11.
trveskyll 10y ago
I was involved in the warez scene as a cracker and a trader around the turn of the century. In a way it was a fun scene with groups that had strict hierarchies as in companies, the community aspect was strong, you could earn fame if you worked hard enough for it and had the skill, which was all pretty fascinating for us youngsters spending their nights in front of their PCs. In hindsight though, it was flatout stupid to participate in illegal activities over unencrypted IRC channels and FTP sites located at universities with hundreds of users. There were bouncers/tcp-tunnels and stuff, but many didn't care to use them. Things got scary when some of my affiliates got busted in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Buccaneer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Buccaneer. Thankfully I got out without getting my ass burned.
- mpeg 10y ago
  I ran a topsite for a while, as you say probably a stupid thing to do, but it was fun and a good learning experience.
- guitarbill 10y ago
  > In hindsight though, it was flatout stupid to participate in illegal activities over unencrypted IRC channels and FTP sites This also shocked me, and taught me a valuable lesson about politics. I had thought the warez scene was a meritocracy, but affecting change was so hard. Introducing new tools/processes/encryption was almost impossible. New standards IMO only seemed to happen because P2P was putting out stuff with great quality/smaller file size because of new encoders. In the end, I still believe the scene has done more for consumers/media consumption than anything else (maybe youtube?). I doubt we'd see streaming offerings like this if it hadn't existed. So it was illegal, but also morally right. And pirating remains the only way to receive a great education for free, for all.
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  - trveskyll 10y ago
    interesting view regarding the effects on media. concerning the educational aspect, i'm not sure what exactly you mean. while today e.g. software engineering knowledge is all out there, back then there was no github and stackoverflow and i had to learn a lot from books (basic, c, assembler). the freely available resources were lower quality, that is tutorials by crackers or demo scene coders. i completely lost interest in pirated media these days as they provides minimal value to me. the few albums/movies/games which are relevant to me, i'm easily able to buy. the only exception might indeed be textbooks on specialized technical topics, which often aren't of interest for the warez scene audience.
orasis 10y ago
I've seen plenty of people fall into shady karma, especially my (ahem) peers in the early peer-to-peer space. Other than Zooko and Roger Dingeldine it seems most of the guys had to make a bunch of bullshit philosophical contortions about how associating with lowlifes and mobsters was OK. Some of those guys made money, a lot didn't, but their karma will forever be sullied.
clarkmoody 10y ago
I think the quickest way to stifle innovation in software (or drive it out of the country) would be to implement a professional organization.
kangdolit 10y ago
I've had a situation like this before. A friend referred two commodity traders to me. They wanted to contract me for SEO purposes. Why? When you searched for their names on Google/Bing, articles about fraud charges came up. They wanted me to push them off the front page. I was able to do that kind of work, because I had done it before for more benign situations. My friend told me I could name my price, because they were outrageously rich (apparently from their fraud schemes). I spoke with them over the phone. Their reason for wanting to do this was: "It's a real bummer when you're dating a hot chick and she looks you up and sees all these negative articles online." Bullshit. I smelled it immediately. I didn't need abetting and conspiracy charges leveled against me. Even if I had agreed to do it, I doubt they would have paid me in full. I mean, I had evidence of their alleged fraudulent behavior. The problem is that sometimes the fraudsters are really good, and what looks like a legitimate job has a less obvious ulterior use.
Learn2win 10y ago
Sometimes You just have to follow your heart. It's not about getting it right; it's about doing what's right.
hvo 10y ago
This is probably one of the best articles i have read on Hacker News.Just straightforward.Keep it up.
everybodyknows 10y ago
In certain cultures, someone who won't steal from a rich employer to help family members is considered disloyal, and has reason to fear ostracism. And this in a culture where family connections are paramount. Solution of one such employee, somewhere in the western Pacific: Tell any lie necessary to hide the fact.

Just Say No

563 points by janvdberg 10y ago

minikites 10y ago

>Fortunately, now the EU has made odometer fraud illegal It only became illegal recently? I find that surprising.

midgetjones 10y ago
I think the car manufacturers made it a lot more difficult, just by adding an extra 0. This is predating digital displays, of course.
- ghaff 10y ago
  It's also interesting to reflect that getting a car to 100,000 miles used to be considered a sufficient outlier that it wasn't worth spending a few more cents to design odometers that handled that case.
rwmj 10y ago
Weirdly I find that it's not illegal in the UK. The illegal thing is not disclosing it when you sell the car on (straightforward fraud). http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/consumer-news/88547/car-clocking-is-mileage-correction-legal http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/consumer-news/88547/ca...
- adrianN 10y ago
  That sounds ok to me. It's your car, you should be able to set the odometer to whatever you want. Using that ability to defraud people of their money is what should be illegal.
  - lisper 10y ago
    That's how it is in the U.S. (at least in California). When you sell a car you have to write down the odometer reading on the paperwork and indicate whether or not it is accurate to the best of your knowledge. But actually changing the reading is not illegal. It makes sense: the reading could be off due to mechanical failure.
    - LyndsySimon 10y ago
      Makes sense. I drive a Jeep, and the speedometer on it is off by 12% due to the larger-than-stock tires that are on it. The odometer reads 160k, but I would assume that it was 170-180k on it in reality, depending on when the tires were originally installed.
      - waterphone 10y ago
        Unless you've simply decided this isn't important to you, changing the speedometer gear on a Jeep to an appropriate size for your tires is generally a several minute job with minimal tools.
        lisper 10y ago
        On the other hand, what one really should be caring about is not the mileage per se, but how many cycles are on the drive train. The distance the chassis has moved doesn't really matter.
        waterphone 10y ago
        Correct—but having a functioning speedometer is generally useful.
        markrages 10y ago
        But each cycle represents more wear with the larger tires, since the drivetrain torque is higher. You can't cheat physics.
        adrianN 10y ago
        It's probably not a linear relationship though.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - waterphone 10y ago
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  - praptak 10y ago
    I believe my insurance company took the odometer reading into account when calculating the rate for next year, so I wouldn't even have to sell the car to turn clocking into fraud.
- sambe 10y ago
  The UK is (for now) part of the EU. If we believe the original article that it's illegal in the EU, then it's illegal in the UK (this is likely to be the case even after Brexit, judging by what is being said about the legal process). That doesn't always mean that action is taken, unfortunately. I also don't immediately find any EU laws about it (http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getAllAnswers.do?reference=E-2011-008741&language=MT http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getAllAnswers.do?referen... suggests that there wasn't any in 2011 and the new road-worthiness harmonisation only made it easier to detect)
  - rwmj 10y ago
    Apparently the law's going to be changed in 2018. Good job we'll finally be able to throw off the shackles of EU laws and have fraudsters sell us hooky cars. [Is this right?]
petercooper 10y ago
I think it might be more that it's a specific criminal offence now. But it was always regular 'fraud' beforehand if you said a car had done X miles but had done Y, just like lying about anything you're selling.
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  Good point, it would certainly be considered "unfair business practice" and I am assuming most developed countries have those sorts of laws on the books.
Someone 10y ago
There are (at least) three aspects: 1) rolling back an odometer; 2) trying to sell a car with a fraudulent odometer value; 3) when asked, claiming that the reading is accurate. I would expect #3 always was illegal anywhere in the EU. #2 may have been a gray area in some countries or even legal; #1 may have been legal in quite a few (similarly, printing fake money was, and maybe still is, legal in the Netherlands, too. Printing it with the intent to spend it as real was a crime), if alone because many mechanical odometers would roll back when the car drove backwards. The EU likely wrote a directive that instructed EU members to harmonize laws across the EU, that, once implemented, filled a few holes in international law. For example, if laws aren't harmonized, one could do the rolling back in country C, where #1 was legal and #2 was illegal, and sell the car in country D, where #1 was illegal, but #2 was legal, and neither country C or country D could prevent the car from being ex/imported because of free trade within the EU. I think the EU also has worked towards making such fraud harder by requiring the odometer reading to be recorded whenever cars get up for mandatory checks (which are yearly for older cars), and require those readings to be brought forward when a car is moved between countries (otherwise, country D would not have any way to detect that rolled back odometer)
kalmari 10y ago
it was probably just not on the books.

DoofusOfDeath 10y ago

> If you’re reading this as a technical person: there will always be technically clueless people who will attempt to use you and your skills as tools to commit some crime. You may be overstating that a bit. I've been doing tech for a while, and I can't recall anyone ever asking me to abuse my skills for ill-gotten gain.

pavel_lishin 10y ago
I remember it happening as a kid, but mostly being asked by other kids who want me to hack into a ex's email account - nothing (so far!) of the sort of thing that would get me dragged into a shadowy underworld.
hartator 10y ago
Except that the law is so complicated, the company might have itself asked you unlawful things unknowingly.
- DoofusOfDeath 10y ago
  I agree, but I don't think the OP was trying to include (practically) unknowable laws in his main point.
gutnor 10y ago
Probably, but you didn't realise. There are a lot of people interested that simply lack the technical insight to know exactly how to approach you or if what they want is even possible. If you are not the kind to boast about work at the pub, they will simply fail to find an opening that let them know: that their scheme is possible, that you can do it, and that you would do it. Of course, I comes from a relatively bad area too. It is filled with people that share the spirit of Valley Startup Founders: nothing is ever really idle chat, every conversation is an opportunity and every minute must be productive. Their business model and area of expertise are a lot more shady though.
- copperx 10y ago
  On that last line you're referring to MLMs, right?

pavel_lishin 10y ago

I wonder what happens once you've already done the illegal thing, perhaps not even realizing that what you're doing is against the law.

k-mcgrady 10y ago
Ignorance is (generally) no excuse for breaking the law.

Intermernet 10y ago

I have this wonderful image of the family member in question, after Jacques said "No", trying the Ferris Bueller method of putting the cars on blocks, putting them in reverse, and locking down the accelerator.

bigjimmyk3 10y ago

My alma mater added a course requirement on professional ethics shortly after I left, partly due to multiple "incidents" at the university (not because of me... this time). Ethics is the difference between Dr. Spock and Dr. Frankenstein.

dsacco 10y ago
Dr. Frankenstein really wasn't that bad a guy. Mary Shelley consistently portrays him as a tragic character beset with guilt and grief for his experiments. He started out with the same natural longing many people have - to understand life and how it works. He lost his way, but he's quite a sympathetic character. You'd have to be a hard consequentialist to consider him unethical.

edw519 10y ago

My first co-founder was a brilliant engineer. One day I borrowed his car (a fancy late model sports car) for an errand because mine was blocked in. But the speedometer didn't work which made for some strange driving. When I asked him about it, he said, "Oh I disconnected it to improve it's resale value." We didn't remain together much longer. To this day, the value of a relationship with another businessperson = sum(assets) * EthicsFactor. EthicsFactor is 1 or 0. There is no in-between. Nice post, Jacques. It sure feels nice to comment in one your threads again.

taylorwc 10y ago
I love the formula you pose for thinking about this, and it's so true. Ethical behavior is binary, and a lack of ethical behavior isn't compartmentalized into one small area.
- graphitezepp 10y ago
  My moral system is so incredibly far away from viewing ethical behavior as binary that I can not relate to how someone would think that way. How do you place the line, where an instance of behavior you don't agree with makes you view someone as not ethical?
  - tuxxy 10y ago
    When you come from a place of privilege, it's easy to think human behavior is binary. For example, I would never steal a car! I can afford one, and to be quite honest, I don't need one. If I was deep into poverty, and needed a car for a job or to be able to provide some function to my family, that temptation might be there. It might be so great that it distorts the ethics of the person so much so they don't see it as unethical. Instead of stealing a car, they're borrowing it or the other person can just get another one. They would legitimately not see wrong because they feel like they have been wronged when they do not have the ability to get a car. TL;DR: Ethics are not binary. To even suggest that undermines the entirety of the philosophy dedicated to studying it.

wohlergehen 10y ago

There is an incredibly powerful German anti-war poem titled "say no" [1], that I instantaneously associated with the title. I think it's important for people involved with technology to have an ethical compass that of course includes criminal activities, but ideally also goes beyond that. 1: http://www.swans.com/library/art13/xxx123.html http://www.swans.com/library/art13/xxx123.html

gregwtmtno 10y ago

It's not just crime that you shouldn't use your skills for, it's all immoral or unethical activity. It's a surprisingly urgent problem in a field that enables mass government surveillance, dark patterns, big data aggregation, and cyber warfare. As an attorney, I wonder if software engineers should consider implementing some kind of rules for professional conduct and an organization to enforce it like the lawyers have.

jacques_chester 10y ago
There is such a code, jointly published by the ACM and IEEE CS[0]. It's simple and sound. In many ways anyone of ordinary decency can intuit the principles. It has no teeth and I expect it never will, despite numerous attempts by national bodies to entrench an accounting/legal/medical style of enforceable professional standards. [0] http://www.acm.org/about/se-code http://www.acm.org/about/se-code
- sevensor 10y ago
  This was entirely moderate, reasonable, and well thought-out! To be honest, I was expecting vague committe-written platitudes. I was wrong. This is well worth a read.
  - jasonkostempski 10y ago
    You'd need some insane malpractice insurance if you agreed to some of the things in there. The first rule alone is way too broad "Accept full responsibility for their own work."
    - sevensor 10y ago
      That's an interesting point. I wasn't reading this as a binding legal framework. That would be a recipe for disaster. This document is full of sound ethical advice. It's not unreasonable to say that you're morally responsible for the code you write. If you work for a bad company that does bad things, I'm going to judge you for that, just as I expect to be judged. And this document sets up a reasonable standard by which we can judge software developers. But legally? That's a whole other can of worms. Giving this document the force of law would just make it easier to shift the blame in a crooked organization onto the people writing its software. At most, I could see affirmation of this document and an oath to abide by it as the basis for membership in a voluntary professional organization.

codezero 10y ago

I've had people try to get me to do illegal things for 25 years. It was much more aggressive and enticing when I was young. It's easier for adult me to recognize and reject these advances than it was for teenage me. It wasn't always even money that was on the table, but recognition and acceptance which can make you do crazy things.

saosebastiao 10y ago

I don't wish for the feeling of desperation on anybody. Even for someone who has morals, desperation can warp your sense of reality. Back when I was a truck driver, I had a substantial offer from someone to transport a duffle bag in my utility lock box across state lines. I was desperate, and it was a lot of money. I rationalized, told myself it was just gonna be some drugs, and I never get pulled over anyway. No big deal, I told myself. Until I grabbed the bag, and realized it wasn't drugs. Took a peek once I was out of sight, and it was definitely submachine guns. I started panicking and about 10 miles down the road came up with my plan. I pulled over, punctured a cooling hose, ran my engine til I overheated, and then called my contact and told him I had overheated and steamed out all my coolant and wasn't going to make it. That interaction was probably the most terrifying experience of my life. Never again.

drzaiusapelord 10y ago
Depends on the drugs. A duffel bag of weed isn't going to hurt anyone. A duffel bag of meth or oxy will most likely kill many more people than a bag of machine guns. Unless your country was in a civil war at the time, I imagine those weapons never saw use. Hard drugs, on the other hand, get consumed and regularly kill people and destroy lives.
- saosebastiao 10y ago
  Don't be naive. I heard guns like these from my bedroom window growing up, and that was in Stockton CA. And the Central Valley, along with AZ, NM, and TX have a huge problem with transporting guns to Mexico where they are in a civil war.
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  Those guns were probably going to the drug cartels in Mexico.
taway_1212 10y ago
> Took a peek once I was out of sight, and it was definitely submachine guns Can't you order that stuff over the mail in the US?

fiatjaf 10y ago

If you're offered a job from Facebook should you say "no"?

Dzugaru 10y ago
Yes.
beobab 10y ago
If you believe that Facebook is unethical, yes. Stand up to what you believe. It's harder in the short run, but it's much easier so sleep at nights in the long run. I suspect lots of people would like to go back and change things they did.
sevensor 10y ago
I certainly would. Strip-mining social graphs might have some interesting technical challenges, but I'd go back to factory work before doing that.
throwaway6390 10y ago
Yes, same goes for Amazon.
gnode 10y ago
Up to you. Follow your heart.

HillaryBriss 10y ago

This article enters a difficult grey area. What should one do when a family member requests something illegal and there's a possibility of retribution for refusing to do it? The solution: lying can be an acceptable way to avoid unethical behavior. I applaud the author for doing the right thing. I'm not sure I would have been as ethical. That said, my favorite line is: Salmon, French cheese, party time.

sphinx65 10y ago

What an incoherent article

aub3bhat 10y ago

Meh, this is just ridiculous moral posturing. Which laws are scared and which aren't? Are you telling me that you never violated copyright, or say helped a friend install torrenting software ("technically clueless people who will attempt to use you and your skills as tools to commit some crime"). "Just say no" was the famous anti-drug slogan, we all know how that War On Drugs attitude ended up afflicting american society. Finally even Supreme Court justices find this type of hard-line attitude ridiculous. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/us/politics/supreme-court-naturalization.html?_r=0&mtrref=t.co&mtrref=www.nytimes.com&gwh=5EB6517587B933A83FACF0BCCB8DCC6A&gwt=pay https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/us/politics/supreme-court...

adrianmonk 10y ago
Even if you don't think 100% of laws are sacred, you can still draw a dividing line somewhere. A rational, consistent dividing line. Anyway, the guy made it clear he had ethical problems with it because he could see how it was unfair to whoever ended up buying the car. So he wasn't avoiding it just because it was illegal.
- yannyu 10y ago
  Can you? I'm not sure most people are as consistent with their views on what laws are "good" or "bad" as you might think. Most people tend to judge the morality of their actions by intent, and judge the morality of others' actions by consequence, and thus form a picture of "I am more moral than most people". I'm sure that a deep analysis of pretty much anyone's morality will show a few logical inconsistencies.
  - foreigner 10y ago
    > Most people tend to judge the morality of their actions by intent, and judge the morality of others' actions by consequence, and thus form a picture of "I am more moral than most people". Wow that really moved me.
- aub3bhat 10y ago
  He is making a simple cost-benefit trade-off that everyone including criminals routinely do. The only difference is he pontificating and posing as a saint who made some great sacrifice.

iliketosleep 10y ago

I believe the author’s post is a little condescending and ignores the nuances of such situations. Sure, it's easy enough to "just say no" if you're already pretty successful and have a lot to lose by engaging in illegal activity. But what about the talented hacker who has failed career wise and is going through a really tough phase financially. It might seem that there's everything to gain and nothing to lose. If you have a choice of being able feed your family or “just say no” to modifying an odometer, what would you choose?

senko 10y ago
> If you have a choice of being able feed your family or “just say no” to modifying an odometer, what would you choose? Let me generalize that for you: If you have a choice of being able to feed your family or "just say no" to commit a crime, what would you choose?
- oblib 10y ago
  Depends. If it's a Robin Hood scenario it can be morally justifiable. If the crime is stealing from anyone, rich or poor, so I can live easier, then no.
ifoundthetao 10y ago
Are you kidding me? I would just say no. It's much more to lose your family and life by going to jail than it is to use public services to get assistance for food and shelter. Even if you don't go to jail, the amount lost in legal expenses are going to far outweigh the money brought in from said activities. Moreover, it's going to seriously impair your ability to get a job in the future, in the particular field that you've currently been experiencing failure in.
- Someone 10y ago
  That assumes you live in a country where "public services to get assistance for food and shelter" exist. Not everybody is so lucky. It certainly isn't always _just_ say no.

atmosx 10y ago

> I grew up in Amsterdam, which is a pretty rough town by Dutch Standards. I stopped reading after the first phrase because I disagree with the premise. Amsterdam ranks 12th in the "most liveable cities" according to the Telegraph[1]. [1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/galleries/The-worlds-most-liveable-cities/amsterdam/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/galleries/The-worlds-most-...

educar 10y ago
Did you miss the "Dutch Standards" part?
- atmosx 10y ago
  Yes, I missed that part.
orbitur 10y ago
You even quoted "by Dutch standards" so I'm not sure what you think you're pointing out.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  Amsterdam was also much seedier 25-30 years ago.
  - fjdlwlv 10y ago
    It was much speedier before the new odomoter laws

DonHopkins 10y ago

So that explains why that taxi cab was driving backwards down my street in Amsterdam. I thought it was because it was a one-way street that was blocked around the corner.

kalmari 10y ago
i was thinking pulling a Ferris Bueller's Day Off. you would probably have to take it out and apart and get another one and reverse engineer it and maybe get your hands on some schematics.

jawns 10y ago

> Just say no. And lie if you have to. I'm extremely interested in the modern morality of lying, because on the one hand, we find some lies to be so heinous that they are career-ending (plagiarism among them), and some lies to be so necessary that _not_ lying is viewed as heinous (e.g. "Would you lie to an S.S. soldier about whether you were hiding Jews in your house?") Here, Jacques spends the entire blog post trying to persuade people to avoid immoral behavior -- but then advocates lying. Is lying not immoral anymore? I would be very interested in knowing what percentage of people view lying as objectively wrong, and how that has changed over time.

zdean 10y ago
Killing someone is a bad outcome no matter how you look at it. But we make a moral distinction between defensive and offensive killing and allow for "justifiable homicide". Similarly, I think the same test would hold true for lying. If you're doing it offensively, it's bad and wrong. If you're doing it defensively (as is the case in this story), I don't think anyone would question that it was morally justifiable.
yannyu 10y ago
In philosophy of ethics, this is still something people think about. In utilitarian style ethics, the ends (mostly) justify the means, so if in lying you are overall increasing utility/happiness for more people than if you told the truth, then it would be considered an ethical action. By contrast, Kant's Categorical Imperative states "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law". By that logic, lying is viewed as an unethical action, because if everyone lied then no one would trust each other, resulting in an unworkable universe. There's a lot more to both sides and many attempts to create more nuanced systems, but ethics is and will likely continue to be an important field of study with not a lot of hard answers.
- jessaustin 10y ago
  ...if everyone lied then no one would trust each other, resulting in an unworkable universe. The universe worked just fine before humans invented proscriptions against lying. Biological organisms lie to each other all the time. Predators appear harmless; prey appear harmful, etc. Actually most humans would be well-served by both lying more and being more perceptive of the lies that are told them.

pjungwir 10y ago

I have a story of temptation and pressure---not as good as Jacques's but maybe interesting anyway. I was leaving grad school (not for tech) and getting back into programming. I had two new kids, and I was really ready to stop living on $21k/yr (my student stipend), but I didn't have a lot of work yet, and I wasn't sure how my 5-year hiatus would look. I had done a few projects for a small agency, and the owner was having me spec & quote work for potential new customers. One of these customers wanted us to build a "dashboard" to control a fleet of machines that would generate fake reviews for sites like Yelp or Amazon. I'm not even sure if that is illegal, but it didn't seem good. I told him it didn't sound like work we could do. If he had been just my customer, it would have been easy, but it raised my anxiety to say it to my customer's customer. I think Jacques's conclusion about "a bad beginning" is very wise, and I'm glad he had to foresight to see all that. I hope his story helps keep other people out of trouble. His writing it up is really a gift to them.

educar 10y ago

I am curious how much this extends to: A) Facebook and Google mining people's data B) Cisco building extensive survellance systems C) Microsoft was blatantly abusing it's monopoly I could go on but all these had many many engineers involved. And best of it all, most of it was .. legal. When something is outright illegal, it's easy to say no.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

liotier 10y ago

Just say no, but not for moral reasons: say no because, unless you are absolutely desperate, it is the most profitable choice. Relationships with dangerous people who gain blackmail leverage over you will end badly - probably badly enough to offset all prior gains.

cuspycode 10y ago
Isn't ultimate profit the same as moral reasons?

whatupmd 10y ago

No, you should not be breaking the law.

dsp1234 10y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_from_Birmingham_Jail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_from_Birmingham_Jail One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
- icebraining 10y ago
  Regarding the Boston Tea Party, These are the folks who led the Revolution. These were not the downtrodden. These were not the oppressed. These were people who stood to lose huge amounts of wealth because of the King's policies. And so they fought a Revolution. Which was, by the way, not very popular. Sixty percent of the colonists either were neutral or opposed to the Revolution. http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2016/12/bruce_bueno_de_1.html http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2016/12/bruce_bueno_de_1.ht...
  - dsp1234 10y ago
    I hope I never live in a place where only people of certain economic class are allowed, or not allowed, to fight unjust laws. I also hope I never live in a place where because the majority are neutral or opposed, that unjust laws go unquestioned.
    - gled 10y ago
      Are there any places in the world where these two things aren't true?
    - zepto 10y ago

ericb 10y ago

Great advice. I once let a company license legitimate software (a history cleaner before browsers offered this functionality) I wrote and they wrapped it in adware and caused a lot of people headaches. It felt gross. They didn't make it clear what they were going to do with it beforehand, but there were signs I should have noticed--their business model description sounded too good to be true. You can't just wash your hands of these things and have a clear conscience because you didn't do it personally. The low point was finding their adware on my mom's computer. Personally, I made it a rule after that to avoid business relations with the morally questionable. They drag you down.

charles-salvia 10y ago

Ethics aside, at a certain point, you realize you can make a lot more money legally and legitimately using your technical skills than through any sort of "clever" technical scheme that involves hacking odometers or scamming people in some way.

eldavido 10y ago
Yep, because we (US/Western Europe) have a good legal system that supports this. This is also why we don't have Nigerian pirates in the US. It's also why our math/science teachers suck. The good ones would rather work in the private sector. They had great math teachers in the soviet union because they didn't have AmaGooFaceSoft competing for talent.
nommm-nommm 10y ago
Case in point: https://www.wired.com/2008/05/man-allegedly-b/ https://www.wired.com/2008/05/man-allegedly-b/

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

mathattack 10y ago

I had similar in school. A friend who was applying to grad school thought it would be easier to break into school systems than to study for class. I told him no. He eventually found his way into law school and politics.

SadWebDeveloper 10y ago

meh... low risk = low reward, high risk = higher reward. Morality/Ethics is POV problem.

nnd 10y ago

I've never done anything explicitly illegal in the context of programming, but some opportunities which fall in the gray area of legality are just too tempting to pass upon. I did consulting in reverse-engineering and provided documentation and tool too exploit certain vulnerabilities. Provided that I never used those tool myself for profit, the liability falls onto my clients, considering that I also signed a contract explicitly stating that. The reason why I loved doing this work so much is because it was highly challenging, considerably more complicated than any software engineering job I ever had before. And more importantly I was extremely good at it, and more often than not I discovered something which no one ever did before. It felt like a mix of software development and scientific research. Unfortunately when it comes to reverse-engineering, there are not many strictly "white hat" applications for it, besides pentesting and security audit. And naturally I missed building things and creating something which would actually make people's lives better.

israrkhan 10y ago

During my undergrad I took a course "Ethical and Legal dimensions of Engineering". At that time I thought it was boring, but now I realizes how important such a course can be. A lot has changed over the past decade. Engineers have much more influence over the society than it used to be. There is definitely a need to develop a global code of conduct that does not change across geographic boundaries. All engineers should be taught that.

oblib 10y ago

When I was a teen I was offered cash to turn back speedometers many times, and always refused. This started after I set the speedo on my own car back to zero, but I was customizing it for myself, not flipping it for a fast buck, and it was already 25 years old anyway. Back around the turn of the century I was offered a bit of cash to build a "Revenge Porn" site. The guy who called me sounded very mild and calm, even nice. He did say he'd been turned down a few times but he also seemed determined to make the site. I had never heard of this idea at the time and was pretty surprised with the concept. I turned him down, of course, but what surprised me most was how many friends and acquaintances told me I should've taken the cash when I told them the story. I'm 58 years old now and the number of people who've asked me to help with their scams, and have tried to scam me, is far more than I can remember. With all that experience I can spot them easily now but it never ceases to amaze me how willing some people are to do that.

shanemhansen 10y ago
The only scam I've ever been asked about was at an SEO conference. I was talking about how awesome selenium and browser automation was. Someone asked if I could make selenium log into gmail and click "not spam".
- oblib 10y ago
  That is hilarious. I would've been speechless, and at the same time resisting the urge to punch them in the nose :D
- jessaustin 10y ago
  What are the odds, that a potential scam would be proposed at an SEO conference?
55555 10y ago
> what surprised me most was how many friends and acquaintances told me I should've taken the cash when I told them the story. This has been my experience as well. It doesn't inspire confidence in people.
10y ago

okreallywtf 10y ago

This must be a much more difficult offer to turn down if you are in an economically depressed nation where job prospects are not good. In the US, even though there are plenty of rough areas, if you are skilled and/or well educated you have a lot of opportunities so it is a lot easier to say no. If its the difference between basic necessities for your family or not its not so easy to "just say no".

gpsx 10y ago

Is it safe to report the crimes of dangerous people publicly and non-anonymously?

jewbacca 10y ago
Sorry: there is not an will never be a general answer to that question.
- gpsx 10y ago
  I hope not.

ryanisnan 10y ago

Are you not worried that your family member reads hacker news? ;)

jacquesm 10y ago
He's dead. His son is also dead (shot by one of his buddies as a result of a disagreement over the division of the loot from a very large robbery). But his wife and daughter are still alive so I wrote the article in such a way that it is not easy to pinpoint who this is about.
- jessaustin 10y ago
  You do link to this discussion from TFA, and you can't have had that many relatives who were shot...
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    I don't think my family is reading my blog. Let's just say we're not exactly close for obvious reasons. But no need to make it easy on outsiders to make the link.

cuspycode 10y ago

TL;DR A person is tempted to make financial gains through corruption, but says no for moral reasons. News at 11.

trveskyll 10y ago

I was involved in the warez scene as a cracker and a trader around the turn of the century. In a way it was a fun scene with groups that had strict hierarchies as in companies, the community aspect was strong, you could earn fame if you worked hard enough for it and had the skill, which was all pretty fascinating for us youngsters spending their nights in front of their PCs. In hindsight though, it was flatout stupid to participate in illegal activities over unencrypted IRC channels and FTP sites located at universities with hundreds of users. There were bouncers/tcp-tunnels and stuff, but many didn't care to use them. Things got scary when some of my affiliates got busted in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Buccaneer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Buccaneer. Thankfully I got out without getting my ass burned.

mpeg 10y ago
I ran a topsite for a while, as you say probably a stupid thing to do, but it was fun and a good learning experience.
guitarbill 10y ago
> In hindsight though, it was flatout stupid to participate in illegal activities over unencrypted IRC channels and FTP sites This also shocked me, and taught me a valuable lesson about politics. I had thought the warez scene was a meritocracy, but affecting change was so hard. Introducing new tools/processes/encryption was almost impossible. New standards IMO only seemed to happen because P2P was putting out stuff with great quality/smaller file size because of new encoders. In the end, I still believe the scene has done more for consumers/media consumption than anything else (maybe youtube?). I doubt we'd see streaming offerings like this if it hadn't existed. So it was illegal, but also morally right. And pirating remains the only way to receive a great education for free, for all.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- trveskyll 10y ago
  interesting view regarding the effects on media. concerning the educational aspect, i'm not sure what exactly you mean. while today e.g. software engineering knowledge is all out there, back then there was no github and stackoverflow and i had to learn a lot from books (basic, c, assembler). the freely available resources were lower quality, that is tutorials by crackers or demo scene coders. i completely lost interest in pirated media these days as they provides minimal value to me. the few albums/movies/games which are relevant to me, i'm easily able to buy. the only exception might indeed be textbooks on specialized technical topics, which often aren't of interest for the warez scene audience.

orasis 10y ago

I've seen plenty of people fall into shady karma, especially my (ahem) peers in the early peer-to-peer space. Other than Zooko and Roger Dingeldine it seems most of the guys had to make a bunch of bullshit philosophical contortions about how associating with lowlifes and mobsters was OK. Some of those guys made money, a lot didn't, but their karma will forever be sullied.

clarkmoody 10y ago

I think the quickest way to stifle innovation in software (or drive it out of the country) would be to implement a professional organization.

kangdolit 10y ago

I've had a situation like this before. A friend referred two commodity traders to me. They wanted to contract me for SEO purposes. Why? When you searched for their names on Google/Bing, articles about fraud charges came up. They wanted me to push them off the front page. I was able to do that kind of work, because I had done it before for more benign situations. My friend told me I could name my price, because they were outrageously rich (apparently from their fraud schemes). I spoke with them over the phone. Their reason for wanting to do this was: "It's a real bummer when you're dating a hot chick and she looks you up and sees all these negative articles online." Bullshit. I smelled it immediately. I didn't need abetting and conspiracy charges leveled against me. Even if I had agreed to do it, I doubt they would have paid me in full. I mean, I had evidence of their alleged fraudulent behavior. The problem is that sometimes the fraudsters are really good, and what looks like a legitimate job has a less obvious ulterior use.

Learn2win 10y ago

Sometimes You just have to follow your heart. It's not about getting it right; it's about doing what's right.

hvo 10y ago

This is probably one of the best articles i have read on Hacker News.Just straightforward.Keep it up.

everybodyknows 10y ago

In certain cultures, someone who won't steal from a rich employer to help family members is considered disloyal, and has reason to fear ostracism. And this in a culture where family connections are paramount. Solution of one such employee, somewhere in the western Pacific: Tell any lie necessary to hide the fact.