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Often this stuff is used for surveillance. If you choose to study this area, please be careful how you apply your knowledge. There are plenty of positive ways t

Often this stuff is used for surveillance. If you choose to study this area, please be careful how you apply your knowledge. There are plenty of positive ways to use it: contributing content classification systems to sci-hub or libgen, building tools for the disabled, automating multilingual visual design aesthetics with computational linguistics and machine learning...

ngcc_hk 9y ago
Whilst I understand the concern but just Internet is now for control and tracking (chi-na is more obvious but post someone we all know better), we cannot stop the wheel. Not knowing is even worst.
- amelius 9y ago
  We need an equivalent of the hippocratic oath for software engineers: I swear by Hephaestus, the ugly god of crafts, that I shall not use my skills for controlling and tracking ...
  - myaso 9y ago
    Great, these who want to build these things will simply hire people who don't subscribe to this oath ... And now the organization will be populated by a whole tribe of people who have no qualms about doing this -- does that sound like something that will make things better? Aside: the book looked interesting. Skimmed it, beautiful typesetting, not gratuitously mathematical, looked readable -- I may be wrong, but it's just a exercise of adding awareness of it's existence to me.
    - amelius 9y ago
      > Great, these who want to build these things will simply hire people who don't subscribe to this oath ... How many doctors are willing to give up their title to do unethical stuff? An ethical code will change people's perception, and that's a big thing. It will morph the perception of Google and Facebook from cool tech companies into dark places where no decent people want to work; unless of course these companies are willing to change. And there will be a huge effect on politics, other businesses, and media.
      - myaso 9y ago
        Um, how are they supposed to make money if they don't track you to a certain extent? Do they have flaws? Yes -- it's not funny what kind of things you can target for based AdWords, their internal staff probably aren't creative enough to think up ways in which their tools can be used to inflict misery. Software engineers aren't soldiers, doctors, or civil servants what kind of ethical code do you expect? How will people be held accountable to it? What will happen to these who make transgressions?
        randcraw 9y ago
        And how are cigarette companies going to make money if they are hindered in addicting you and giving you cancer? Legally of course. Software engineers are surrogates for ALL jobs because software is used everywhere. When we serve medicine, we should be obliged to take the Hippocratic oath. When we serve the military or intel agencies (with a security clearance), we ARE obliged to take an formal oath of secrecy. IMHO, many other S/W roles bear no less responsibility. I think it's time that we software infrastructuralists take our role behind the scenes as seriously as those on the front lines do.
        myaso 9y ago
        Really? As a former smoker I don't place cigarettes and software in even remotely the same category. Ok -- question. How will this be enforced? Legal/Medical/Eng have licenses to practice you can lose these licenses. I don't need anybody's approval to write code, all the tools are available for free. You are naive if you think some feel good words on paper can make this work without some force backing these words.
        randcraw 9y ago
        Let's say you're a programmer working for a tobacco company. Or for an alcohol distillery making only the most down-market 'ripple' products, inevitably consumed only by destitute inebriates dwelling in the dungeons of life. Do you really imagine that you bear no responsibility for the impact of your work when you enable the perpetuation of pain? I've worked for several past employers whom I now disrespect (and whose leadership since earned them this disrepute), so this issue isn't merely hypothetical for me. The principal question isn't about policing and punishment. It's about civic duty as an enlightened human being. Each of us either takes responsibility for our actions and does no harm, or we willingly do. On our part, that necessitates continuous diligence taking an interest in how the products of our work affects others. Software has become an inescapable part of our society's technical and social infrastructure. Like scientists and engineers, S/W pros bear responsibility for how our work is used. And how it's abused. That's all I'm saying. Each of us has to work out the details for ourself, but dismissing them outright shirks that duty, and I believe, diminishes our humanity bit by bit.
    - matt4077 9y ago
      > Great, these who want to build these things will simply hire people who don't subscribe to this oath .. Morally, this argument quite obviously fails because it could be used to justify anything. Practically, we see many professions where people of character have successfully resisted temptation: every government employee who is not corrupt comes to mind. And even if they'll just hire the next guy/gal: If you say no to an offer, you were, by definition, their top choice. That next one down the ladder will therefore be slightly worse, making such businesses less profitable.
      - myaso 9y ago
        Top choice based on a search with finite resources, maybe there is a better top choice if they spend a bit more time -- one that is also more agreeable. I'll return with a question -- Is resisting temptation the path of least resistance? What are the odds that the personality trait you describe also overlaps with the person being in a position of enough authority to actually matter?
  - Jedi72 9y ago
    Early in my career (it began after a discussion in a tutorial during my undergrad) I made a choice to never to use my engineering skills to build weapons. I don't believe its a morally justifiable choice in this century. It's not like I have been forced to starve as a result but it did reduce a few opportunities.
    - dominotw 9y ago
      > I don't believe its a morally justifiable choice in this century. Could we say that nuclear(and other) weapons are responsible for the bringing unprecedented world peace to the world?
      - glup 9y ago
        Yes, until they don't.
      - matt4077 9y ago
        Probably not. There are many countries not engaging in warfare even though they do not have nuclear weapons. Belgium and the Netherlands, for example, do not possess them, nor is there an obvious mechanism why the US' (or Britain's/France's) nuclear arsenal would discourage a war between these nations. The US, meanwhile, has been engaged in wars almost non-stop since WW2. It's "unprecedented world peace" for for only a select few nations. And, most importantly, the costs of failure have gone up dramatically with the invention of nuclear weapons. The Cuban Missile Crises is just one of several near-catastrophic events. Sooner or later, we will get a madman in a position of power, fall victim to a misunderstanding, or suffer a technical failure. And that'll be that...
        dominotw 9y ago
        https://persuademepolitics.com/2016/03/23/now-the-most-peaceful-time-in-world-history/ https://persuademepolitics.com/2016/03/23/now-the-most-peace...
        gspetr 9y ago
        There would be nothing to be gained in that war for either country. You don't need territory (at least at a price that steep) and you certainly don't need slave labor in 2018.
  - pmcjones 9y ago
    See the ACM's code of ethics, which they are in the process of updating: https://dl.acm.org/ft_gateway.cfm?id=3173016&ftid=1936873&dwn=1 https://dl.acm.org/ft_gateway.cfm?id=3173016&ftid=1936873&dw... .
wdiamond 9y ago
Fast programming equals surveilance. Programs must be asserted at some point in op cycle. The point of privacy is not about capturing software device neither parsing software device, it is when to use an external(internet) service.
brian_spiering 9y ago
Inventing ships also invented shipwreks

ngcc_hk 9y ago

Whilst I understand the concern but just Internet is now for control and tracking (chi-na is more obvious but post someone we all know better), we cannot stop the wheel. Not knowing is even worst.

amelius 9y ago
We need an equivalent of the hippocratic oath for software engineers: I swear by Hephaestus, the ugly god of crafts, that I shall not use my skills for controlling and tracking ...
- myaso 9y ago
  Great, these who want to build these things will simply hire people who don't subscribe to this oath ... And now the organization will be populated by a whole tribe of people who have no qualms about doing this -- does that sound like something that will make things better? Aside: the book looked interesting. Skimmed it, beautiful typesetting, not gratuitously mathematical, looked readable -- I may be wrong, but it's just a exercise of adding awareness of it's existence to me.
  - amelius 9y ago
    > Great, these who want to build these things will simply hire people who don't subscribe to this oath ... How many doctors are willing to give up their title to do unethical stuff? An ethical code will change people's perception, and that's a big thing. It will morph the perception of Google and Facebook from cool tech companies into dark places where no decent people want to work; unless of course these companies are willing to change. And there will be a huge effect on politics, other businesses, and media.
    - myaso 9y ago
      Um, how are they supposed to make money if they don't track you to a certain extent? Do they have flaws? Yes -- it's not funny what kind of things you can target for based AdWords, their internal staff probably aren't creative enough to think up ways in which their tools can be used to inflict misery. Software engineers aren't soldiers, doctors, or civil servants what kind of ethical code do you expect? How will people be held accountable to it? What will happen to these who make transgressions?
      - randcraw 9y ago
        And how are cigarette companies going to make money if they are hindered in addicting you and giving you cancer? Legally of course. Software engineers are surrogates for ALL jobs because software is used everywhere. When we serve medicine, we should be obliged to take the Hippocratic oath. When we serve the military or intel agencies (with a security clearance), we ARE obliged to take an formal oath of secrecy. IMHO, many other S/W roles bear no less responsibility. I think it's time that we software infrastructuralists take our role behind the scenes as seriously as those on the front lines do.
        myaso 9y ago
        Really? As a former smoker I don't place cigarettes and software in even remotely the same category. Ok -- question. How will this be enforced? Legal/Medical/Eng have licenses to practice you can lose these licenses. I don't need anybody's approval to write code, all the tools are available for free. You are naive if you think some feel good words on paper can make this work without some force backing these words.
        randcraw 9y ago
        Let's say you're a programmer working for a tobacco company. Or for an alcohol distillery making only the most down-market 'ripple' products, inevitably consumed only by destitute inebriates dwelling in the dungeons of life. Do you really imagine that you bear no responsibility for the impact of your work when you enable the perpetuation of pain? I've worked for several past employers whom I now disrespect (and whose leadership since earned them this disrepute), so this issue isn't merely hypothetical for me. The principal question isn't about policing and punishment. It's about civic duty as an enlightened human being. Each of us either takes responsibility for our actions and does no harm, or we willingly do. On our part, that necessitates continuous diligence taking an interest in how the products of our work affects others. Software has become an inescapable part of our society's technical and social infrastructure. Like scientists and engineers, S/W pros bear responsibility for how our work is used. And how it's abused. That's all I'm saying. Each of us has to work out the details for ourself, but dismissing them outright shirks that duty, and I believe, diminishes our humanity bit by bit.
  - matt4077 9y ago
    > Great, these who want to build these things will simply hire people who don't subscribe to this oath .. Morally, this argument quite obviously fails because it could be used to justify anything. Practically, we see many professions where people of character have successfully resisted temptation: every government employee who is not corrupt comes to mind. And even if they'll just hire the next guy/gal: If you say no to an offer, you were, by definition, their top choice. That next one down the ladder will therefore be slightly worse, making such businesses less profitable.
    - myaso 9y ago
      Top choice based on a search with finite resources, maybe there is a better top choice if they spend a bit more time -- one that is also more agreeable. I'll return with a question -- Is resisting temptation the path of least resistance? What are the odds that the personality trait you describe also overlaps with the person being in a position of enough authority to actually matter?
- Jedi72 9y ago
  Early in my career (it began after a discussion in a tutorial during my undergrad) I made a choice to never to use my engineering skills to build weapons. I don't believe its a morally justifiable choice in this century. It's not like I have been forced to starve as a result but it did reduce a few opportunities.
  - dominotw 9y ago
    > I don't believe its a morally justifiable choice in this century. Could we say that nuclear(and other) weapons are responsible for the bringing unprecedented world peace to the world?
    - glup 9y ago
      Yes, until they don't.
    - matt4077 9y ago
      Probably not. There are many countries not engaging in warfare even though they do not have nuclear weapons. Belgium and the Netherlands, for example, do not possess them, nor is there an obvious mechanism why the US' (or Britain's/France's) nuclear arsenal would discourage a war between these nations. The US, meanwhile, has been engaged in wars almost non-stop since WW2. It's "unprecedented world peace" for for only a select few nations. And, most importantly, the costs of failure have gone up dramatically with the invention of nuclear weapons. The Cuban Missile Crises is just one of several near-catastrophic events. Sooner or later, we will get a madman in a position of power, fall victim to a misunderstanding, or suffer a technical failure. And that'll be that...
      - dominotw 9y ago
        https://persuademepolitics.com/2016/03/23/now-the-most-peaceful-time-in-world-history/ https://persuademepolitics.com/2016/03/23/now-the-most-peace...
      - gspetr 9y ago
        There would be nothing to be gained in that war for either country. You don't need territory (at least at a price that steep) and you certainly don't need slave labor in 2018.
- pmcjones 9y ago
  See the ACM's code of ethics, which they are in the process of updating: https://dl.acm.org/ft_gateway.cfm?id=3173016&ftid=1936873&dwn=1 https://dl.acm.org/ft_gateway.cfm?id=3173016&ftid=1936873&dw... .

wdiamond 9y ago

Fast programming equals surveilance. Programs must be asserted at some point in op cycle. The point of privacy is not about capturing software device neither parsing software device, it is when to use an external(internet) service.

brian_spiering 9y ago

Inventing ships also invented shipwreks