4 ms·

I wonder how often such "mistakes" are actual some state-bound to secrecy hacker doing the ethical thing. So here is to the nameless, rotting in some oubliette

I wonder how often such "mistakes" are actual some state-bound to secrecy hacker doing the ethical thing. So here is to the nameless, rotting in some oubliette, making mistakes, so others can return to theire familys at night, a secret brotherhood of servants to ruthless masters. Cheers.

archgoon 9y ago
For clarity, the mistake LifeLiverTransp is referring to is: > The only thing that prevented an explosion was a mistake in the attackers’ computer code, the investigators said.
- larkeith 9y ago
  Slightly more detailed: > The only thing that prevented significant damage was a bug in the attackers’ computer code that inadvertently shut down the plant’s production systems.
dgut 9y ago
Typo... oops.
wallace_f 9y ago
I had the same thought; but then I read about $500 million in charitable relief to Haiti disappearing, or Harvard faculty lying to the public about the health and safety of lead or sugar because they received some bribe, and I don't know what to think.
- larkeith 9y ago
  Everyone is unique, and choose differently based on their history and context.
  - wallace_f 9y ago
    Yea. But sometimes it just seems so shocking that some people who could act with such humanitarian goals share this world with others who just don't care.
jack6e 9y ago
Probably not many. The most recent SO developer survey said only 20% of respondents thought responsibility for unethical code fell on developers, compared to 80% thinking designers/managers should be responsible. That's globally. I imagine the sense of responsibility decreases in ethically-gray areas like nation-state warfare against adversaries, and among developers working in strongly hierarchical, military(-esque) environments, for autocratic regimes focused on destroying national/ethnic/religious enemies (as this appears to have been done by).
Nomentatus 9y ago
Worthy thought, Germany suffered a lot of this in WWII, with Russians finding dud bombs disabled at the factory that included notes like: "Cheers comrades! This dud is a gift from now-disbanded Mechanics Union 456 of Stuttgardt!"
- tomjakubowski 9y ago
  That's great. Do you have a source where I can read more on this? Googling has only turned up information on sabotage by forced (Polish, Jewish, etc.) labor at munitions factories, which is interesting in its own right, but not from begrudged ex-union workers from Germany.
  - Nomentatus 9y ago
    A biography of a WWII Russian fighter pilot, was the source for the cited instance, as I recall. Red Star Airacobra: Memoirs of a Soviet Fighter Ace 1941-45: v. 2 Evgeniy Mariinskiy Kindle book. Of course, there are many more: the brief resistance on D-Day from many non-German troops counts, the betrayal to the British embassy of Germany's rocket program, the Garbo mission (main agent betrayed program), Canaris maybe betraying Hitler from the start, Heisenberg's "miscalculation" and slowness that killed the Germany Atomic Bomb program (along with his offer of mutual sabotage to Bohr), etc.

archgoon 9y ago

For clarity, the mistake LifeLiverTransp is referring to is: > The only thing that prevented an explosion was a mistake in the attackers’ computer code, the investigators said.

larkeith 9y ago
Slightly more detailed: > The only thing that prevented significant damage was a bug in the attackers’ computer code that inadvertently shut down the plant’s production systems.

dgut 9y ago

Typo... oops.

wallace_f 9y ago

I had the same thought; but then I read about $500 million in charitable relief to Haiti disappearing, or Harvard faculty lying to the public about the health and safety of lead or sugar because they received some bribe, and I don't know what to think.

larkeith 9y ago
Everyone is unique, and choose differently based on their history and context.
- wallace_f 9y ago
  Yea. But sometimes it just seems so shocking that some people who could act with such humanitarian goals share this world with others who just don't care.

jack6e 9y ago

Probably not many. The most recent SO developer survey said only 20% of respondents thought responsibility for unethical code fell on developers, compared to 80% thinking designers/managers should be responsible. That's globally. I imagine the sense of responsibility decreases in ethically-gray areas like nation-state warfare against adversaries, and among developers working in strongly hierarchical, military(-esque) environments, for autocratic regimes focused on destroying national/ethnic/religious enemies (as this appears to have been done by).

Nomentatus 9y ago

Worthy thought, Germany suffered a lot of this in WWII, with Russians finding dud bombs disabled at the factory that included notes like: "Cheers comrades! This dud is a gift from now-disbanded Mechanics Union 456 of Stuttgardt!"

tomjakubowski 9y ago
That's great. Do you have a source where I can read more on this? Googling has only turned up information on sabotage by forced (Polish, Jewish, etc.) labor at munitions factories, which is interesting in its own right, but not from begrudged ex-union workers from Germany.
- Nomentatus 9y ago
  A biography of a WWII Russian fighter pilot, was the source for the cited instance, as I recall. Red Star Airacobra: Memoirs of a Soviet Fighter Ace 1941-45: v. 2 Evgeniy Mariinskiy Kindle book. Of course, there are many more: the brief resistance on D-Day from many non-German troops counts, the betrayal to the British embassy of Germany's rocket program, the Garbo mission (main agent betrayed program), Canaris maybe betraying Hitler from the start, Heisenberg's "miscalculation" and slowness that killed the Germany Atomic Bomb program (along with his offer of mutual sabotage to Bohr), etc.