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The specifics of this - the request to judge a prize one is clearly unqualified for - are we as software engineers particularly vulnerable to? Most people would

The specifics of this - the request to judge a prize one is clearly unqualified for - are we as software engineers particularly vulnerable to? Most people would, I think, conclude "this is fake, because why would I be asked to do this?". But I often think that as software engineers we fancy ourselves to have more insight into other fields than we really do. Does this ring true to anyone else?

pimmen 7y ago
It could be that they're setting up some new category related to tech or something, that would probably be my first attempt to rationalize why they sent the request to me. However, I think that a few minutes later I would've thought "but why would they ask an engineer and not an academic who has done research into this particular technology's contributions to economics?". But, yes, I believe that the fact that software is transforming so much stuff all the time and we developers get to work with experts from all kinds of fields if we're lucky like agriculture, medicine, geology, finance and what not can give us a false sense of actually being an authority on any of the things we write software for.
WAHa_06x36 7y ago
They were targeting cryptocurrency people, not software engineers. And cryptocurrency people very often have an immensely inflated opinion of their own knowledge of economics, so it's actually absolutely perfect bait.
jjoonathan 7y ago
Nearly every contest I've ever competed in has had judges who I didn't believe were vigorously qualified. Perhaps not in the final round, or in the most competitive sections, but they were there, somewhere, filling in the gaps. On the other side of the equation, I regularly got "please judge this contest" emails I wasn't qualified for while I was still in academia. Falling for this phish woudln't need to be a matter of inflating one's opinion of oneself, it could simply happen by knowing that at the low end of contests, the bar for judging is low.
wutbrodo 7y ago
> Does this ring true to anyone else Not to me, and that jumped out at me as the most bizarre part of the story. I have a lot more of an economics background than "having read some Paul Krugman articles", but I'd think that this was obviously a scam because there's no way in hell that that anyone in the world would think I should be judging a competition on economics.
michaelt 7y ago
Ah, but can you be sure you're unqualified to judge a prize you haven't heard of without first visiting their website and figuring out what the prize is about? Maybe the Adam Smith prize has a category for best embedded linux build system, or best strong beer...
doc_gunthrop 7y ago
> They ruthlessly exploited innocent people’s slightly over-inflated beliefs of their own abilities and importance,... Inflated ego and/or the appearance of a rare opportunity (which would lead to further ego inflation) can cloud judgment.
dblohm7 7y ago
> But I often think that as software engineers we fancy ourselves to have more insight into other fields than we really do. That hypothesis is easily confirmed simply by reading HN regularly!
eridius 7y ago
In general that's a hazard of any knowledge worker job. Aren't physicists kind of infamous for thinking they can weigh in on other scientific fields, as if physics trumps everything else? In any case, I think the "judge an economics prize" angle wasn't really intended to be a "software engineers are vain", but rather "people involved with cryptocurrency are likely to consider themselves to be experts on economics and think that they know better than most" so that actually seems like a very well-targeted phishing attempt.
btilly 7y ago
Speaking personally, I would know myself to be unqualified, but I'd assume that someone's software picked up the fact that my name is on a refereed economics paper that has been cited over 100x. So I could have fallen for this. Not because I have an overinflated sense of my own importance. But because I have a healthy respect for the erroneous conclusions that can be reached by automated incompetence.

pimmen 7y ago

It could be that they're setting up some new category related to tech or something, that would probably be my first attempt to rationalize why they sent the request to me. However, I think that a few minutes later I would've thought "but why would they ask an engineer and not an academic who has done research into this particular technology's contributions to economics?". But, yes, I believe that the fact that software is transforming so much stuff all the time and we developers get to work with experts from all kinds of fields if we're lucky like agriculture, medicine, geology, finance and what not can give us a false sense of actually being an authority on any of the things we write software for.

WAHa_06x36 7y ago

They were targeting cryptocurrency people, not software engineers. And cryptocurrency people very often have an immensely inflated opinion of their own knowledge of economics, so it's actually absolutely perfect bait.

jjoonathan 7y ago

Nearly every contest I've ever competed in has had judges who I didn't believe were vigorously qualified. Perhaps not in the final round, or in the most competitive sections, but they were there, somewhere, filling in the gaps. On the other side of the equation, I regularly got "please judge this contest" emails I wasn't qualified for while I was still in academia. Falling for this phish woudln't need to be a matter of inflating one's opinion of oneself, it could simply happen by knowing that at the low end of contests, the bar for judging is low.

wutbrodo 7y ago

> Does this ring true to anyone else Not to me, and that jumped out at me as the most bizarre part of the story. I have a lot more of an economics background than "having read some Paul Krugman articles", but I'd think that this was obviously a scam because there's no way in hell that that anyone in the world would think I should be judging a competition on economics.

michaelt 7y ago

Ah, but can you be sure you're unqualified to judge a prize you haven't heard of without first visiting their website and figuring out what the prize is about? Maybe the Adam Smith prize has a category for best embedded linux build system, or best strong beer...

doc_gunthrop 7y ago

> They ruthlessly exploited innocent people’s slightly over-inflated beliefs of their own abilities and importance,... Inflated ego and/or the appearance of a rare opportunity (which would lead to further ego inflation) can cloud judgment.

dblohm7 7y ago

> But I often think that as software engineers we fancy ourselves to have more insight into other fields than we really do. That hypothesis is easily confirmed simply by reading HN regularly!

eridius 7y ago

In general that's a hazard of any knowledge worker job. Aren't physicists kind of infamous for thinking they can weigh in on other scientific fields, as if physics trumps everything else? In any case, I think the "judge an economics prize" angle wasn't really intended to be a "software engineers are vain", but rather "people involved with cryptocurrency are likely to consider themselves to be experts on economics and think that they know better than most" so that actually seems like a very well-targeted phishing attempt.

btilly 7y ago

Speaking personally, I would know myself to be unqualified, but I'd assume that someone's software picked up the fact that my name is on a refereed economics paper that has been cited over 100x. So I could have fallen for this. Not because I have an overinflated sense of my own importance. But because I have a healthy respect for the erroneous conclusions that can be reached by automated incompetence.