5 ms·

Beautifully done, as a developer it makes me cringe on behalf of my profession. Covers invasive collection of personal details, "security questions", upsells,

Beautifully done, as a developer it makes me cringe on behalf of my profession. Covers invasive collection of personal details, "security questions", upsells, ReCaptcha and more. Please consider sharing with your teams everyone : )

beefield 6y ago
Not sure the primary fault is on the developers asked to implement these...
- tpxl 6y ago
  Developers can always not implement those.
  - cecja 6y ago
    Developers can always not have a job.
    - squiggleblaz 6y ago
      Meta: This comment was dead a moment ago. Now it's alive and shows no indication of being voted down. How do comments become undead? Are some people still able to vote on them?
      - ForHackernews 6y ago
        If you have enough reputation you can "vouch" for dead comments. As far as I can see, it at least temporarily resurrects them (perhaps if enough people "vouch").
        squiggleblaz 6y ago
        Oh I see, it makes sense, thanks.
    - tpxl 6y ago
      There are literally thousands of dev jobs where doing stupid shit is not a requirement.
      - cecja 6y ago
        You are talking out of your bubble. Especially in the worlds IT sweatshops there is no alternative.
  - squiggleblaz 6y ago
    That doesn't put the primary fault onto devs though. There is a significant amount of pressure to actually build all these stupid systems coming from multiple fronts (e.g. people who believe it is more secure, business who demand certain features). Surely primary responsibility goes to the person who demands the feature. If one developer refuses, they can find another developer without too much difficulty. It would require most developers to refuse, whereas it only requires a few business owners to make other choices. (Senior Developers could probably respond "here's some better ways". But Junior devs often hardly know their own name, let alone what better alternatives there are to this security theatre.)
    - tpxl 6y ago
      >That doesn't put the primary fault onto devs though I agree on that, the primary fault is at the hands of the one who thought that up and pushed it through to completion, but "just doing my job" and "if I don't do it someone else will" doesn't pass the smell test to me.
- onion2k 6y ago
  If you're working in a job where developers are just dumb code monkeys who get told what to do and do it whatever happens, and that developers aren't considered part of the team behind a feature and have no way to influence what gets built, then leave. There are better jobs out there that won't make you feel ashamed of what you deploy.
  - csunbird 6y ago
    I am not sure why people put developers on a morally high status like they are able to choose what kind of job that they can do, then try to shame them publicly for the work they do, but I do not see any difference between a forced developer who wants to have a job and get by in their lives, and a telemarketer making calls to the potential customers.
    - dalbasal 6y ago
      People complain about telemarketers all the time. It's not like they get a pass. Sure, the actual blame may fall on whoever decided to hire all those telemarketers to defraud the elderly but... they're also just trying to have a job. The ceo is just trying to have a profitable company. The shareholders are just trying to have a pension. Consumers are just trying to shop conveniently. From the perspective of the complainer, the thing is the part of the thing that they see. Telemarketing is telemarketers. Software is the UX. Mindless bureaucracy is the person standing in front of them. Etc. If you're going to come to the defence of anyone, defend someone who is standing in front of the disgruntled consumer, earning peanuts. Developers are generally well paid, mobile and don't ever face the person they're driving crazy. Anyway, developers (and software companies) put themselves on this high status pedestal in the early 2000s. The web was full of developer philosophy touting developer agency, morals, and such. Comes around. Goes around. Chickens roust. Pick yours cliche.
      - csunbird 6y ago
        > Anyway, developers (and software companies) put themselves on this high status pedestal in the early 2000s. The web was full of developer philosophy touting developer agency, morals, and such. Comes around. Goes around. Chickens roust. Pick yours cliche. Exactly the point I am trying to make. People complain about telemarketers all the time but they actually do know that those people are just trying to get by and have no actual choice. Developers think other developers are just able to say "f you" to their boss and leave the job and get a new one next day, but this is not the reality. Is this a reality for the majority of audience of HN? Can they do that? Because I can't.
- eitland 6y ago
  Which is why I ask people to consider sharing with their teams ;-) If nobody on your team has a say on blatant ux issues and nobody is allowed to report problems up the chain of command that is a bigger issue I agree.
- dalbasal 6y ago
  ..and the buck passes.
avian 6y ago
> ReCaptcha Why do some stores have a captcha as part of their checkout process? I'm noticing that recently and I can't figure it out. I understand it for registering an account, or even just browsing the store (i.e. prevent scraping), but why make me click the damn traffic lights after you let me put stuff into the cart and got the delivery address? What good does that do except making me abandon my purchase in frustration?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  There could be a reason when it comes to card fraud. Card fraudsters need a way to check cards before they use/resell them, so they find a cheap e-commerce and automate the checkout on a low-value item and run the card numbers through there. Of course, this is a problem manufactured by the card payments industry (we've had the cryptography to make card fraud nonexistent for decades) and it slowly getting fixed by 3D-Secure (also called Strong Customer Authentication) and as usual the US are behind.
- eitland 6y ago
  > Why do some stores have a captcha as part of their checkout process? I'm noticing that recently and I can't figure it out. And why doesn't Google optimize it to return "human" straight away when I am logged in with a 15 year old paying account who took a similar test earlier that day same day? Anyone who knows who are free to answer? Because otherwise I'll stick with my explanation which is one or more of: - organizational incompetence (surely someone should be able to code that up, only they don't call the shots and those who do aren't competent to see the issue) - greed (why do it when we can force people to do unpaid work for us?) - other possibly even worse reason
  - dzhiurgis 6y ago
    Shop owner decides the 'strength' of verification
agumonkey 6y ago
What strikes me is how the web fad naturally grew. From the curiosity of buying online, to accepting more steps to deal with the potential issues, to full fledged different way of doing simple things. In retrospect it's odd.. but on the way it was so obviously right. Who still wants a fully online world ?

beefield 6y ago

Not sure the primary fault is on the developers asked to implement these...

tpxl 6y ago
Developers can always not implement those.
- cecja 6y ago
  Developers can always not have a job.
  - squiggleblaz 6y ago
    Meta: This comment was dead a moment ago. Now it's alive and shows no indication of being voted down. How do comments become undead? Are some people still able to vote on them?
    - ForHackernews 6y ago
      If you have enough reputation you can "vouch" for dead comments. As far as I can see, it at least temporarily resurrects them (perhaps if enough people "vouch").
      - squiggleblaz 6y ago
        Oh I see, it makes sense, thanks.
  - tpxl 6y ago
    There are literally thousands of dev jobs where doing stupid shit is not a requirement.
    - cecja 6y ago
      You are talking out of your bubble. Especially in the worlds IT sweatshops there is no alternative.
- squiggleblaz 6y ago
  That doesn't put the primary fault onto devs though. There is a significant amount of pressure to actually build all these stupid systems coming from multiple fronts (e.g. people who believe it is more secure, business who demand certain features). Surely primary responsibility goes to the person who demands the feature. If one developer refuses, they can find another developer without too much difficulty. It would require most developers to refuse, whereas it only requires a few business owners to make other choices. (Senior Developers could probably respond "here's some better ways". But Junior devs often hardly know their own name, let alone what better alternatives there are to this security theatre.)
  - tpxl 6y ago
    >That doesn't put the primary fault onto devs though I agree on that, the primary fault is at the hands of the one who thought that up and pushed it through to completion, but "just doing my job" and "if I don't do it someone else will" doesn't pass the smell test to me.
onion2k 6y ago
If you're working in a job where developers are just dumb code monkeys who get told what to do and do it whatever happens, and that developers aren't considered part of the team behind a feature and have no way to influence what gets built, then leave. There are better jobs out there that won't make you feel ashamed of what you deploy.
- csunbird 6y ago
  I am not sure why people put developers on a morally high status like they are able to choose what kind of job that they can do, then try to shame them publicly for the work they do, but I do not see any difference between a forced developer who wants to have a job and get by in their lives, and a telemarketer making calls to the potential customers.
  - dalbasal 6y ago
    People complain about telemarketers all the time. It's not like they get a pass. Sure, the actual blame may fall on whoever decided to hire all those telemarketers to defraud the elderly but... they're also just trying to have a job. The ceo is just trying to have a profitable company. The shareholders are just trying to have a pension. Consumers are just trying to shop conveniently. From the perspective of the complainer, the thing is the part of the thing that they see. Telemarketing is telemarketers. Software is the UX. Mindless bureaucracy is the person standing in front of them. Etc. If you're going to come to the defence of anyone, defend someone who is standing in front of the disgruntled consumer, earning peanuts. Developers are generally well paid, mobile and don't ever face the person they're driving crazy. Anyway, developers (and software companies) put themselves on this high status pedestal in the early 2000s. The web was full of developer philosophy touting developer agency, morals, and such. Comes around. Goes around. Chickens roust. Pick yours cliche.
    - csunbird 6y ago
      > Anyway, developers (and software companies) put themselves on this high status pedestal in the early 2000s. The web was full of developer philosophy touting developer agency, morals, and such. Comes around. Goes around. Chickens roust. Pick yours cliche. Exactly the point I am trying to make. People complain about telemarketers all the time but they actually do know that those people are just trying to get by and have no actual choice. Developers think other developers are just able to say "f you" to their boss and leave the job and get a new one next day, but this is not the reality. Is this a reality for the majority of audience of HN? Can they do that? Because I can't.
eitland 6y ago
Which is why I ask people to consider sharing with their teams ;-) If nobody on your team has a say on blatant ux issues and nobody is allowed to report problems up the chain of command that is a bigger issue I agree.
dalbasal 6y ago
..and the buck passes.

avian 6y ago

> ReCaptcha Why do some stores have a captcha as part of their checkout process? I'm noticing that recently and I can't figure it out. I understand it for registering an account, or even just browsing the store (i.e. prevent scraping), but why make me click the damn traffic lights after you let me put stuff into the cart and got the delivery address? What good does that do except making me abandon my purchase in frustration?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Nextgrid 6y ago
There could be a reason when it comes to card fraud. Card fraudsters need a way to check cards before they use/resell them, so they find a cheap e-commerce and automate the checkout on a low-value item and run the card numbers through there. Of course, this is a problem manufactured by the card payments industry (we've had the cryptography to make card fraud nonexistent for decades) and it slowly getting fixed by 3D-Secure (also called Strong Customer Authentication) and as usual the US are behind.
eitland 6y ago
> Why do some stores have a captcha as part of their checkout process? I'm noticing that recently and I can't figure it out. And why doesn't Google optimize it to return "human" straight away when I am logged in with a 15 year old paying account who took a similar test earlier that day same day? Anyone who knows who are free to answer? Because otherwise I'll stick with my explanation which is one or more of: - organizational incompetence (surely someone should be able to code that up, only they don't call the shots and those who do aren't competent to see the issue) - greed (why do it when we can force people to do unpaid work for us?) - other possibly even worse reason
- dzhiurgis 6y ago
  Shop owner decides the 'strength' of verification

agumonkey 6y ago

What strikes me is how the web fad naturally grew. From the curiosity of buying online, to accepting more steps to deal with the potential issues, to full fledged different way of doing simple things. In retrospect it's odd.. but on the way it was so obviously right. Who still wants a fully online world ?