5 ms·

I know it's not a foolproof solution but perhaps there should be a greater focus on ethics in Computer Science curricula? The Israeli developers who wrote this

I know it's not a foolproof solution but perhaps there should be a greater focus on ethics in Computer Science curricula? The Israeli developers who wrote this software may not even have been exposed to the moral and ethical questions writing such software ought to raise. Perhaps there should be trade associations for developers that calls out software companies that writes immoral software? With great power comes great responsibility, and if you knowingly use your great power to write this kind of software you are a terrible person, in my opinion.

jazzyjackson 5y ago
Has an ethics class ever stopped someone from accepting a 6 figure salary?
- saagarjha 5y ago
  Yes.
- maqp 5y ago
  Well, a colleague of mine got a job offer from Google a few years ago. I was with them when they replied the recruitment email with literally nothing else than "no" :D
heliodor 5y ago
People's ethics are all over the spectrum regardless of career path. The root problem is that we need to worry about the ethics of our politicians. Overall, they seem like a pretty bad bunch!
- saagarjha 5y ago
  Politicians aren’t the ones writing spyware, though.
antonzabirko 5y ago
Lol. Sure dude, it's the programmers who are the bad guys, not the people funding the israel/palestine war or in this case the owners of the company who decide to make software that helps assasinate people.
- detaro 5y ago
  Where is parent saying that these other people are not also bad guys?
  - antonzabirko 5y ago
    It doesn't matter. You need to prioritize the issues you discuss by their impact: in this case, Israeli government oversight of these companies. It's dishonest to misdirect away from the real ethical issue which is what the parent is doing. He doesn't have to say anything for me to point out that it's moving the focus away from the real problem.
- bjourne 5y ago
  The whole Israeli state is morally bankrupt, but that doesn't mean that Israeli software developers doesn't have any responsibility themselves. Everyone is responsible for their own actions and should at least try to act ethically. I can't say I know where the line is. For example, would it be unethical to work for Facebook? I don't know and I don't think so. Working for an online casino? In my opinion yes, but others would disagree. Writing software that is used by authorities to hack activists cell phones? Absolutely! It's so far beyond the pale that I can't fathom how anyone could defend it.
  - antonzabirko 5y ago
    It won't make an impact unless you go top-down. I addressed this in my other comment. It's like expecting meaningful change by having people spend less water before companies spend less water. It's not impactful or meaningful.
jonas21 5y ago
It's also possible that the developers who wrote this software are very aware of the ethical questions surrounding it and have decided that the benefits to society in combatting crime and terrorism outweigh the harms from misuse of the technology. While I don't personally agree, I can see how someone could hold such an opinion. One of the things you'll learn in an ethics class is that ethical values are heavily influenced by culture and circumstance, and there are vast differences in what different groups of people believe is ethical and not.
tomjen3 5y ago
Ethics that is not enforced is a joke. You only need one guy not to give a fuck.
zild3d 5y ago
> The Israeli developers who wrote this software may not even have been exposed to the moral and ethical questions writing such software ought to raise Of course they have been exposed to ethical questions for writing the software. If you know Israel well, and the famed Unit 8200 [0], the initial creation of this type of software is definitely built with morals in mind - saving lives is the entire impetus. Lots of security software out of Israel (see CheckPoint, a now public company) is first born out of the IDF with the goal of fighting terrorism and criminals. I don't see an ethics class being the answer here, as this type of cyber & security software has certainly saved lives. The issue is what happens after this software is developed, with seemingly justified reason to exist, and now in the hands of a business growing around it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_8200 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_8200 [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/18/revealed-leak-uncovers-global-abuse-of-cyber-surveillance-weapon-nso-group-pegasus https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/18/revealed-leak-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Check_Point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Check_Point
- bjourne 5y ago
  I meant actual ethics - not Israeli hasbara (propaganda). Clearly, the perspective that the Israeli Defense Forces is the bravest and most moral army in the world and that everyone who resists the occupation are evil terrorists is not foreign to them! I meant real ethical questions. Do I have a responsibility if what I create is used for evil? Is "just following orders" a valid defense? Is it right to spy on people who haven't committed any crime? Is the life of a civilian on the enemy side worth less than the life of a civilian on my side? I'm a software developer so my life is all about identifying and fixing bugs. And it is a "bug" and a big problem that developers are willing to write software to hack journalists' and activists' cell phones. We should fix this bug. More ethics education? Shunning developers writing phone hacking software? I don't know what the solution is.
  - throwaway984393 5y ago
    The solution, as it always has been, is political and educational. A fully-rounded education is essential to creating minds that use all sources of information - historical, statistical, philosophical, religious, etc - as data fed to a critical thinking machine (your brain). And politics must be of a nature that the best conclusions are elevated while the worst are discouraged. There will always be people who will build weapons, and those weapons can always be used on innocent people. The only hope we have is that the people holding the weapons will have the right environment and presence of mind, and we can only do that through culture and education.
dogma1138 5y ago
How are they different to the Italian developers that worked on Da Vinci/Galileo or the British and German developers that worked on FinFisher? Plenty of people work on products that may be immoral in some application or frame of reference. Developing technologies that facilitate the predatory practices for social media networks, ad targeting, gaming/gambling and plenty of other shit. And this goes beyond tech I don’t think that the 40 something machinist that works at Glock in Austria or the 23 year old EE engineer that works on imagines sensors for BAE in the UK some loses sleep at night because a handgun or some guided bomb somewhere killed someone.

jazzyjackson 5y ago

Has an ethics class ever stopped someone from accepting a 6 figure salary?

saagarjha 5y ago
Yes.
maqp 5y ago
Well, a colleague of mine got a job offer from Google a few years ago. I was with them when they replied the recruitment email with literally nothing else than "no" :D

heliodor 5y ago

People's ethics are all over the spectrum regardless of career path. The root problem is that we need to worry about the ethics of our politicians. Overall, they seem like a pretty bad bunch!

saagarjha 5y ago
Politicians aren’t the ones writing spyware, though.

antonzabirko 5y ago

Lol. Sure dude, it's the programmers who are the bad guys, not the people funding the israel/palestine war or in this case the owners of the company who decide to make software that helps assasinate people.

detaro 5y ago
Where is parent saying that these other people are not also bad guys?
- antonzabirko 5y ago
  It doesn't matter. You need to prioritize the issues you discuss by their impact: in this case, Israeli government oversight of these companies. It's dishonest to misdirect away from the real ethical issue which is what the parent is doing. He doesn't have to say anything for me to point out that it's moving the focus away from the real problem.
bjourne 5y ago
The whole Israeli state is morally bankrupt, but that doesn't mean that Israeli software developers doesn't have any responsibility themselves. Everyone is responsible for their own actions and should at least try to act ethically. I can't say I know where the line is. For example, would it be unethical to work for Facebook? I don't know and I don't think so. Working for an online casino? In my opinion yes, but others would disagree. Writing software that is used by authorities to hack activists cell phones? Absolutely! It's so far beyond the pale that I can't fathom how anyone could defend it.
- antonzabirko 5y ago
  It won't make an impact unless you go top-down. I addressed this in my other comment. It's like expecting meaningful change by having people spend less water before companies spend less water. It's not impactful or meaningful.

jonas21 5y ago

It's also possible that the developers who wrote this software are very aware of the ethical questions surrounding it and have decided that the benefits to society in combatting crime and terrorism outweigh the harms from misuse of the technology. While I don't personally agree, I can see how someone could hold such an opinion. One of the things you'll learn in an ethics class is that ethical values are heavily influenced by culture and circumstance, and there are vast differences in what different groups of people believe is ethical and not.

tomjen3 5y ago

Ethics that is not enforced is a joke. You only need one guy not to give a fuck.

zild3d 5y ago

> The Israeli developers who wrote this software may not even have been exposed to the moral and ethical questions writing such software ought to raise Of course they have been exposed to ethical questions for writing the software. If you know Israel well, and the famed Unit 8200 [0], the initial creation of this type of software is definitely built with morals in mind - saving lives is the entire impetus. Lots of security software out of Israel (see CheckPoint, a now public company) is first born out of the IDF with the goal of fighting terrorism and criminals. I don't see an ethics class being the answer here, as this type of cyber & security software has certainly saved lives. The issue is what happens after this software is developed, with seemingly justified reason to exist, and now in the hands of a business growing around it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_8200 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_8200 [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/18/revealed-leak-uncovers-global-abuse-of-cyber-surveillance-weapon-nso-group-pegasus https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/18/revealed-leak-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Check_Point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Check_Point

bjourne 5y ago
I meant actual ethics - not Israeli hasbara (propaganda). Clearly, the perspective that the Israeli Defense Forces is the bravest and most moral army in the world and that everyone who resists the occupation are evil terrorists is not foreign to them! I meant real ethical questions. Do I have a responsibility if what I create is used for evil? Is "just following orders" a valid defense? Is it right to spy on people who haven't committed any crime? Is the life of a civilian on the enemy side worth less than the life of a civilian on my side? I'm a software developer so my life is all about identifying and fixing bugs. And it is a "bug" and a big problem that developers are willing to write software to hack journalists' and activists' cell phones. We should fix this bug. More ethics education? Shunning developers writing phone hacking software? I don't know what the solution is.
- throwaway984393 5y ago
  The solution, as it always has been, is political and educational. A fully-rounded education is essential to creating minds that use all sources of information - historical, statistical, philosophical, religious, etc - as data fed to a critical thinking machine (your brain). And politics must be of a nature that the best conclusions are elevated while the worst are discouraged. There will always be people who will build weapons, and those weapons can always be used on innocent people. The only hope we have is that the people holding the weapons will have the right environment and presence of mind, and we can only do that through culture and education.

dogma1138 5y ago

How are they different to the Italian developers that worked on Da Vinci/Galileo or the British and German developers that worked on FinFisher? Plenty of people work on products that may be immoral in some application or frame of reference. Developing technologies that facilitate the predatory practices for social media networks, ad targeting, gaming/gambling and plenty of other shit. And this goes beyond tech I don’t think that the 40 something machinist that works at Glock in Austria or the 23 year old EE engineer that works on imagines sensors for BAE in the UK some loses sleep at night because a handgun or some guided bomb somewhere killed someone.