5 ms·

Unfortunately, most of us are the reasons why this is the problem. A lot of us on HN are developers and software engineers who pioneered the technology for a pa

Unfortunately, most of us are the reasons why this is the problem. A lot of us on HN are developers and software engineers who pioneered the technology for a paycheck or are using this technology for a paycheck. The only way it stops is if engineers start refusing and the software community as a whole sticks to a code of ethics that prevents this. Some of us in this thread that are decrying survelliance of all types are going to go back to work on the next work day at Google, Facebook, Amazon or some other company. When the boss man comes in and says "can you implement this feature" and it is about getting user analytics, you will say "yes sir/ma'am" and do it with a smile.

chii 5y ago
while that's somewhat true, it doesn't solve the problem. Asking for people to sacrifice themselves for others with no reward is not sustainable. If a gov't wants software written, there will be somebody willing to write it. Only checks and balances, and high transparency within the gov't can work in the long term.
- tcmart14 5y ago
  Yes. But we do have measures. Why not start our own firms with these ethics and refuse to work for entities that do. And dog food our own responsible privacy respecting code. Maybe it means we need to stop chasing the higher and higher paychecks, but none of these entities can survive if we choose to not apply to work for them and do something else. The point is, there is a point where engineers are at fault just as much as companies and governments. Continuing to build these things and say "well the bad man in the business suit told me too" has to stop if we really want to tackle this problem. Legislation won't help, we can't compete with corporate donors.
  - dheera 5y ago
    It's very hard for people to not take a higher paycheck. That higher paycheck may be the difference between paying off debts and not paying off debts. It may be the difference between sending your child to a good school or a bad school. It may be the difference between not being screwed over or being screwed over during your next hospital visit. It may be the difference between a family member dying or being treated.
    - tcmart14 5y ago
      Yes but what is the other alternative? People say legislation. But we all know we can't out compete the businessmen/businesswoman and stock holders. The only tangible alternative is to just not do the work. Unless someone has a plan to crowd source the lobbying money to make the legislation, I see no other path.
      - dheera 5y ago
        > just not do the work. And how exactly is this person supposed to pay their rent and food costs? "Don't do the work" isn't a viable solution for a lot of people. Pressure has to be put on the decision makers AND law, not the poor dude who is just trying to feed their family. If you have enough rent saved up for a year, you might have the luxury of being able to say no.
    - ALittleLight 5y ago
      It's not just that it's hard to refuse a bigger paycheck, but that everyone needs to refuse it. If 95% of people who could implement something refuse to do so on moral grounds - that won't be an impediment to the thing getting done.
      - labawi 5y ago
        When I grumble about collecting needless data, conditioning users to insecure practices or similar ethical concerns, my manager usually drops it. There - I think I've made some difference. If you have an source of developers, where you can discard 95% without effect, could you please find me a haskell developer, sysadmin and a ee engineer woking in kicad? Salary - good in Eastern Europe. I'd prefer those that do have morals and standards. Thank you very much. 95% of developers refusing to build, won't stop PRISM or FAANG by not building. What it can do (along some explanations and reasoning), is to unrecognizably change the landscape, change availability and perception of privacy and security, and in a roundabout way, maybe even stop or at least reduce PRISM, FAANG, et al. data collation. Currently, about 5% of websites respect their user's data? What if it was 95%?
walterbell 5y ago
Computer science needs more funding for research at "Layer 8" of the OSI Networking model. There are some baby steps taking place due to cybersecurity failures, where software supply chains are being forced to self-document (Software Bill of Materials) via US Executive Order. This will have far-reaching implications for everyone working in the tech industry. Some of these tools can be adapted to create formal models of concerns that are today relegated to "ethics" and "law", which have near-zero chance of keeping pace with software evolution. Social Network Analysis has several decades of work on graph theory applied to social systems, including knowledge work, law enforcement and intelligence, most famously applied by Palantir. There are reusable OSS libraries for SNA. We need to get to the point where a CI/CD test or simulator failure can flag the introduction of code/policy that places positive social futures at existential risk. Then the proposed changes can be escalated for human governance review. In the meantime, we rely on policy frameworks, threat models and watchdogs from places like EFF, https://twitter.com/evacide https://twitter.com/evacide
- hasmanean 5y ago
  The Geneva conventions on war need to include a section of data security. It must be illegal to take over another governments data during war. All government databases should have a self destruct knob in case the government falls.
  - suifbwish 5y ago
    A self destruct knob? Lmao you realize that there is no single spot where all this data is stored right?
    - hasmanean 5y ago
      Yes, but there can be a single spot where the self destruct sequence is keyed up. Though obviously there would be no guarantee the command could be related to remote stations.
s5300 5y ago
Yeah, it's long too late. Even if all US SWE's manage to deny the bullshit (which will absolutely never happen) companies can just pull in any variety of third worlders who will leave their entire lives behind overnight for 1/5th of the pay current US SWE's are making. Pandora's box has been opened, and we're going to be in for some interesting times.
dheera 5y ago
Unfortunately "refusing" is usually a luxury for the already-rich, and who aren't under an immigrant visa. Easy to say, hard for many people to do.
- tcmart14 5y ago
  Lets say your a civil engineer working on a bridge. If your employer asked you to remove a support beam to save costs but you knew it had serious impacts on the safety would you do it? Knowing that your stamp would be on it and if an issue happened, you could be held responsible? Why is it in other fields of engineering there are actions that are not acceptable, but in software it is virtually non-existent.
  - bobsmooth 5y ago
    Software engineers want the title of "engineer" but none of the responsibilities. Where's the rubber stamp equivalent for software?
    - tcmart14 5y ago
      Exactly. And developers are essentially engineers from a problem solving point. I think this is why Grace Hopper pushed so hard to help coin the term "software engineer" with the idea of trying to capture some of the ideas of what engineering should be and incorporate it into the world of software. The fact is there is no rubber stamp. This is why I think we have some of the instances of security breeches where we do.
      - KozmoNau7 5y ago
        There's a certain amount of inflation that has happened to job titles. Previously, my last 4-5 job titles have included the word "manager", yet I have never performed any managerial tasks. My current title includes the word "engineer", yet there is no engineering in my job description. I fix bugs, implement workflows and rules, and onboard customers on a platform. I don't consider that engineering, that's operations.
rurban 5y ago
For sure not. When I worked at a multinational very big company in Europe, and my manager requested to add this little feature to track all users, of course I refused citing the law and regulations. Certainly no smile of complicity. What he got was a top 10 list of best performers, but not the list of the worst performers.
- tcmart14 5y ago
  Can you clarify this for me? I feel like I could walk away with two different interpretations? "What he got was a top 10 list of best performers, but not the list of the worst performers." I interpret this to mean either you were on the list of 10 best performers or that he received a list of performs to perhaps replace you with. Also, my case might be more true in America where there does not appear to be many laws regarding privacy. As far as I know, the EU is leading the way in this.
paganel 5y ago
Exactly this. It's high time we recognise that we, the programmers, are indeed the baddies.
- tcmart14 5y ago
  Not necessarily baddies but that we play a major part in this too. I fail to see Trump or Biden sitting behind a compiler writing the code. I do see Mark Zuckerberg, a programmer, running a company he founded doing mass data collection.
  - ptr2voidStar 5y ago
    Zuckerberg a programmer? I think that's quite a reach, to call him a programmer.
    - tcmart14 5y ago
      Zuckerberg did write a lot of the initial code. Does make him a programmer among many other things.
robocat 5y ago
> The only way it stops is if engineers start refusing I find it sad that this is seen as a reasonable statement: totally idealistic, hideously unrealistic, and it is awfully close to virtue signalling. You might as well say that the prisoners dilemma is solved by asking everybody to not cheat. Any solution has to be robust to the variety of engineers that exist: including the antisocial, the people doing it for the lulz or $, those that don’t give a shit about anyone but themselves, and the plain clueless that are simply unaware of the outcomes/implications of their work. Clearly expecting engineers to just solve the problem hasn’t happened, so it won’t happen. Currently the only solutions I can see are based on legal restrictions upon our government organisations to protect ourselves from our own authorities.
- bobsmooth 5y ago
  Doctors usually take an oath to do no harm when they become doctors. Is a similar thing for engineers so hard to imagine?
  - iamnotwhoiam 5y ago
    First software engineering would need to be codified and licensed as an actual engineering profession.
  - littlestymaar 5y ago
    Yet the 20th century showed us a big list of examples of doctors breaking their oath, by conducting human experiments and so on… A few examples on different scales: [1][2][3][4] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemala_syphilis_experiments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemala_syphilis_experiments [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 [4]: https://www.businessinsider.com/the-military-tested-bacterial-weapons-in-san-francisco-2015-7?IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/the-military-tested-bacteria...
    - danjac 5y ago
lsiq 5y ago
Engineers should build software to create a future more transparent government instead.
1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
"When the boss man comes in and says "can you implement this feature" and it is about getting user analystics, you will say "yes sir/ma'am" and do it with a smile." However, this not the behaviour of someone who is seeking to be promoted. There are those who of "us" who have taken or are taking the initiative to go beyond what the boss asks them to do in hopes of being promoted. To be persuasive as evidence for promotion, this "extra work" must support the bottom line of the company the same as "the boss's orders". Hence "us" includes more than only the employees who "show up to collect a paycheck" and dutifully follow instructions, but are otherwise opposed supporting to the bottom line of the company. Going further, is it safe to say some of "us" have already been promoted for supporting the company's bottom line and some of "us" are in fact managers. "We" are effectively the "boss man". This line is intriguing: "The only way it stops is if engineers ..." This seems to imply a underlying belief that "no one/nothing can stop us". As such, only "self-regulation" will work. Am I reading this wrong.
- tcmart14 5y ago
  I think you bring up some good concepts here with working above and beyond for promotion. That sometimes we do voluntary build these tools in hope of some reward even if it is not specifically asked for. And maybe not even directly as a job but for a resume project. I think quiet a few here would probably agree twitter to some degree has had a negative impact on society or conversation. Yet, many of us build something to scrape data and utilize for something, put it on github not thinking how that tool could be misused. Also bringing into scope of "us" being moved into management. While I do meant boss man to be interpreted more liberally. "Boss man" can be a direct manager/supervisor (who may be an MBA or a prior engineer him/herself), it can be the CEO or shareholders. But yes, in some case those of us become the "boss man" and ask for these features or do not get in the way when someone higher asks for them. To answer the last line, it surely is not the "only thing" that can stop us. Regulation can work also as has been brought up. But I fail to see where years of screaming for regulation has materialized in anything meaningful, at least in the US. The quickest way would be self-regulation. Adhering to a code of ethics or principles voluntarily.
ptr2voidStar 5y ago
Hahaha, so profoundly true - especially the last paragraph!

chii 5y ago

while that's somewhat true, it doesn't solve the problem. Asking for people to sacrifice themselves for others with no reward is not sustainable. If a gov't wants software written, there will be somebody willing to write it. Only checks and balances, and high transparency within the gov't can work in the long term.

tcmart14 5y ago
Yes. But we do have measures. Why not start our own firms with these ethics and refuse to work for entities that do. And dog food our own responsible privacy respecting code. Maybe it means we need to stop chasing the higher and higher paychecks, but none of these entities can survive if we choose to not apply to work for them and do something else. The point is, there is a point where engineers are at fault just as much as companies and governments. Continuing to build these things and say "well the bad man in the business suit told me too" has to stop if we really want to tackle this problem. Legislation won't help, we can't compete with corporate donors.
- dheera 5y ago
  It's very hard for people to not take a higher paycheck. That higher paycheck may be the difference between paying off debts and not paying off debts. It may be the difference between sending your child to a good school or a bad school. It may be the difference between not being screwed over or being screwed over during your next hospital visit. It may be the difference between a family member dying or being treated.
  - tcmart14 5y ago
    Yes but what is the other alternative? People say legislation. But we all know we can't out compete the businessmen/businesswoman and stock holders. The only tangible alternative is to just not do the work. Unless someone has a plan to crowd source the lobbying money to make the legislation, I see no other path.
    - dheera 5y ago
      > just not do the work. And how exactly is this person supposed to pay their rent and food costs? "Don't do the work" isn't a viable solution for a lot of people. Pressure has to be put on the decision makers AND law, not the poor dude who is just trying to feed their family. If you have enough rent saved up for a year, you might have the luxury of being able to say no.
  - ALittleLight 5y ago
    It's not just that it's hard to refuse a bigger paycheck, but that everyone needs to refuse it. If 95% of people who could implement something refuse to do so on moral grounds - that won't be an impediment to the thing getting done.
    - labawi 5y ago
      When I grumble about collecting needless data, conditioning users to insecure practices or similar ethical concerns, my manager usually drops it. There - I think I've made some difference. If you have an source of developers, where you can discard 95% without effect, could you please find me a haskell developer, sysadmin and a ee engineer woking in kicad? Salary - good in Eastern Europe. I'd prefer those that do have morals and standards. Thank you very much. 95% of developers refusing to build, won't stop PRISM or FAANG by not building. What it can do (along some explanations and reasoning), is to unrecognizably change the landscape, change availability and perception of privacy and security, and in a roundabout way, maybe even stop or at least reduce PRISM, FAANG, et al. data collation. Currently, about 5% of websites respect their user's data? What if it was 95%?

walterbell 5y ago

Computer science needs more funding for research at "Layer 8" of the OSI Networking model. There are some baby steps taking place due to cybersecurity failures, where software supply chains are being forced to self-document (Software Bill of Materials) via US Executive Order. This will have far-reaching implications for everyone working in the tech industry. Some of these tools can be adapted to create formal models of concerns that are today relegated to "ethics" and "law", which have near-zero chance of keeping pace with software evolution. Social Network Analysis has several decades of work on graph theory applied to social systems, including knowledge work, law enforcement and intelligence, most famously applied by Palantir. There are reusable OSS libraries for SNA. We need to get to the point where a CI/CD test or simulator failure can flag the introduction of code/policy that places positive social futures at existential risk. Then the proposed changes can be escalated for human governance review. In the meantime, we rely on policy frameworks, threat models and watchdogs from places like EFF, https://twitter.com/evacide https://twitter.com/evacide

hasmanean 5y ago
The Geneva conventions on war need to include a section of data security. It must be illegal to take over another governments data during war. All government databases should have a self destruct knob in case the government falls.
- suifbwish 5y ago
  A self destruct knob? Lmao you realize that there is no single spot where all this data is stored right?
  - hasmanean 5y ago
    Yes, but there can be a single spot where the self destruct sequence is keyed up. Though obviously there would be no guarantee the command could be related to remote stations.

s5300 5y ago

Yeah, it's long too late. Even if all US SWE's manage to deny the bullshit (which will absolutely never happen) companies can just pull in any variety of third worlders who will leave their entire lives behind overnight for 1/5th of the pay current US SWE's are making. Pandora's box has been opened, and we're going to be in for some interesting times.

dheera 5y ago

Unfortunately "refusing" is usually a luxury for the already-rich, and who aren't under an immigrant visa. Easy to say, hard for many people to do.

tcmart14 5y ago
Lets say your a civil engineer working on a bridge. If your employer asked you to remove a support beam to save costs but you knew it had serious impacts on the safety would you do it? Knowing that your stamp would be on it and if an issue happened, you could be held responsible? Why is it in other fields of engineering there are actions that are not acceptable, but in software it is virtually non-existent.
- bobsmooth 5y ago
  Software engineers want the title of "engineer" but none of the responsibilities. Where's the rubber stamp equivalent for software?
  - tcmart14 5y ago
    Exactly. And developers are essentially engineers from a problem solving point. I think this is why Grace Hopper pushed so hard to help coin the term "software engineer" with the idea of trying to capture some of the ideas of what engineering should be and incorporate it into the world of software. The fact is there is no rubber stamp. This is why I think we have some of the instances of security breeches where we do.
    - KozmoNau7 5y ago
      There's a certain amount of inflation that has happened to job titles. Previously, my last 4-5 job titles have included the word "manager", yet I have never performed any managerial tasks. My current title includes the word "engineer", yet there is no engineering in my job description. I fix bugs, implement workflows and rules, and onboard customers on a platform. I don't consider that engineering, that's operations.

rurban 5y ago

For sure not. When I worked at a multinational very big company in Europe, and my manager requested to add this little feature to track all users, of course I refused citing the law and regulations. Certainly no smile of complicity. What he got was a top 10 list of best performers, but not the list of the worst performers.

tcmart14 5y ago
Can you clarify this for me? I feel like I could walk away with two different interpretations? "What he got was a top 10 list of best performers, but not the list of the worst performers." I interpret this to mean either you were on the list of 10 best performers or that he received a list of performs to perhaps replace you with. Also, my case might be more true in America where there does not appear to be many laws regarding privacy. As far as I know, the EU is leading the way in this.

paganel 5y ago

Exactly this. It's high time we recognise that we, the programmers, are indeed the baddies.

tcmart14 5y ago
Not necessarily baddies but that we play a major part in this too. I fail to see Trump or Biden sitting behind a compiler writing the code. I do see Mark Zuckerberg, a programmer, running a company he founded doing mass data collection.
- ptr2voidStar 5y ago
  Zuckerberg a programmer? I think that's quite a reach, to call him a programmer.
  - tcmart14 5y ago
    Zuckerberg did write a lot of the initial code. Does make him a programmer among many other things.

robocat 5y ago

> The only way it stops is if engineers start refusing I find it sad that this is seen as a reasonable statement: totally idealistic, hideously unrealistic, and it is awfully close to virtue signalling. You might as well say that the prisoners dilemma is solved by asking everybody to not cheat. Any solution has to be robust to the variety of engineers that exist: including the antisocial, the people doing it for the lulz or $, those that don’t give a shit about anyone but themselves, and the plain clueless that are simply unaware of the outcomes/implications of their work. Clearly expecting engineers to just solve the problem hasn’t happened, so it won’t happen. Currently the only solutions I can see are based on legal restrictions upon our government organisations to protect ourselves from our own authorities.

bobsmooth 5y ago
Doctors usually take an oath to do no harm when they become doctors. Is a similar thing for engineers so hard to imagine?
- iamnotwhoiam 5y ago
  First software engineering would need to be codified and licensed as an actual engineering profession.
- littlestymaar 5y ago
  Yet the 20th century showed us a big list of examples of doctors breaking their oath, by conducting human experiments and so on… A few examples on different scales: [1][2][3][4] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemala_syphilis_experiments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemala_syphilis_experiments [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 [4]: https://www.businessinsider.com/the-military-tested-bacterial-weapons-in-san-francisco-2015-7?IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/the-military-tested-bacteria...
  - danjac 5y ago

lsiq 5y ago

Engineers should build software to create a future more transparent government instead.

1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago

"When the boss man comes in and says "can you implement this feature" and it is about getting user analystics, you will say "yes sir/ma'am" and do it with a smile." However, this not the behaviour of someone who is seeking to be promoted. There are those who of "us" who have taken or are taking the initiative to go beyond what the boss asks them to do in hopes of being promoted. To be persuasive as evidence for promotion, this "extra work" must support the bottom line of the company the same as "the boss's orders". Hence "us" includes more than only the employees who "show up to collect a paycheck" and dutifully follow instructions, but are otherwise opposed supporting to the bottom line of the company. Going further, is it safe to say some of "us" have already been promoted for supporting the company's bottom line and some of "us" are in fact managers. "We" are effectively the "boss man". This line is intriguing: "The only way it stops is if engineers ..." This seems to imply a underlying belief that "no one/nothing can stop us". As such, only "self-regulation" will work. Am I reading this wrong.

tcmart14 5y ago
I think you bring up some good concepts here with working above and beyond for promotion. That sometimes we do voluntary build these tools in hope of some reward even if it is not specifically asked for. And maybe not even directly as a job but for a resume project. I think quiet a few here would probably agree twitter to some degree has had a negative impact on society or conversation. Yet, many of us build something to scrape data and utilize for something, put it on github not thinking how that tool could be misused. Also bringing into scope of "us" being moved into management. While I do meant boss man to be interpreted more liberally. "Boss man" can be a direct manager/supervisor (who may be an MBA or a prior engineer him/herself), it can be the CEO or shareholders. But yes, in some case those of us become the "boss man" and ask for these features or do not get in the way when someone higher asks for them. To answer the last line, it surely is not the "only thing" that can stop us. Regulation can work also as has been brought up. But I fail to see where years of screaming for regulation has materialized in anything meaningful, at least in the US. The quickest way would be self-regulation. Adhering to a code of ethics or principles voluntarily.

ptr2voidStar 5y ago

Hahaha, so profoundly true - especially the last paragraph!