Especially in the area of CS/programming, it's so easy for experts to fool the IRB because they can hide behind words like "website", "data", "policy", as if th

Especially in the area of CS/programming, it's so easy for experts to fool the IRB because they can hide behind words like "website", "data", "policy", as if they are dealing exclusively with machines. > who are we really to challenge that We are not obligated to make the same ethical judgement as the IRB. We are all entitled to challenge that. Making bogus legal threats is unethical, when being sued can realistically lead to completely altered life. Yes, it's an annoyance, after the subjects determined that the threat is bogus, but it could be legitimately distressing (even costly) when they first received the threat. The researchers made no efforts to contain the negative impact of their email, either. The email contains no information about it being a bogus threat. The subjects weren't told in advance that they might be lied to. The subjects had given no consent to being scared. It doesn't seem "good faith" to send mass threatening emails with deliberately misrepresented laws. Remember that the Milgram experiment also involved no illegal actions, and were done in pursuit of knowledge.