7 ms·

I've never been put in the situation where an engineer shared something alarming from a proprietary code base, but hypothetically if someone brought with them t

by buf 4y ago

I've never been put in the situation where an engineer shared something alarming from a proprietary code base, but hypothetically if someone brought with them the code for how to hack superuser privs for an old company, that would be an ethics violation and I would pass.

deepsun 4y ago
Well it does not matter if it's alarming or not. They are in violation of their signed NDAs with their previous employer. Also, if they don't work there anymore, they should've deleted all the code (if they had it) and surrendered/cleared up all the laptops. But I like your idea, anyway I give big kudos to candidates with their own pet projects.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- pg_1234 4y ago
  Almost every employer will violate their employee's rights without a second thought in ways they consider "unimportant but necessary to the business" ... as long as that continues it should be a 2-way street.
  - hnfong 4y ago
    The point is not necessarily whether it's morally wrong to violate a contractual agreement when the other party is likely to do so. It's that the interview process proposed by the G[...]P may force the candidate to do things that may be illegal to pass the interview. The candidate is of course responsible for their own choices, but the point is that as an interviewer, if you force your candidates to do this, you might short list those who have a tendency to violate contract terms. This might work out for some, but I'd say it's a fair point to bring up.
    - leaflets2 4y ago
      > you might short list those who have a tendency to violate contract terms. An asshole filter https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1209794.html https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1209794.html (maybe you've read already?)
      - hnfong 4y ago
        I'm familiar with the general concept but never read that specific article. Fun reading though, thanks!
  - jhfgjhfgjhg 4y ago
    "Almost every employer will violate their employee's rights without a second thought" What's your source? "unimportant but necessary to the business" What examples?
  - deepsun 4y ago
    Mmm, no? I'm an employer right now in my small company. Don't see any reason to screw up my employees, on the contrary, I see it's much better to work in a friendly environment. There's no such "unimportant but necessary to the business" things.
irrational 4y ago
How are they sharing their code? At my company things are locked down so tightly that I can’t move code off of company computers. I would have to look at the code on one computer and type it into a computer of my own. Unless people are doing interviews on their company computer or the company is careless with their code, I’m not sure how someone would even share their work code.
- wingerlang 4y ago
  Not sure how locked your computer is but everywhere I've ever worked, it's been trivial. Email the source file, zip it and upload somewhere, pastebin temporary, airdrop it, usb sticks.
  - comprev 4y ago
    My client is in the financial industry and have to use their equipment as a remote contractor. The win10 laptop is locked down tight, including removable drives disabled, DNS forced through corporate servers, SSH blocked outside network, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if all activity was somehow centrally logged for compliance too. I had to request permission to whitelist my VPN account to access Github.com. Even with VPN disabled the laptop still uses corporate DNS. The security policy is designed to prevent theft. Of course there _are_ ways to circumvent these protections but you'd be in a world of legal trouble if caught.
    - maribozu 4y ago
      Working in the financial industry as well, not as a contractor but within the organisation itself. To add to the above (everything is quite the same in my case): pasting medium chunks of data to external websites is restricted on the system level, same for uploading documents/images; emails to non-corporate addresses are scanned.
  - swinglock 4y ago
    You would do that? Now I'm beginning to consider if I should be asking candidates to bring some intellectual property owned by their current/previous employer as a filter.

by buf 4y ago

deepsun 4y ago

Well it does not matter if it's alarming or not. They are in violation of their signed NDAs with their previous employer. Also, if they don't work there anymore, they should've deleted all the code (if they had it) and surrendered/cleared up all the laptops. But I like your idea, anyway I give big kudos to candidates with their own pet projects.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
pg_1234 4y ago
Almost every employer will violate their employee's rights without a second thought in ways they consider "unimportant but necessary to the business" ... as long as that continues it should be a 2-way street.
- hnfong 4y ago
  The point is not necessarily whether it's morally wrong to violate a contractual agreement when the other party is likely to do so. It's that the interview process proposed by the G[...]P may force the candidate to do things that may be illegal to pass the interview. The candidate is of course responsible for their own choices, but the point is that as an interviewer, if you force your candidates to do this, you might short list those who have a tendency to violate contract terms. This might work out for some, but I'd say it's a fair point to bring up.
  - leaflets2 4y ago
    > you might short list those who have a tendency to violate contract terms. An asshole filter https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1209794.html https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1209794.html (maybe you've read already?)
    - hnfong 4y ago
      I'm familiar with the general concept but never read that specific article. Fun reading though, thanks!
- jhfgjhfgjhg 4y ago
  "Almost every employer will violate their employee's rights without a second thought" What's your source? "unimportant but necessary to the business" What examples?
- deepsun 4y ago
  Mmm, no? I'm an employer right now in my small company. Don't see any reason to screw up my employees, on the contrary, I see it's much better to work in a friendly environment. There's no such "unimportant but necessary to the business" things.

irrational 4y ago

How are they sharing their code? At my company things are locked down so tightly that I can’t move code off of company computers. I would have to look at the code on one computer and type it into a computer of my own. Unless people are doing interviews on their company computer or the company is careless with their code, I’m not sure how someone would even share their work code.

wingerlang 4y ago
Not sure how locked your computer is but everywhere I've ever worked, it's been trivial. Email the source file, zip it and upload somewhere, pastebin temporary, airdrop it, usb sticks.
- comprev 4y ago
  My client is in the financial industry and have to use their equipment as a remote contractor. The win10 laptop is locked down tight, including removable drives disabled, DNS forced through corporate servers, SSH blocked outside network, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if all activity was somehow centrally logged for compliance too. I had to request permission to whitelist my VPN account to access Github.com. Even with VPN disabled the laptop still uses corporate DNS. The security policy is designed to prevent theft. Of course there _are_ ways to circumvent these protections but you'd be in a world of legal trouble if caught.
  - maribozu 4y ago
    Working in the financial industry as well, not as a contractor but within the organisation itself. To add to the above (everything is quite the same in my case): pasting medium chunks of data to external websites is restricted on the system level, same for uploading documents/images; emails to non-corporate addresses are scanned.
- swinglock 4y ago
  You would do that? Now I'm beginning to consider if I should be asking candidates to bring some intellectual property owned by their current/previous employer as a filter.