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The essence is that the people who built the unethical NSA tools most likely did not consider the things they did unethical, so calling on people to be ethical

The essence is that the people who built the unethical NSA tools most likely did not consider the things they did unethical, so calling on people to be ethical as a response to the NSA leaks only work if "ethical" is understood as "you can't build surveillance tools for the NSA even if you personally believe it's ethical".

melling 13y ago
var allHackersHaveSamePoliticalBeliefs=FALSE; while (! allHackersHaveSamePoliticalBeliefs) { // Should randomize topics NSA, Snowden, Wikileaks, US Govt, US Military postPoliticalStoryToHackerNews(); sleep(1_DAY); }
Crito 13y ago
There are roughly two sorts of people to consider here. The people who agree that the project they are working on is unethical (or would agree if they stopped to think about it), and the people who honestly believe that their work is ethical. Obviously when we tell engineers to consider the ethical implications of the project that they are working on, we are talking to the first group (particularly the parenthesized subgroup). The people who believe their work is unethical won't stop working on it just because we disagree, but that should not discourage us from encouraging people to grow a spine and not work on projects that they have ethical objections to. For people in the second group, we can work with alternative techniques. One possibility is socially ostracizing and blacklisting people who continue to work on unethical projects. (As discussed at some length on HN three or so weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6714585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6714585)
- mseebach 13y ago
  I think these debates tend to dramatically overemphasize the size of group one, to the point of being misanthropic ("grow a spine"?). A fundamental fact of life is that people have vastly diverging belief systems and that those in the ivory tower don't always know what's right or best. There's a tangential group to this, which are the people who work on something they don't consider unethical, but may change their minds when they learn the true scale of what they are part of (it's unlikely many people in the NSA outside the very top have full visibility on all the programs detailed in the Snowdon leaks, and it's very possible that each, viewed in isolation and with the right context can be quite defensible). The second suggestion overemphases just how attractive hanging out with judgmental purists actually is. Today it's NSA, tomorrow it's people who work on social gaming, the day after it's finance and the next it's ads. These sectors are already shunned by (some? large? At least they're vocal.) parts of the tech community that considers themselves and their endeavours morally superior, yet they thrive just fine.
  - sentenza 13y ago
    Hm. The NSA is different from all your other examples, though. Finance, social gaming, ads and pretty much everything else is or can be regulated by the rule of law. Intelligence agencies cannot. There is no precedent of a surveillance society that managed to keep from turning authoritarian. Why should anybody assume that this time is different?
    - mseebach 13y ago
      Of course intelligence agencies can, should be and are regulated by law. Sometimes they manipulate the law in their favour and sometimes they break it, but so do the other fields, most notably finance. But more importantly, law and ethics are not the same thing. Merely not breaking the law does not make you an ethical person (and that's not the point of the law). Conversely, breaking some laws under some circumstances does not make you an unethical person.
  - Crito 13y ago
    > "I think these debates tend to dramatically overemphasize the size of group one, to the point of being misanthropic ("grow a spine"?). A fundamental fact of life is that people have vastly diverging belief systems and that those in the ivory tower don't always know what's right or best." You seem to have not fully read my comment, or misinterpreted it. I am not telling people who consider their (in my opinion, unethical) work to be ethical to grow a spine. Disagreeing with with other people, even me, on matters of ethics does not imply that somebody is spineless. Performing a job that you consider unethical makes you spineless. I am telling people to act on their own assessment of their work. Frankly I shouldn't even need to tell people that, it is practically tautological how common sense it is.
    - mseebach 13y ago
      The quoted line is more responding to your second paragraph, not your first: "Obviously when we tell engineers to consider the ethical implications of the project that they are working on, we are talking to the first group" No, I think when "we" tell engineers that, we're addressing a straw-man, posturing and showing off our superior ethics. Imagining that there's an audience of engineers who just need to be told that what they're doing is unethical is vain.
hindsightbias 13y ago
I'll bet all those NSA tools are all running on Linux. Linux is a tool. Is Linus ethical?
- Crito 13y ago
  Merely making a tool that is used in an atrocity is traditionally not enough to condemn a toolmaker. Consider the extraordinarily extreme case of Bruno Tesch. He was hung because he provided his pesticide for the express purpose of killing humans, knowing that this is what it was for. This was evidenced by the sale of the pesticide without the standard warning odorant, and witness testimony. Conversely, I am unaware of anybody that was hung for manufacturing train cars. An NSA employee may claim ignorance, and assert that they were told the systems they helped develop were only to be used for legal and ethical purposes. If this is work that they did before various NSA revelations became public, they might even be believed and therefore excused.
Zigurd 13y ago
> so calling on people to be ethical as a response to the NSA leaks only work if "ethical" is understood as "you can't build surveillance tools for the NSA..." It also works if enough other people believe it. For example, the medical doctors who helped design torture at Guantanamo. Would you join a practice with them? Allow them to admit to your hospital?

melling 13y ago

var allHackersHaveSamePoliticalBeliefs=FALSE; while (! allHackersHaveSamePoliticalBeliefs) { // Should randomize topics NSA, Snowden, Wikileaks, US Govt, US Military postPoliticalStoryToHackerNews(); sleep(1_DAY); }

Crito 13y ago

There are roughly two sorts of people to consider here. The people who agree that the project they are working on is unethical (or would agree if they stopped to think about it), and the people who honestly believe that their work is ethical. Obviously when we tell engineers to consider the ethical implications of the project that they are working on, we are talking to the first group (particularly the parenthesized subgroup). The people who believe their work is unethical won't stop working on it just because we disagree, but that should not discourage us from encouraging people to grow a spine and not work on projects that they have ethical objections to. For people in the second group, we can work with alternative techniques. One possibility is socially ostracizing and blacklisting people who continue to work on unethical projects. (As discussed at some length on HN three or so weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6714585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6714585)

mseebach 13y ago
I think these debates tend to dramatically overemphasize the size of group one, to the point of being misanthropic ("grow a spine"?). A fundamental fact of life is that people have vastly diverging belief systems and that those in the ivory tower don't always know what's right or best. There's a tangential group to this, which are the people who work on something they don't consider unethical, but may change their minds when they learn the true scale of what they are part of (it's unlikely many people in the NSA outside the very top have full visibility on all the programs detailed in the Snowdon leaks, and it's very possible that each, viewed in isolation and with the right context can be quite defensible). The second suggestion overemphases just how attractive hanging out with judgmental purists actually is. Today it's NSA, tomorrow it's people who work on social gaming, the day after it's finance and the next it's ads. These sectors are already shunned by (some? large? At least they're vocal.) parts of the tech community that considers themselves and their endeavours morally superior, yet they thrive just fine.
- sentenza 13y ago
  Hm. The NSA is different from all your other examples, though. Finance, social gaming, ads and pretty much everything else is or can be regulated by the rule of law. Intelligence agencies cannot. There is no precedent of a surveillance society that managed to keep from turning authoritarian. Why should anybody assume that this time is different?
  - mseebach 13y ago
    Of course intelligence agencies can, should be and are regulated by law. Sometimes they manipulate the law in their favour and sometimes they break it, but so do the other fields, most notably finance. But more importantly, law and ethics are not the same thing. Merely not breaking the law does not make you an ethical person (and that's not the point of the law). Conversely, breaking some laws under some circumstances does not make you an unethical person.
- Crito 13y ago
  > "I think these debates tend to dramatically overemphasize the size of group one, to the point of being misanthropic ("grow a spine"?). A fundamental fact of life is that people have vastly diverging belief systems and that those in the ivory tower don't always know what's right or best." You seem to have not fully read my comment, or misinterpreted it. I am not telling people who consider their (in my opinion, unethical) work to be ethical to grow a spine. Disagreeing with with other people, even me, on matters of ethics does not imply that somebody is spineless. Performing a job that you consider unethical makes you spineless. I am telling people to act on their own assessment of their work. Frankly I shouldn't even need to tell people that, it is practically tautological how common sense it is.
  - mseebach 13y ago
    The quoted line is more responding to your second paragraph, not your first: "Obviously when we tell engineers to consider the ethical implications of the project that they are working on, we are talking to the first group" No, I think when "we" tell engineers that, we're addressing a straw-man, posturing and showing off our superior ethics. Imagining that there's an audience of engineers who just need to be told that what they're doing is unethical is vain.

hindsightbias 13y ago

I'll bet all those NSA tools are all running on Linux. Linux is a tool. Is Linus ethical?

Crito 13y ago
Merely making a tool that is used in an atrocity is traditionally not enough to condemn a toolmaker. Consider the extraordinarily extreme case of Bruno Tesch. He was hung because he provided his pesticide for the express purpose of killing humans, knowing that this is what it was for. This was evidenced by the sale of the pesticide without the standard warning odorant, and witness testimony. Conversely, I am unaware of anybody that was hung for manufacturing train cars. An NSA employee may claim ignorance, and assert that they were told the systems they helped develop were only to be used for legal and ethical purposes. If this is work that they did before various NSA revelations became public, they might even be believed and therefore excused.

Zigurd 13y ago

> so calling on people to be ethical as a response to the NSA leaks only work if "ethical" is understood as "you can't build surveillance tools for the NSA..." It also works if enough other people believe it. For example, the medical doctors who helped design torture at Guantanamo. Would you join a practice with them? Allow them to admit to your hospital?