I used to work for Blizzard. The Chinese government requested that we modify the WoW client so that they could intercept all chat. As far as I know, no-one said anything, including me - and Blizzard, of course, was more than happy to comply, given the size of the market and the risk of being forbidden to do business there. There were plenty of other MMOGs happy to play ball and eat that cake.
I didn't say anything. It was happening to "them", Chinese nationals. Not only that, but "they" should know better than to say sensitive things online, because even if we didn't install the back door, I reasoned, it wouldn't be too hard to get that data through various other means.
I really regret not only my participation, but not making a big stink about it. No-one did. I strongly suspect that that same system is being being used domestically, now. Clearly it was the wrong thing to do. I've regretted my role in that implementation for several years. I shouldn't have participated, and I should have protested. Even if it didn't stop it, at least the company leadership might have felt the heat. But I was a coward and I didn't want to lose my job, didn't want to fight a legal battle, and, like I said, it was just China spying on it's people, which everyone knew they do anyway.
And who knows? The news probably would have been ignored, or, if it wasn't, I might have been branded as a coward and a disloyal employee, betraying the people who put food on my table. And I being under 30, overpaid, over-priviledged, etc. I can hear the Fox News commentators even now. That, to me, has been the most difficult thing about Snowden, is that here's someone who did the right thing, who revealed wrong-doing on the part of our government, and there are a lot of people who say he's the wrongdoer, who attack him as disloyal and worse. A back door in a game used by China? Who would even care about that? And if they did, I'd just be torn to shreds, unemployable and with heaven-knows-what kind of future.
The reaction to Manning and Snowden, particularly the lack of strong public support, sends a strong signal that people don't want to know. They don't want to upset the apple cart. They don't want to challenge the government, they don't want to question it, not even when it's clearly violating it's own most important rules - the rules that, presumably, we've been fighting to promote these last 200 years. It seems hopeless.
First, thanks for coming clean. You're a human being who's made a really bad decision.
You should feel terrible for this. "They" are not merely your possible friends, or your relative's relatives, or your neighbors' cousins... "They" are other human beings who might someday decide to stand up for their human rights. "They" are millions of people you sold out for easy "dinner" & "rent".
And now the tool you helped build to invade their privacy is likely being turned on all your real friends, and your real relatives, and your real neighbors. And you're not even getting paid anymore.
You should feel terrible for selling out for so little. You weren't as afraid of being unemployed as you were of having to do something. You were mentally lazy and your moral compass was clearly defunct.
Too bad your behavior is not undoable and you'll have to live with it for the rest of your life. Maybe you can do something to recover for it in the future.
Hopefully your ethical failure can serve as an example of what not to do.
What did you hope to accomplish with this post? "Here's someone who did something bad, who can't undo it, and who feels bad enough to come clean - let's rub it in so as to discourage others from doing so"?
And it's a lot of people's 'decision' to bury their heads in the sand about the implications of Snowden's leaks. In that light, why isn't it also directed at everyone who doesn't care, rather than one guy who does?
Edit: What about the employer's choices to go ahead with it? No anger directed that way? This guy should have fallen on his sword but his company gets a pass?
Yeah, every person in the chain needs to wake the f* up.
Please don't mistake my lack of attention to Blizzard's complicity as a 'pass'.
I actively campaign against folks who would bury their heads in the sand. In the past decade I have spent huge effort (preaching?) to convince my peers not to accept work in these Military Industrial jobs and to leave them if they're already there. I've had quite a bit of success in that regard, and I would encourage (as I tried in my response) that others would help educate their peers as well.
I was very very clear about what I hoped to accomplish: a repentance from the actor in this case, and to highlight their stupidity to others.
And I wish more people would stand up and say it to their friends and relatives when those people graduate college and start talking about working for the Military Industrial Complex, "Cyber" anything, or various other companies who build bombs, agents of war, or devices used to subjugate other humans.
I hope this person will work hard to redeem what he's wrought. Nothing else can redeem him, his work won't just disappear for his remorse.
>Too bad your behavior is not undoable and you'll have to live with it for the rest of your life. Maybe you can do something to recover for it in the future.
Hopefully your ethical failure can serve as an example of what not to do.
I hope that others will send the message loudly and clearly to those that would create bomb parts or fragments of code necessary for snooping tools or facilitate those who would like to usurp peaceful human behavior.
No, you were not at all clear about what you wanted to achieve. From my reading, you simply berated someone on the internet for revealing something about themselves. I've never found that to be a productive way of convincing anyone of anything.
You now say that the aim was to get repentance, when he's already stated he regrets it. At no point do you give advice about what he could/should do now to 'make up for his sins', apart from 'feel really bad'.
The point wasn't to convince anyone of anything. The point was just to state, "I read what you wrote and I agree you fucked up seriously".
The Internet is not a confessional and speaking your sins out loud here doesn't automatically absolve you. But that might be an impression one could get if the only responses were in the tone of "thank you for telling us, you're a brave and good man". So we need comments, like mr_spothawk's, that basically say "you're not a bad guy, but you fucked up; here's why and how exactly; let's hope we can all learn from this".
Please re-read the thread as you've completely missed my point. I've not asked the person who 'confessed' to 'atone' for anything (that doesn't mean I agree with what happened).
My problem is with the comment that does nothing more than lambast someone without providing anything constructive. Offering some comment on how to approach such a situation next time, or what he could now, or projects he might think about contributing to, or anything else that might be useful to the person who originally posted or others reading the thread. As it stands, it's not much better than an ad-hominem.
I consider your comment very unproductive. You basically berated someone who already came out and said they were sorry for what they did. He realizes his mistake and repents. The fact that you want to make him feel even more guilty doesn't help at all and I find it very sad.
Don't we all make terrible choices both explicitly as well as implicitly? When faced with a choice between the moral rectitude and the livelihood of your family, it's very difficult to choose the former. At least this guy has courage to come clean and admit his wrongdoing.
I'm calling bullshit. Maybe this gentlemen would have taken some job that paid less(i doubt it), but it's hard to believe that a programmer, of all people, would be blackballed industry wide for refusing to implement some spying mechanism. Give me a break. If anyone is in a position to rebel against this type of system it's those of us in software. We have a strong community of anti-establishment minded people, we have a very strong job market and we make much more than a living wage.
Selling out for "so little"? I bet he sold out for over hundred thousand dollars, or more (depending on how long he wirked tgere.)
The need to know where food and rent are coming from is strong in humans, and the system takes full advantage of it. If you want to go against that, it will take a lot more than some ultimately futile work stoppage and sacrificing your future career.
The system is what it is, the golden rule applies, and to change the system, it would take prolonged civil war. I'd that what you want?
>The system is what it is, the golden rule applies, and to change the system, it would take prolonged civil war. I'd that what you want?
I want people to wake up and realize that this is absolutely farcical. We still live in a democracy, and we still have the power to stop this behavior by 'the system'. It took generations of stupidity to get here and it will take generations to get us out, but, cynical as I am, I don't think all is lost.
It takes waking up and walking out of jobs that do this sort of work. It takes jury nullification [1]. It takes thoughtful decisions by graduating seniors looking for work. It takes political education and civil protest and HARD WORK, but it doesn't require violence between the states.
When former President Jimmy Carter is on the record stating America simply has no functioning democracy at this point, it might be more of an uphill battle than voting. And anyways, there's not much to vote for. I vote green because Republicans are terrible, Democrats at least seem to pretend they care but won't stop any of this, Libertarianism scares me. So even though I don't agree with everything the Green party says, at least it's different. But we don't have socialist factions really, or pirate party candidates yet.
If you have an ethical choice to make, consider the reaction of your esteemed colleagues (get counsel if you feel you can), not that of the mainstream news. The general support for those such as Snowden and Manning among my peers would prove that indeed they are held in high regard among those to whom it matters. The decision you made was your decision and you should not curse yourself for it but learn from it and support those who did make decisions to release materials and information.
I think it would be great if someone with money in Silicon Valley were to make public statements along the lines of, "If you blow the whistle, and it's legit, you won't have to worry about your career. We want people who are driven to do the right thing. We want to hire heroes."
If Google really wants to make a statement about being not-evil, make Snowden a generous offer for employment while he's in Russia.
Eh...well intentioned, but no. There would be severe consequences for just offering employment to such sensitive individuals.
People like Snowden are not branded untouchable because people are ideologically opposed to his actions - that's a misrepresentation of what's actually going on. Whistleblowers become shunned because whoever they come into contact with will be elevated to accomplice status.
Google doesn't want that kind of fire under their ass. Altruism is all well and good, but there's a reason wh you're instructed to put your own oxygen mask on in a airplane emergency.
If a company like Google did that, they would immediately:
1. Place Snowden in United States lawful jurisdiction,
2. Endanger their own fiscal well-being,
3. Draw political attention and divisive sentiments to themselves.
I believe tech companies have a responsibility to take a stand, but being the hero and standing up to the man like that is essentially taking out Snowden and your company in a massive kamekaze attack that benefits only his detractors.
What's wrong with saying, "Hey, we are always looking for good sys admins, and clearly here's an out-of-work sysadmin, and despite the drama surrounding him, we're willing to look at him for a job at [Google]."
I was asked by government agency to protect (even from other government agencies) specific individuals information that were probable involved in corruption cases. I was vocal and fought against it and was ready to publicize it once finished. At the end the project was cancelled.
So... I don't believe in neutral ethical engineering decisions when the outcomes are crystal clear. I am not talking about ethical decisions on working at Zynga, at the end people can decide if they play their stupid games or not.
Just wanted to say I really admire you for having the courage to come out and say this publicly (even though it was anonymously).
The world needs more people like you. We all do things we regret later in life. I have great respect for the fact that you've reflected on your involvement in this, come to regret it, and have now chosen to speak out about it.
I think this particular case actually deserves a HN story in itself.
How about a program that would encrypt/decrypt game chat for users, since the wow interface has programmability. The act of commenting here and anonymously disclosing this, is a good thing.
If it makes you feel any better, you would not have made a difference.
Having lived there for nearly a decade, including middle and high school, I can tell you that people here just don't care anymore, and news papers and websites would know better than to publish a story like that anyway; you would have self-immolated for nothing.
If it were me, I'd have looked for a way to sneak it into a popup that shows the first time you run the updated client. Something like
In the interest of your safety and
the prosperity of the Chinese, all
your chat messages are henceforth
constantly monitored by government
officials. Have a nice day.
[OK]
It may ultimately turn out to be impossible to do, but I would like to at least try.
Don't feel too bad about what you did to Chinese people. At least game chat is far less a privacy concern for me, compared to forum, email or instant message which have been fully censored in China already.
But you might want to feel sorry about your government who clearly "improved" a lot in the last few years after it learned Yahoo's leak person email to Chinese government.
This just in: People Viewing Post On Internet Believe Everything They Read. Common Sense Responds, "I Give Up!"... HINT: People who work for Blizzard don't work for every Blizzard office, as Blizzard operates offices in multiple countries... In other news: Apple Inc. Still Operates Sweatshop-Like Conditions As Internet Cares About WoW Instead.
I know/hope you are kidding, but I still feel the need to respond.
That whatever is legal or not can still go against your own feel of right or wrong. Who cares if something is legal somewhere and you don't agree with it. There are probably many examples of things legal in countries you visit which your moral compass would prevent you from taking part in. My personal annoyance being bullfighting in Spain (where I live 4 months of the year).
That's what it means to be an ideologue - willingness to die for your values. Don't be ashamed about your decisions, a strong sense of self-preservation is perfectly natural.
What s/he did can be perfectly natural and not imply that s/he's a worse-than-average person, but still be worthy of shame. I don't mean to be an asshole here, but it's important for all of us to recognize that normal humans (ie. we) have a capacity to do awful things if circumstances encourage it - the Stanford Prison Experiment would be a famous illustration. That's why these slides are helpful.
If you are ever placed into a situation psychologically and ethically analogous to these experiments--a possibility that in a militarized and capitalist world it seems wise not to dismiss--and you want to acquit yourself better, what can you do? One option is to just have faith that you'll turn out to be an exceptionally good person. But that doesn't seem to me to be much wiser than assuming that no one with authority will ever encourage you to do something wrong. I think a better option, per the OP, is to think seriously in advance about what kind of situations might arise in your actual life and how you would like yourself to respond.
Classically, I respond to this line of thinking - the doubt of being an exceptionally "good" person - with the following self-assessed metric:
"If you were raised in the deep South during the 18th and 19th centuries, would you be aggressively racist, ambivalent or abolitionist in your views towards Black enslavement?"
The immediate gut feeling that people feel is important, because it doesn't end there. You then ask if that gut feeling can be reasoned to be consistent with their behavior, or if it's just a feel-good response. If someone really feels they'd be abolitionist, this should be at least somewhat reflected in small examples of day to day behavior. People don't reserve "goodness" for large deeds, they are usually the kind of people who help out in small, less noticeable/outspoken ways as well.
NB: This is not a test designed to prove how good someone is to another person, it's a self-assessment. It's asked to help the person learn more about themselves.
I didn't say anything. It was happening to "them", Chinese nationals. Not only that, but "they" should know better than to say sensitive things online, because even if we didn't install the back door, I reasoned, it wouldn't be too hard to get that data through various other means.
I really regret not only my participation, but not making a big stink about it. No-one did. I strongly suspect that that same system is being being used domestically, now. Clearly it was the wrong thing to do. I've regretted my role in that implementation for several years. I shouldn't have participated, and I should have protested. Even if it didn't stop it, at least the company leadership might have felt the heat. But I was a coward and I didn't want to lose my job, didn't want to fight a legal battle, and, like I said, it was just China spying on it's people, which everyone knew they do anyway.
And who knows? The news probably would have been ignored, or, if it wasn't, I might have been branded as a coward and a disloyal employee, betraying the people who put food on my table. And I being under 30, overpaid, over-priviledged, etc. I can hear the Fox News commentators even now. That, to me, has been the most difficult thing about Snowden, is that here's someone who did the right thing, who revealed wrong-doing on the part of our government, and there are a lot of people who say he's the wrongdoer, who attack him as disloyal and worse. A back door in a game used by China? Who would even care about that? And if they did, I'd just be torn to shreds, unemployable and with heaven-knows-what kind of future.
The reaction to Manning and Snowden, particularly the lack of strong public support, sends a strong signal that people don't want to know. They don't want to upset the apple cart. They don't want to challenge the government, they don't want to question it, not even when it's clearly violating it's own most important rules - the rules that, presumably, we've been fighting to promote these last 200 years. It seems hopeless.