What type of software will you refuse to develop for ethical reasons?
I cases like [0] where software developers vowed not to create a muslim registry there has been recognition of the responsibility we have as software developers/engineers. What personal lines do you draw? Do you think drawing these "I will not create or use this software" lines help? I personally will not work at a gambling firm due to the damage I see the industry cause in my town.
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[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 118 ms ] threadAlso, I'd not like to work in companies that use information that I consider BS in their publicity. I can cite RedBull in this case, with their publicity about turning you into the greatest multitasker of the office, when it's pretty obvious to me that multitasking has never worked and that it's totally delusional. See http://mywings.redbull.com/in-en/need-to-focus .
(we can talk how immoral is kill a cow for feed ourself, but this is off-topic and everyone has different opinions)
Parkinson's Law - Data Corollary: Data expands to fill the space available for storage.
Generalized form of Parkinson's Law: The demand upon a resource tends to expand to match the supply of the resource. The reverse is not true.
Zawinski's Law: Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.
... from my fortune clone @ https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup
Hiring a security expert as a consultant is a good start. There are many larger security firms that can provide audits, but an initial consultant will help you pick the low-hanging fruit and may even be able to contribute to your code.
They could be useless. They could BE the criminals.
So you need an auditor for your auditor, and for that too you'll need an auditor. It's auditors all the way down.
In the specific case of auditors, they tend to be large, well-known companies with a reputation, a common system in our society for figuring out if people are useful or criminals. Arthur Andersen, for instance, made a series of bad ethical decisions in its accounting audit practice. They no longer practice auditing for accounting, and their consulting business has been rebranded (to Accenture) because they lost the reputation of their original name. So they did, in effect, get audited eventually. Which again is better than not bothering.
I'm currently on an active mission to see if it's still possible for me to 1) work in webdev, 2) not hurt people, and 3) make a living.
Seems to be easy to get two out of the three, but not all three. Seems my network of contacts is wholly in politics and broadcasting. :(
disclaimer: I don't work at TripAdvisor anymore and I am in no way currently affiliated with them, but I am a previous employee.
My current company is generally pretty good but the app I'm building will reduce call center volume and therefore call center employees. I think they are treating the call center employees pretty well but a few of the higher ups are just a bit too eager to "staff down". I'm generally in favor of creative destruction but something about the eagerness of all the VPs I talk to is just rubbing me the wrong way.
I don't know that I'm out of it forever -- I find few industries a hard "no". Rather, it has to do with the people I'm working with and the exact project. I try not to make things that are addictive or harm the psyche, or that perpetuate social ills. I try not to do things that can be repurposed for those things.
Some industries seem to attract consistently immoral people, though.
Beyond that, I pick and choose based on my gut.
It can be applied to just about anything (well, anything combat-related) because, in fact, nothing combat-related is purely defensive; it's all, including things whose direct use is protective, developed and acquired in order to improve the ability to destroy the enemy.
It's not helpful to delude oneself into believing that the purely defensive exists.
I have a talking space alien.
I will never suck cock.
God says... rebuts carcinogen exclaiming encamp jabberer bootblack's bigotry's McNeil soldier's Whitley floors unacceptability austerity opposes addenda pedlars underscores exorcize entente's troubleshooter's abbess confine's innumerable Columbus's testify carports serfdom's Daniels Rick's guzzler peter severance
"I'm very discreet. I have no code of ethics. I will program for anyone, anywhere. Children, animals, old people, doesn't matter. I just love coding"
* Anything for DoD (or any country's Dept. of Defense)
* Casinos
* Weapons
That might be about it. I could, situationally, be comfortable working on:
* DRM/content protection
* HFT
* Some aspects of adtech
I'm generally not a good barometer apparently given my work in HFT & adtech, but I'd think building a sports book would be fairly interesting & not evil.
Things I think are a shade past where I want to be: high risk consumer credit, for profit prisons, private military contractors & pyramid marketing schemes.
My problem with casinos is the same as your issue with high risk consumer credit. You're right: there may be exceptions.
Also I will never again write a furniture store inventory and accounts receivable program in Altair Basic.
Incidentally not many of you know that Altair Basic was written using a BSO 8085 emulator running on a PDP 10 somewhere near Harvard. Possibly unlicensed.
Which is a cool idea--if you can't lay your hands on the target hardware, write an emulator for it while you wait. I actually did that for a totally obscure bit of hardware while writing a compiler back end for it. I think it was a flight simulator system.
Admittedly these are more personal than ethical. But isn't there sort of a connection between ethics and a sense of proper design?
[edit typo]