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Topic: What are the responsibilities of a programmer, if you write a trojan, can you legitimately claim that it was for educational purposes? What about virii? When does programming turn from a white magic into a black one? Let's have a good discussion on this one.
i was screweing around with the 'system' command once, as i wanted to make a prog to clear my temorary internet files...but i forgot a '/' and it erased my whole windows directory...hah, it was fun watching windows go down the drain ;)...
one reason i don't want to do this professionally [pysch, even if i could... :p] is because i innately do not want to have to go through red tape... even something which might not bother anyone else... ie coding standards... ........es me off to no end. it's a hobby, i feel the control... and eventually you'll see my art on e-bay... selling data, is that right? well anyhow... that's that...
I think you can write destructive code without being immoral. When you release it publicly, that's a different story. I think it's good to learn about that sort of thing ( and the only way to learn is try ) but please, set up a dummy system to test it on, not real people.
How about writing "safety" measures into corporate software? Like if you don't register this product or pay more for it, then it won't work. I understand the need to protect personal work and make money but I think that goes too far.
It's a very grey area but derseves thought every once in a while.
taylorguitarman, what's wrong with a bit of protection for something tons of people spent tons of time on? (hmm... playing the devil's advocate can be fun)
I don't need to play da here, (that's "devils advocate" doubleanti).
I am really not sure how many man years has gone into our products, but even the simplest has upwards of half a million lines of code in it - trialed, tested and ISO certified.
taylorguitarman:
Do you believe we should trust people to pay the licence fees for those products and not protect all that investment?
Generally:
What do the rest of you think about working on military software? I never have, and never would, but that's me.
Presuambly McAfee and Symmantec employ people to write trojans and viruses in order to test their anti-virus and firewall products.
The real dilemma surely comes when these people realise they could "untracably" release a virus/trojan with the sole purpose to generate sales and increase shareholder value, just like in MI2, but with computers rather than people.
What do you count as "Military" software, I've maintained code which test components which we supply solely to a military customer, and I think I've managed not to commit treason by saying so and being vague about it. I've never felt bad about it, but mainly because I trust the customer.
I have no qualms with big companies protecting their investment at a reasonable rate/price. Some licence or subscription fees are extortionate however especially compared to the level of service you recieve in return.
Remember in all your software to put in disclaimers about limited liability in the case of death due to using your software, this aspect of law is very ill defined and blame can be entirely out upon individual programmers not companies.
RobS:
What I mean is code which will be used for weapons. Consider a Tomahawk. This is a device who's entire reason for being is to deliver a warhead. It contains a lot of code, somebody wrote it. What do the people here think about the ethics of that?
If they dont' catch you, it's not illegal - he he
>>> If they dont' catch you, it's not illegal - he he
You see what I mean? While that attitude prevails, companies will use measures to protect their investment - you cannot trust people to pay what they should.
Chill out - I was only joking.
However, If companies didn't markup the price by 1000% percent, more software would be sold.
>>> - I was only joking.
Maybe so, but there are many out there that have exactly that attitude.
>>> If companies didn't markup the price by 1000% percent
I doubt companies could routinely do this and stay in business.
Surely no one part is greater than the whole, the code I wrote\modified will still ultimately allow the 'successful?' delivery of a warhead.
When production is complete here and components shipped and are built into systems and vehicles which are used to blow things up and kill people I'm just as responsible as anyone else over the whole process.
But because I, and my Government, "know" the customer and their likely use of the technology I have no ethical problem for it, even if I worked for DERA, MOD or Qinetic, whoever and was explicitely writing the code to deliver the warhead.
>>> Surely no one part is greater than the whole
No, of course not. So your answer to my question is that you do not have an ethical problem with working with military software.
Fair enough that is all I asked, as the thread was about coding and ethics, it seemed a reasonable question.
Personally i refuse to work with any military installations as well as pharmaceutical and tobacco companies because of their company policies
Sadly enough, I do have faith in people. I have in my day used many pirated versions of things (yes I did just admit that).
The things I actually use however I have paid for or have found free alternatives to (open source). Many times I will try software out before buying it (I hate using the crippled demo versions) and at the cost of software these day it better be all I'm looking for. Being a programmer myself, I have respect for the time and effort others have put into their product and therefore will buy the product if I indent to use it.
I hope many other programmers have the same attidute. But I fear many do not.
Perhaps software registrations should be used for people to get updates and new versions (many do this already which I think it commendable), not to prevent people from using the product after 30 uses.
>>> (I hate using the crippled demo versions)
Yes, so do many, and a crippled version rarely gives the right impression of the full product, so...
>>> prevent people from using the product after 30 uses.
... gives them a non-crippled demo to decide if the thing is for them or not. Is that not, after all, what you want?
hmmm... unfortunately the purchase of much software is largely inelastic... [i'm taking econ... so i'm applying it to the real world now...] even if pirating were much worse [which i think it could be...] there would still be demand for the software, even if it was inflated beyond belief... prices raise, total revenue raises as well...
this said, i totally avoid the economical context of programming, and do it only as a hobby... if i did it on the side, why not firstly help others out with our skills, and secondly make a buck! :p
hey now, 'da', maybe i would have said something like that anyway... but with more 'hmmms' and ellipsis'...
If you are taking econ the answer to this should be pretty obvious. I program first to make a buck because I have bills. Nothing like a house payment and kids to motivate you to get out there and do some work.Quote:
Originally posted by doubleanti
this said, i totally avoid the economical context of programming, and do it only as a hobby... if i did it on the side, why not firstly help others out with our skills, and secondly make a buck!
good point...Quote:
If you are taking econ the answer to this should be pretty obvious. I program first to make a buck because I have bills. Nothing like a house payment and kids to motivate you to get out there and do some work.