Or companies that deploy ad sense or otherwise depend on companies like Google or Facebook.
And now Microsoft decided they also want a piece of the pie.
The kicker? I see people still defend Google all the time, nowadays with bullshit arguments like "I am tired of this you are the product meme" and still excuse Facebook because they need it to keep in touch with others. And they found startups based on advertising and tracking, they work for them and generally support analytics as an inalienable right of software development.
Pretty much. I don't use Facebook at all, and give in to Google only on technical searches (Which DDG still isn't good at), mapping and when forced to by work (GCE etc.), so you're preaching to the choir, but lets not try for an overnight coup here.
NSA, GCHQ, BSI/BND, etc. aren't the "bad guy" in theory.
It's within a nation's interest to, within the extent of law and respect for human rights, try as thoroughly has it can to know what's going on in the world. Electronic intelligence is part of that, and a growing part.
In practice, the permissive reactions many/most/all governments have to allegations (or proof) that a comms intel agency has broken the law, that's what the trouble is. That these groups have been allowed to break the law or ghostwrite laws that allow them to violate what would generally not be approved by a citizenry, that needs to be addressed.
I'm not sure how ruining the careers of software developers and computer scientists who've worked for these organizations does anything other than remove from circulation some brilliant members of our community.
Ostracize the middle managers, bureaucrats, politicians that allow the trampling of our rights.
But don't arrest the guy designing the home theater system for El Chapo's vacation house and tell me you've taken down the Mexican drug cartel.
Why must we accommodate their subservience? Following orders is no excuse.
Theory is not really relevant when the practical reality is monstrous. The five eyes are not redeemable.
It's easy for us to sit at our desks and churn out our work and be mad. And there's things to be mad about for sure. The wanton disregard for civil liberty and protection is simply irredeemable. And to be sure, I've been a fan of your country's very public responses over the last few years to personal privacy. I hope the US legislature can learn a thing or two.
But It's not the "five eyes". It's the entire world. Any country with an interest in protecting their sovereignty also has some form of information gathering operation.
When that operation gets big and exposes itself, folks get upset because, yeah, being spied on isn't a comfortable thing. Do some countries go about gathering this information more morally than others? Something tells me we'd have to be in the secret inner sanctums of the biggest opponents to really know, and I think the answer would be "a spade is a spade."
Does it help our countries protect themselves? I honestly don't know.
But I do know that "grey hatting" in the general development community doesn't garner this sort of bile and venom. I don't know why being a grey hat for a government should be treated differently.
If the NSA would like to declassify it's employees job history in a credible and verifiable fashion, I'd be keen to take this on a case by case basis.
It is possible that the NSA is hiring engineers for benign reasons. If that's the case, I assume they are not classifying that work. After all, the government should not be withholding information from the public without cause.
As it stands, it is reasonable, in light of the revelations of the last several years, to suppose that any engineer who cannot reveal their work history with an intelligence agency has performed unethical work. This is what's known as "preponderance of evidence".
>Who are you associated with that I (or society) doesn't like?
What a fascinating question. So many insights to your character. I'm entitled to associate with whom I like, and your seedy, toad-like implication that for even suggesting such a thing as personal accountability, I must be a state enemy has the delicious tang of a low quality KGB-centric TV serial. You know, the kind in which the plucky all-american hero fights back against the oppression of a totalitarian russian government. It would be funny if global law enforcement wasn't looking towards digitally predicted thought crime as a genuine goal.
So speculate freely, because the real answer is terribly dull: I'm a normal citizen, posting my opinions on an internet forum and associating with you.
I don't actually care who you associate with - it was a thought game - you are saying that you are for guilt via association (or at least I assumed you were) which I was I tried to throw that principle back in your face. Jeez, do you need jokes explaining to you too?
The fact you think my inability to talk about some secret work I have done means that I've done something unethical is ridiculous.
The evidence we've seen so far says no, it's not ridiculous. Prove otherwise any time :)
Alan Turing helping to crack the enigma code comes to mind.
You're now assuming all intelligence work is unethical? You're childlike arrogance and ignorance is tiresome.
However, I'd also like to see general software development think more closely about the role it has in normalising these things. Next time you start to create an account system for your project, ask yourself whether you really need it. Could you engineer around it, perhaps by letting the user store their data, or using a stored key to identify them? Let's go beyond don't store what you can't protect, and aim for don't store what you don't strictly need.