Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Military Contracts

Re:Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Mi... by bayfullofrays on Friday June 22, 2018 @12:53PM (#17375482)

You can't be pro peace and work for a company that is supplying your code to a government that wants to kill brown people a half world away.

I hope more engineers do the same when working with the American government and understand that something they may see as benign as Excel can be used to facilitate harm.

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Re:Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Mi... by mips_avatar on Friday June 22, 2018 @01:10PM (#17375604)

It doesn't really help any military to kill non-combatants. The types of tools google was developing were for detecting terrorists in Afghanistan placing road-side bombs. Right now the video tapes from drones above Kabul are only analyzed after an explosion kills people. If project Maven had been finished by google these bombs could have been identified and civilians could be evacuated from the areas.

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Re:Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Mi... by oh_sigh on Friday June 22, 2018 @01:09PM (#17375599)

Sure, but what government are you talking about? I'm fairly sure the USG doesn't 'want to kill brown people'.

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Re:Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Mi... by dpeck on Friday June 22, 2018 @01:19PM (#17375669)

Quite a bit of historical and contemporary evidence indicates otherwise. It may not be a goal, but it certainly isn’t a dealbreaker in achieving whatever aims of the time.

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Re:Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Mi... by skybrian on Friday June 22, 2018 @01:34PM (#17375784)

Can you be pro peace and work on open source code that anyone may use, including all governments?

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