Javice and the Data Science Professor Create Fake Customers

Re:Javice and the Data Science Professor Create Fake Customers by reese_john on Saturday January 14, 2023 @09:27AM (#34380540)

> The Director of Engineering questioned whether creating and using such a data set was legal, but Javice tried to assure the engineer by claiming that this was perfectly acceptable in an investment situation and she did not believe that anyone would end up in an "orange jumpsuit" over this project.

> The Director of Engineering was not persuaded and told Javice and Amar that he would not perform the task and only would send them the file containing Frank's actual users, which amounted to approximately 293,000 individuals at that time.

Had she managed to successfully persuade him, would the Director of Engineering have been liable for fraud? She clearly tried to make it seem all look legal.

What should an engineer do when asked to do something that he's not sure whether it's legal or not?

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Re:Javice and the Data Science Professor Create Fake Customers by ProjectArcturis on Saturday January 14, 2023 @12:07PM (#34381820)

The engineer would have had a hard time convincing authorities that he was not a part of the fraud conspiracy. He made a very good decision not to participate. There really isn't a very plausible non-criminal explanation for why you'd create all those fake identities.

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Re:Javice and the Data Science Professor Create Fake Customers by scotty79 on Saturday January 14, 2023 @01:18PM (#34382490)

> There really isn't a very plausible non-criminal explanation for why you'd create all those fake identities.

I think "they told me to do it" is perfectly reasonable defence in this case.

If your employer tells you to build a knife why would you be held responsible for him stabbing someone or themselves? Even if they bragged to you that exactly what they are going to do.

I think then engineer in question shown very high morals, way above their pay grade and deserves respect.

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Re:Javice and the Data Science Professor Create Fake Customers by bee_rider on Saturday January 14, 2023 @01:26PM (#34382573)

I’m pretty sure creating a weapon like that would make you an accomplice at least, maybe a co-conspirator…

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Re:Javice and the Data Science Professor Create Fake Customers by scotty79 on Saturday January 14, 2023 @02:05PM (#34382988)

I have no idea how guns and knives manufacturers stay out of jail then.

No, seriously. How?

How Smith & Wesson is not held accountable as an accomplice to all murders committed with their products? I'm not opposed to that, but I want to know how it's possible to avoid it in practice.

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Re:Javice and the Data Science Professor Create Fake Customers by ProjectArcturis on Saturday January 14, 2023 @02:12PM (#34383076)

>If your employer tells you to build a knife why would you be held responsible for him stabbing someone or themselves? Even if they bragged to you that exactly what they are going to do.

This exactly fits the description of abetting a crime: "A charge of aiding and abetting has three requirements. First, someone else must have committed a crime. Second, the defendant must have assisted that person in the commission of the crime. Third, the defendant must have had knowledge of that person's criminal intent or criminal plans." https://www.justia.com/criminal/offenses/inchoate-crimes/aid...

A prosecutor could argue that a VP engineer who made up all those fake identities must have known the reason for it was fraudulent.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Javice and the Data Science Professor Create Fake Customers by scotty79 on Saturday January 14, 2023 @02:44PM (#34383425)

What if (s)he didn't know that what was intended is a crime?

Alternatively, what if (s)he didn't know that the intent was genuine?

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Re:Javice and the Data Science Professor Create Fake Customers by PragmaticPulp on Saturday January 14, 2023 @12:31PM (#34382019)

It’s hard to imagine a non-fraudulent scenario where anyone internal to the company would be asked to generate a list of realistic-looking customer names that was 10X the size of your customer base. Even testing data doesn’t have a strict requirement of looking as realistic as possible.

Intent matters in these cases. If the situation had somehow been adjusted so that the engineer genuinely believed the generation was for legitimate purposes, it would be very unlikely that they would be at risk from the initial list generation.

However, I don’t really see how Director of Engineering could have not known the purpose, given that the ultimate goal was to load them into the production DB and the request was coming from outside of engineering.

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