> anything of interest for prosecution won't be written down, especially not on company devices

This vastly overestimates the opsec of most tech executives.

In my own experience, the brass sets the culture and expectations that encourage department heads to break the law. Certainly there are done CEOs explicitly commanding people to do crime, but it's more common to tell people to, eg, move fast, focus on profits, and do whatever needs to get done.

It's standard policy at most major corporations even for low-level employees to not discuss anything legally sensitive over company e-mail or chat.

I was told to do something that was a crime by my line level manager at a tech company when I was only a few years in my career, with code that he hand wrote and wanted me to type in and commit under my name.

When I refused he called me into a 1:1 and verbally told me I would be losing my job if I didn’t and only backed off when I told him he was never getting that paper back and asked if he wanted to go HR right now at which point I would be going to legal and didn’t care if I lost my job as long as he was implicated.

Only time in my career it’s happened, but it happens.

That's a terrible situation, especially for someone early in their career. Glad you stood your ground and had some hard evidence to back you up.

You vastly underestimate how much they take care of things. At the top people manage liability.

Shady SR mgmt pro tips:

1) phones. In California, you get a lot of protection just calling the guy. Use this. Only call people in California.

2) never lie on an email (regarding money, asking for services, providing services)

3) never lie on a phone (regarding money, asking for services, providing services)

4) lying in person is fine

5) anything that MUST be written down must be deleted after read and have no trace back. (privnote etc)

6) all email services should be hosted overseas (protonmail etc)

You cannot be giving opsec tips and then suggesting using some arbitrary 3rd part service (privnote) as something that leaves no trace.

For all we know it is a honeypot. For all we know, everything is a honeypot.

That's why the burden of proof needs to shift and our thinking about responsibility needs to shift. Your liability should increase in parallel with the benefits you derive from your position. If you are getting rich from running ebay then you will lose that wealth when something like this happens; it doesn't matter whether you directed it or even knew about it; you don't get to get rich if bad things happen while you are in charge.

If anyone in leadership asks me to do anything that I find personally concerning, I'll write an email asking them to confirm that's what they want me to do.