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up vote 8 down vote favorite

...and if so, did you refuse?

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I'll take the liberty to tag on a question. As many of the cases are also legally questionable: Did you consider going to the police? – eBusiness Nov 29 '10 at 23:00
...and would that be legal in your jurisdiction? – Alison Nov 29 '10 at 23:07
... or that caused immediate harm to yourself or others? – Yar Nov 30 '10 at 0:40

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7 Answers

up vote 9 down vote

Yes

I was asked to work on a application for a client who's main business was that of selling Alcohol.

Due to the Islamic rules on Alcohol (selling, aiding, and consuming are deemed equal).

I declined to work on this project. This was communicated with management giving the explicit reasons why I could not work on such a project and it was accepted.

We almost always have a choice, so don't deny yourself your own right because you will regret it later.

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+1 for don't deny yourself your own right – Alison Nov 30 '10 at 9:43
up vote 4 down vote

yes, and yes

A 'back door' for a secure database/communications system was requested. I refused on the grounds that it was (a) immoral and (b) impossible.

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...and (c) a bit commercially foolish? Did anyone mind at the pushback? – Alison Nov 29 '10 at 22:57
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@Alison: objections and pressure were strong, but it's hard to argue with 'impossible'. Especially if you don't know enough to know if I'm bluffing or not. ;-) – Steven A. Lowe Nov 30 '10 at 2:54
Like the backdoor passwords in Paradox which is widely known knowledge by now. Wonder if that is what drove the nail in the coffin... – user1249 Nov 30 '10 at 10:36
Oh, I've seen people argue against impossible. They just think you're either wrong or just plain lying. – JohnL Nov 30 '10 at 10:43
Impossible? Was it your company's product or a third party? – Michael K Nov 30 '10 at 13:35
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up vote 4 down vote

Not programming, but once upon a time when I worked at a startup, one of my "hats" was to manage the network. For 2 or 3 quarters in a row, our CFO came into my office and asked me to turn the clock on the server back a few days so they could fit a few more days of sales into the earnings report.

I did it so I could keep my job - after the third time I quit.

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Haha, very neat! If you'd refused the first time, then surely it wouldn't have been necessary the second time. – Alison Nov 29 '10 at 22:57
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This is an interesting one. For me if the numbers were being published externally then you're potentially implicated in a fraud. If it's internal only I'd let it slide as basically they're only fooling themselves. – Jon Hopkins Nov 30 '10 at 10:52
It was a public company. I heard the CFO was later banned from ever working in a key role in a public company again. – Alan Dec 1 '10 at 6:59
Did the CFO tell u that he wanted to turn the clock back a few days so they could fit a few more days of sales (clearly unethical) or did he just tell u to turn the clock back a few days and u figured out why. – emory Apr 22 '12 at 7:22
It was the clearly unethical version :} – Alan Apr 23 '12 at 22:00
up vote 3 down vote

I am a game developer. Our publisher is a relatively big company, that caters to intellectually quite poor people, because 1. there are many of them and 2. you easily get them to pay for virtual value.

The software I write makes a huge user base waste millions of man hours per day and exploits their psychological weakness to get them pay for it.

In many ways computer games are like drugs. Like legal drugs. Like alcohol for example. If your business is with alcohol (brewing, fermenting, destilling - whatever pleases you), then your choice is between selling some fancy alcopop to millions of manipulable kids, or you could start your own little brewery and produce a very nice, distinct beer some people will truly appreciate. It's the same with computer games.

I maybe wouldn't go as far as saying it is immoral. But it kind of feels wrong.

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That's all about your perspective /attitude though - you could see it as if you're helping to make millions of people entertained. Doesnt sound so bad then. – rmx Nov 30 '10 at 11:51
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@rmx: Hence the comparison with drugs. You could see the tobacco industry as if they were helping to make billions of people happy. Don't get me wrong, I am happy with my job for a number of thinks, but it does require some level of cynisism :) – back2dos Nov 30 '10 at 12:17
up vote 1 down vote

Whoever was involved in programming the Cyber Missile that slowed Iran's nuclear program down must have asked hundreds or thousands of programmers to do something "Morally Questionable". I think that beats anything we might have :P

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up vote 0 down vote

yes.
I've been asked to develop a program that removes a random water mark from some pictures becuase you should pay if you want them with no water mark.I refused becuase (a) it was so hard for me to do that in 3 days (b) it is immoral for sure.

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2  
How is it immoral? – Rook Nov 29 '10 at 23:39
What I mean is, developing a, say a gun, is not immoral in my opinion, just because it is used for killing people. Technology is neutral - people are the ones that decide how it will be used. (IMHO, naturally). – Rook Nov 29 '10 at 23:41
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@Rook, I think a lot of people feel that if photographers are asking you to pay for a licence to use their photographs then just removing the watermarks and using them anyway is tantamount to stealing. – glenatron Nov 29 '10 at 23:43
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@glenatron - Yes, it can certanly be looked that way. But, (now that we're at watermarks topic) I had a few months ago (maybe a year or two ... not sure) a problem where I had to remove some watermarks from a number of PDF files. Files that were copyrighted by our company (which is a result of a split from a larger company) and for which the originals (.doc's I presume) were long gone, but the PDF's were still actively used. They didn't want the old text to be printed (details are somewhat moot to me after all this time). – Rook Nov 29 '10 at 23:50
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What I'm trying to say that such, it could be used in a legal way as well - so to put any hard limits, in terms of morality or legality for example, is not necessarily wise. It's all a case of how you use it. That's why I like to view the technology itself as neutral - and look at it from case to case. – Rook Nov 29 '10 at 23:52
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up vote 0 down vote

Yes (can't tell you the details, sorry), and I told the client that it's not technically feasible. Telling the whole truth ("I don't want to do that, it's morally questionable") would have caused problems for me, so I took the easiest (arguably cowardish) way out.

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