
Just Say No - janvdberg
https://jacquesmattheij.com/just-say-no
======
gregwtmtno
It's not just crime that you shouldn't use your skills for, it's all immoral
or unethical activity.

It's a surprisingly urgent problem in a field that enables mass government
surveillance, dark patterns, big data aggregation, and cyber warfare.

As an attorney, I wonder if software engineers should consider implementing
some kind of rules for professional conduct and an organization to enforce it
like the lawyers have.

~~~
jasonkostempski
But then what, no one is allowed to own a compiler or interpreter until they
get a degree?

~~~
kec
no, you just wouldn't be able to practice professionally until licensed, the
same way medicine, law and "real" engineering work.

~~~
maxerickson
Lots of engineers work professionally without a PE.

[http://news.thomasnet.com/imt/2013/07/15/is-a-
professional-e...](http://news.thomasnet.com/imt/2013/07/15/is-a-professional-
engineer-license-worth-it)

~~~
dpark
_Most_ engineers work professionally without a PE. I think it's something like
80% of engineers never get a PE.

This idea that all _other_ engineers have a PE is rampant in the software
field, but it's just not true.

~~~
kec
_Most_ engineers don't offer services to the public. Every public building,
bridge and road you've ever used were all overseen and signed off by a PE.
Same with the infrastructure for your local utility companies.

Most software engineers don't provide services directly to the public either,
but licensure would a necessary first step to regulating the field.

~~~
dpark
Having PEs sign off and oversee projects is not the same as all "real"
engineers being licensed. If you believe that "real" engineering is the model
for software engineering, then only a small fraction of software engineers
would have a PE.

~~~
MertsA
That's not necessarily a bad thing. At the very least, I think it's reasonable
to require that certain software engineering projects have some professional
oversight, but that doesn't mean that the intern needs to be licensed, just
that the important architectural bits of a project are approved by a competent
professional.

------
DoofusOfDeath
> _If you’re reading this as a technical person: there will always be
> technically clueless people who will attempt to use you and your skills as
> tools to commit some crime._

You may be overstating that a bit. I've been doing tech for a while, and I
can't recall anyone ever asking me to abuse my skills for ill-gotten gain.

~~~
iopq
A company I worked for basically told me to make the "opt-out of emails"
checkbox not work. Which means whether you opt in to our emails or you don't,
you get emails anyway. Most people would just assume they left it checked
(even if they did uncheck it). Being the lazy person that I am, I just said
"oh, that's just less work for me implementing that functionality"

but I'm sure that's technically breaking some anti-spam law

~~~
mkrum
I definitely think thats a more realistic example of the things that might
happen. It won't be the shady guy on the street corner, it'll be your boss
asking you to do just one little thing.

~~~
jessaustin
While working in billing IT at a CLEC, I was asked to produce a phone bill for
the CEO, with a printed physical address that didn't correspond to where he
actually lived. I assumed (and still do) that it had something to do with a
school district scam: he wanted his kids to attend a good school, without
paying extra tuition. It was easy enough to do, and I don't feel there's much
about the funding of USA public education that's worth defending anyway, but I
can see how it could possibly have led to a series of increasingly
immoral/illegal escalations.

------
oblib
When I was a teen I was offered cash to turn back speedometers many times, and
always refused. This started after I set the speedo on my own car back to
zero, but I was customizing it for myself, not flipping it for a fast buck,
and it was already 25 years old anyway.

Back around the turn of the century I was offered a bit of cash to build a
"Revenge Porn" site. The guy who called me sounded very mild and calm, even
nice. He did say he'd been turned down a few times but he also seemed
determined to make the site.

I had never heard of this idea at the time and was pretty surprised with the
concept. I turned him down, of course, but what surprised me most was how many
friends and acquaintances told me I should've taken the cash when I told them
the story.

I'm 58 years old now and the number of people who've asked me to help with
their scams, and have tried to scam me, is far more than I can remember. With
all that experience I can spot them easily now but it never ceases to amaze me
how willing some people are to do that.

~~~
shanemhansen
The only scam I've ever been asked about was at an SEO conference. I was
talking about how awesome selenium and browser automation was. Someone asked
if I could make selenium log into gmail and click "not spam".

~~~
jessaustin
What are the odds, that a potential scam would be proposed at an SEO
conference?

------
saosebastiao
I don't wish for the feeling of desperation on anybody. Even for someone who
has morals, desperation can warp your sense of reality. Back when I was a
truck driver, I had a substantial offer from someone to transport a duffle bag
in my utility lock box across state lines. I was desperate, and it was a lot
of money. I rationalized, told myself it was just gonna be some drugs, and I
never get pulled over anyway. No big deal, I told myself. Until I grabbed the
bag, and realized it wasn't drugs. Took a peek once I was out of sight, and it
was definitely submachine guns. I started panicking and about 10 miles down
the road came up with my plan. I pulled over, punctured a cooling hose, ran my
engine til I overheated, and then called my contact and told him I had
overheated and steamed out all my coolant and wasn't going to make it. That
interaction was probably the most terrifying experience of my life. Never
again.

~~~
taway_1212
> Took a peek once I was out of sight, and it was definitely submachine guns

Can't you order that stuff over the mail in the US?

~~~
Merad
No. An example of a submachine gun is the ubiquitous H&K MP5 [0]. It cannot be
easily purchased (legally) because it is a fully automatic weapon, meaning
that it has a setting where pulling the trigger once can fire > 1 bullets, and
it's less than 26 inches in length, classifying it as a short barreled rifle
(SBR).

A MP5 can be legally owned, with a few caveats:

* It must have been manufactured and registered with the ATF as a machine gun prior to 1986. Guns meeting this criteria are fairly rare and very expensive. I don't know the price for a registered MP5, but I would guess > $20000.

* You must apply for and receive a special approval to purchase a machine gun.

* You must apply for and receive a special approval to purchase a SBR.

However, a variety of companies make semi-auto (one trigger pull = one bullet)
MP5 clones that can be purchased more easily. Clones are sometimes built with
an extended barrel so they are not considered a SBR and can be treated like
any normal rifle. A common strategy is to hide the extra barrel beneath a fake
non-functional suppressor [1]. Alternatively some are made as SBRs for people
who are willing to get the SBR approval.

[0]: [http://discovermilitary.com/wp-
content/uploads/2010/02/mp5.j...](http://discovermilitary.com/wp-
content/uploads/2010/02/mp5.jpg)

[1]:
[http://mfiap.com/images/F30028878.jpg](http://mfiap.com/images/F30028878.jpg)

~~~
taway_1212
Thanks for the thorough answer! My impression was largely based on Gus van
Sant's movie "Elephant", where the boys bought some real badass looking rifles
over the mail.

~~~
Merad
Interesting. Well, I don't know what the movie portrays, but there are two
ways that I know of to legally order a gun and have it delivered to your door
(though I doubt either is exciting enough for a movie).

* You can get a Curio & Relic (C&R) license from the ATF which is basically a collectors license. It applies to eligible guns (i.e. not machine guns or SBRs) > 50 years old such as [0]. When you do an online/mail order the seller will require you to send a copy of your C&R license before shipping.

* Some guns aren't legally considered to be firearms by the ATF. This primarily (only?) applies to replicas of black powder guns [1][2].

Any other purchase must be sent to a licensed dealer, and when you pick it up
from them you'll do the same paperwork as when purchased directly off their
shelves.

[0]: [https://www.classicfirearms.com/m9130-hex-receiver-
russian-m...](https://www.classicfirearms.com/m9130-hex-receiver-russian-
mosin-nagant-rifle-arsenal-refinished)

[1]: [http://www.cabelas.com/product/shooting/black-
powder/traditi...](http://www.cabelas.com/product/shooting/black-
powder/traditional-rifles-
shotguns|/pc/104792580/c/104701680/sc/104641380/pedersoli-traditional-hawken-
percussion-rifle/1608685.uts)

[2]: [http://www.cabelas.com/product/shooting/black-
powder/black-p...](http://www.cabelas.com/product/shooting/black-powder/black-
powder-revolvers|/pc/104792580/c/104701680/sc/567338580/pietta-model-
confederate-navy-caliber-black-powder-revolver/740536.uts)

------
iliketosleep
I believe the author’s post is a little condescending and ignores the nuances
of such situations. Sure, it's easy enough to "just say no" if you're already
pretty successful and have a lot to lose by engaging in illegal activity. But
what about the talented hacker who has failed career wise and is going through
a really tough phase financially. It might seem that there's everything to
gain and nothing to lose.

If you have a choice of being able feed your family or “just say no” to
modifying an odometer, what would you choose?

~~~
ifoundthetao
Are you kidding me? I would just say no.

It's much more to lose your family and life by going to jail than it is to use
public services to get assistance for food and shelter. Even if you don't go
to jail, the amount lost in legal expenses are going to far outweigh the money
brought in from said activities. Moreover, it's going to seriously impair your
ability to get a job in the future, in the particular field that you've
currently been experiencing failure in.

~~~
Someone
That assumes you live in a country where "public services to get assistance
for food and shelter" exist. Not everybody is so lucky.

It certainly isn't always _just_ say no.

~~~
s73ver
Yes, it is. If you are willing to do bad things, it doesn't matter the reason.
Those people in 3rd world countries calling with tax scams or calling "from
Windows" about a virus are bad people, straight up.

------
ericb
Great advice. I once let a company license legitimate software (a history
cleaner before browsers offered this functionality) I wrote and they wrapped
it in adware and caused a lot of people headaches. It felt _gross_. They
didn't make it clear what they were going to do with it beforehand, but there
were signs I should have noticed--their business model description sounded too
good to be true. You can't just wash your hands of these things and have a
clear conscience because you didn't do it personally.

The low point was finding their adware on my mom's computer.

Personally, I made it a rule after that to avoid business relations with the
morally questionable. They drag you down.

------
edw519
My first co-founder was a brilliant engineer. One day I borrowed his car (a
fancy late model sports car) for an errand because mine was blocked in. But
the speedometer didn't work which made for some strange driving. When I asked
him about it, he said, "Oh I disconnected it to improve it's resale value."

We didn't remain together much longer.

To this day, the value of a relationship with another businessperson =
sum(assets) * EthicsFactor. EthicsFactor is 1 or 0. There is no in-between.

Nice post, Jacques. It sure feels nice to comment in one your threads again.

~~~
taylorwc
I love the formula you pose for thinking about this, and it's so true. Ethical
behavior is binary, and a lack of ethical behavior isn't compartmentalized
into one small area.

~~~
graphitezepp
My moral system is so incredibly far away from viewing ethical behavior as
binary that I can not relate to how someone would think that way. How do you
place the line, where an instance of behavior you don't agree with makes you
view someone as not ethical?

~~~
tuxxy
When you come from a place of privilege, it's easy to think human behavior is
binary.

For example, I would never steal a car! I can afford one, and to be quite
honest, I don't need one.

If I was deep into poverty, and needed a car for a job or to be able to
provide some function to my family, that temptation might be there. It might
be so great that it distorts the ethics of the person so much so they don't
see it as unethical.

Instead of stealing a car, they're borrowing it or the other person can just
get another one. They would legitimately not see wrong because they feel like
they have been wronged when they do not have the ability to get a car.

TL;DR: Ethics are not binary. To even suggest that undermines the entirety of
the philosophy dedicated to studying it.

~~~
s73ver
What you described is rationalization. That doesn't make the act of stealing a
car any more moral. It's still incredibly immoral.

~~~
dleslie
Not if you don't believe in the concept of property; then stealing has no
meaning.

~~~
s73ver
Except you're still acting immorally by forcing your belief system onto others
who don't share that belief system. It doesn't matter if you don't believe in
property; the person who owned that car does.

~~~
dleslie
Inversely, the other person in your example is forcing their concept of
property on others.

------
pjungwir
I have a story of temptation and pressure---not as good as Jacques's but maybe
interesting anyway. I was leaving grad school (not for tech) and getting back
into programming. I had two new kids, and I was really ready to stop living on
$21k/yr (my student stipend), but I didn't have a lot of work yet, and I
wasn't sure how my 5-year hiatus would look.

I had done a few projects for a small agency, and the owner was having me spec
& quote work for potential new customers. One of these customers wanted us to
build a "dashboard" to control a fleet of machines that would generate fake
reviews for sites like Yelp or Amazon. I'm not even sure if that is illegal,
but it didn't seem good. I told him it didn't sound like work we could do. If
he had been just my customer, it would have been easy, but it raised my
anxiety to say it to my customer's customer.

I think Jacques's conclusion about "a bad beginning" is very wise, and I'm
glad he had to foresight to see all that. I hope his story helps keep other
people out of trouble. His writing it up is really a gift to them.

------
educar
I am curious how much this extends to: A) Facebook and Google mining people's
data B) Cisco building extensive survellance systems C) Microsoft was
blatantly abusing it's monopoly

I could go on but all these had many many engineers involved. And best of it
all, most of it was .. legal. When something is outright illegal, it's easy to
say no.

------
fiatjaf
If you're offered a job from Facebook should you say "no"?

~~~
beobab
If you believe that Facebook is unethical, yes. Stand up to what you believe.
It's harder in the short run, but it's much easier so sleep at nights in the
long run.

I suspect lots of people would like to go back and change things they did.

------
codezero
I've had people try to get me to do illegal things for 25 years. It was much
more aggressive and enticing when I was young. It's easier for adult me to
recognize and reject these advances than it was for teenage me. It wasn't
always even money that was on the table, but recognition and acceptance which
can make you do crazy things.

------
bigjimmyk3
My alma mater added a course requirement on professional ethics shortly after
I left, partly due to multiple "incidents" at the university (not because of
me... this time).

Ethics is the difference between Dr. Spock and Dr. Frankenstein.

~~~
dsacco
Dr. Frankenstein really wasn't that bad a guy. Mary Shelley consistently
portrays him as a tragic character beset with guilt and grief for his
experiments. He started out with the same natural longing many people have -
to understand life and how it works. He lost his way, but he's quite a
sympathetic character. You'd have to be a _hard_ consequentialist to consider
him unethical.

------
kangdolit
I've had a situation like this before.

A friend referred two commodity traders to me. They wanted to contract me for
SEO purposes. Why? When you searched for their names on Google/Bing, articles
about fraud charges came up. They wanted me to push them off the front page. I
was able to do that kind of work, because I had done it before for more benign
situations. My friend told me I could name my price, because they were
outrageously rich (apparently from their fraud schemes).

I spoke with them over the phone. Their reason for wanting to do this was:
"It's a real bummer when you're dating a hot chick and she looks you up and
sees all these negative articles online." Bullshit. I smelled it immediately.
I didn't need abetting and conspiracy charges leveled against me. Even if I
had agreed to do it, I doubt they would have paid me in full. I mean, I had
evidence of their alleged fraudulent behavior.

The problem is that sometimes the fraudsters are really good, and what looks
like a legitimate job has a less obvious ulterior use.

------
everybodyknows
In certain cultures, someone who won't steal from a rich employer to help
family members is considered disloyal, and has reason to fear ostracism. And
this in a culture where family connections are paramount. Solution of one such
employee, somewhere in the western Pacific: Tell any lie necessary to hide the
fact.

------
trveskyll
I was involved in the warez scene as a cracker and a trader around the turn of
the century. In a way it was a fun scene with groups that had strict
hierarchies as in companies, the community aspect was strong, you could earn
fame if you worked hard enough for it and had the skill, which was all pretty
fascinating for us youngsters spending their nights in front of their PCs. In
hindsight though, it was flatout stupid to participate in illegal activities
over unencrypted IRC channels and FTP sites located at universities with
hundreds of users. There were bouncers/tcp-tunnels and stuff, but many didn't
care to use them. Things got scary when some of my affiliates got busted in
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Buccaneer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Buccaneer).
Thankfully I got out without getting my ass burned.

~~~
guitarbill
> In hindsight though, it was flatout stupid to participate in illegal
> activities over unencrypted IRC channels and FTP sites

This also shocked me, and taught me a valuable lesson about politics. I had
thought the warez scene was a meritocracy, but affecting change was so hard.
Introducing new tools/processes/encryption was almost impossible. New
standards IMO only seemed to happen because P2P was putting out stuff with
great quality/smaller file size because of new encoders.

In the end, I still believe the scene has done more for consumers/media
consumption than anything else (maybe youtube?). I doubt we'd see streaming
offerings like this if it hadn't existed. So it was illegal, but also morally
right.

And pirating remains the only way to receive a great education for free, for
all.

~~~
trveskyll
interesting view regarding the effects on media.

concerning the educational aspect, i'm not sure what exactly you mean. while
today e.g. software engineering knowledge is all out there, back then there
was no github and stackoverflow and i had to learn a lot from books (basic, c,
assembler). the freely available resources were lower quality, that is
tutorials by crackers or demo scene coders.

i completely lost interest in pirated media these days as they provides
minimal value to me. the few albums/movies/games which are relevant to me, i'm
easily able to buy. the only exception might indeed be textbooks on
specialized technical topics, which often aren't of interest for the warez
scene audience.

~~~
guitarbill
maybe it isn't an issue anymore, but i meant education in a broader sense, not
just software engineering.

i grew up in a remote village and the library was 45 minutes away on the bus.
(also, thank god for child fares.) i loved that place. but it wasn't an
english speaking country, so apart from badly translated novels and technical
books that were 20 years out of date, the only good thing they had were CDs of
classical music.

my exposure to technical and academic topics (anything outside the basic stuff
they teach at school: philosophy, economics, psychology, "modern" physics,
computer science, etc) as well as english/american language and culture is
pretty much all down to the internet - and pirating.

and it isn't like i had a hard life. this was in a first-world country, so the
education system was okay and i was completely healthy.

i agree that today, pirating might not be necessary - except if you're
interested in music (jazz, blues, etc) or modern-ish films. the courses that
american universities put out for free are absolutely fantastic. in fact, most
of my bona fide CS knowledge comes from MIT CS courses which i worked through
years later. because when you learn something yourself, it usually involves
more experimentation and doing, and less formal theory.

------
charles-salvia
Ethics aside, at a certain point, you realize you can make a lot more money
legally and legitimately using your technical skills than through any sort of
"clever" technical scheme that involves hacking odometers or scamming people
in some way.

~~~
eldavido
Yep, because we (US/Western Europe) have a good legal system that supports
this.

This is also why we don't have Nigerian pirates in the US. It's also why our
math/science teachers suck. The good ones would rather work in the private
sector. They had great math teachers in the soviet union because they didn't
have AmaGooFaceSoft competing for talent.

------
wohlergehen
There is an incredibly powerful German anti-war poem titled "say no" [1], that
I instantaneously associated with the title.

I think it's important for people involved with technology to have an ethical
compass that of course includes criminal activities, but ideally also goes
beyond that.

1:
[http://www.swans.com/library/art13/xxx123.html](http://www.swans.com/library/art13/xxx123.html)

------
okreallywtf
This must be a much more difficult offer to turn down if you are in an
economically depressed nation where job prospects are not good. In the US,
even though there are plenty of rough areas, if you are skilled and/or well
educated you have a lot of opportunities so it is a lot easier to say no. If
its the difference between basic necessities for your family or not its not so
easy to "just say no".

------
nnd
I've never done anything explicitly illegal in the context of programming, but
some opportunities which fall in the gray area of legality are just too
tempting to pass upon.

I did consulting in reverse-engineering and provided documentation and tool
too exploit certain vulnerabilities. Provided that I never used those tool
myself for profit, the liability falls onto my clients, considering that I
also signed a contract explicitly stating that.

The reason why I loved doing this work so much is because it was highly
challenging, considerably more complicated than any software engineering job I
ever had before. And more importantly I was extremely good at it, and more
often than not I discovered something which no one ever did before. It felt
like a mix of software development and scientific research.

Unfortunately when it comes to reverse-engineering, there are not many
strictly "white hat" applications for it, besides pentesting and security
audit. And naturally I missed building things and creating something which
would actually make people's lives better.

------
HillaryBriss
This article enters a difficult grey area. What should one do when a family
member requests something illegal and there's a possibility of retribution for
refusing to do it? The solution: lying can be an acceptable way to avoid
unethical behavior.

I applaud the author for doing the right thing. I'm not sure I would have been
as ethical.

That said, my favorite line is: _Salmon, French cheese, party time._

------
liotier
Just say no, but not for moral reasons: say no because, unless you are
absolutely desperate, it is the most profitable choice. Relationships with
dangerous people who gain blackmail leverage over you will end badly -
probably badly enough to offset all prior gains.

~~~
cuspycode
Isn't ultimate profit the same as moral reasons?

------
mathattack
I had similar in school. A friend who was applying to grad school thought it
would be easier to break into school systems than to study for class. I told
him no. He eventually found his way into law school and politics.

------
Intermernet
I have this wonderful image of the family member in question, after Jacques
said "No", trying the Ferris Bueller method of putting the cars on blocks,
putting them in reverse, and locking down the accelerator.

------
DonHopkins
So that explains why that taxi cab was driving backwards down my street in
Amsterdam. I thought it was because it was a one-way street that was blocked
around the corner.

~~~
kalmari
i was thinking pulling a Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

you would probably have to take it out and apart and get another one and
reverse engineer it and maybe get your hands on some schematics.

------
orasis
I've seen plenty of people fall into shady karma, especially my (ahem) peers
in the early peer-to-peer space. Other than Zooko and Roger Dingeldine it
seems most of the guys had to make a bunch of bullshit philosophical
contortions about how associating with lowlifes and mobsters was OK. Some of
those guys made money, a lot didn't, but their karma will forever be sullied.

------
SadWebDeveloper
meh... low risk = low reward, high risk = higher reward.

Morality/Ethics is POV problem.

------
jawns
> Just say no. And lie if you have to.

I'm extremely interested in the modern morality of lying, because on the one
hand, we find some lies to be so heinous that they are career-ending
(plagiarism among them), and some lies to be so necessary that _not_ lying is
viewed as heinous (e.g. "Would you lie to an S.S. soldier about whether you
were hiding Jews in your house?")

Here, Jacques spends the entire blog post trying to persuade people to avoid
immoral behavior -- but then advocates lying. Is lying not immoral anymore?

I would be very interested in knowing what percentage of people view lying as
objectively wrong, and how that has changed over time.

~~~
yannyu
In philosophy of ethics, this is still something people think about.

In utilitarian style ethics, the ends (mostly) justify the means, so if in
lying you are overall increasing utility/happiness for more people than if you
told the truth, then it would be considered an ethical action.

By contrast, Kant's Categorical Imperative states "Act only according to that
maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a
universal law". By that logic, lying is viewed as an unethical action, because
if everyone lied then no one would trust each other, resulting in an
unworkable universe.

There's a lot more to both sides and many attempts to create more nuanced
systems, but ethics is and will likely continue to be an important field of
study with not a lot of hard answers.

~~~
jessaustin
_...if everyone lied then no one would trust each other, resulting in an
unworkable universe._

The universe worked just fine before humans invented proscriptions against
lying. Biological organisms lie to each other all the time. Predators appear
harmless; prey appear harmful, etc.

Actually most humans would be well-served by both lying more and being more
perceptive of the lies that are told them.

------
pavel_lishin
I wonder what happens once you've already done the illegal thing, perhaps not
even realizing that what you're doing is against the law.

~~~
k-mcgrady
Ignorance is (generally) no excuse for breaking the law.

------
clarkmoody
I think the quickest way to stifle innovation in software (or drive it out of
the country) would be to implement a professional organization.

------
Learn2win
Sometimes You just have to follow your heart. It's not about getting it right;
it's about doing what's right.

------
israrkhan
During my undergrad I took a course "Ethical and Legal dimensions of
Engineering". At that time I thought it was boring, but now I realizes how
important such a course can be. A lot has changed over the past decade.
Engineers have much more influence over the society than it used to be. There
is definitely a need to develop a global code of conduct that does not change
across geographic boundaries. All engineers should be taught that.

------
hvo
This is probably one of the best articles i have read on Hacker News.Just
straightforward.Keep it up.

------
minikites
>Fortunately, now the EU has made odometer fraud illegal

It only became illegal recently? I find that surprising.

~~~
rwmj
Weirdly I find that it's not illegal in the UK. The illegal thing is not
disclosing it when you sell the car on (straightforward fraud).

[http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/consumer-
news/88547/ca...](http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/consumer-
news/88547/car-clocking-is-mileage-correction-legal)

~~~
adrianN
That sounds ok to me. It's your car, you should be able to set the odometer to
whatever you want. Using that ability to defraud people of their money is what
should be illegal.

~~~
lisper
That's how it is in the U.S. (at least in California). When you sell a car you
have to write down the odometer reading on the paperwork and indicate whether
or not it is accurate to the best of your knowledge. But actually changing the
reading is not illegal. It makes sense: the reading could be off due to
mechanical failure.

~~~
LyndsySimon
Makes sense.

I drive a Jeep, and the speedometer on it is off by 12% due to the larger-
than-stock tires that are on it. The odometer reads 160k, but I would assume
that it was 170-180k on it in reality, depending on when the tires were
originally installed.

~~~
waterphone
Unless you've simply decided this isn't important to you, changing the
speedometer gear on a Jeep to an appropriate size for your tires is generally
a several minute job with minimal tools.

~~~
lisper
On the other hand, what one really should be caring about is not the mileage
per se, but how many cycles are on the drive train. The distance the chassis
has moved doesn't really matter.

~~~
markrages
But each cycle represents more wear with the larger tires, since the
drivetrain torque is higher. You can't cheat physics.

~~~
adrianN
It's probably not a linear relationship though.

------
gpsx
Is it safe to report the crimes of dangerous people publicly and non-
anonymously?

~~~
jewbacca
Sorry: there is not an will never be a general answer to that question.

~~~
gpsx
I hope not.

------
ryanisnan
Are you not worried that your family member reads hacker news? ;)

~~~
jacquesm
He's dead. His son is also dead (shot by one of his buddies as a result of a
disagreement over the division of the loot from a very large robbery). But his
wife and daughter are still alive so I wrote the article in such a way that it
is not easy to pinpoint who this is about.

~~~
jessaustin
You do link to this discussion from TFA, and you can't have had that many
relatives who were shot...

~~~
jacquesm
I don't think my family is reading my blog. Let's just say we're not exactly
close for obvious reasons. But no need to make it easy on outsiders to make
the link.

------
whatupmd
No, you should not be breaking the law.

~~~
dsp1234
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_from_Birmingham_Jail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_from_Birmingham_Jail)

 _One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws.
Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would
agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."_

\-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

~~~
eropple
You are right, in the squintiest, most Futurama-technically-correct-is-the-
best-kind-of-correct sort of way. But this is Hacker News, where "breaking
unjust laws" is used as an excuse to fetishize and drool over companies like
Uber, and the connection there is pretty awful. Uber isn't breaking Jim Crow
laws by treating its employees--sorry, "contractors"\--like garbage or by
lying to government officials or by stealing from others.

~~~
__jal
HN is hardly a monolith of opinion. You'll find many discussions here with
people loudly arguing that Uber is a cancer that deserves to end up a smoking
crater as a lesson to others. I will help salt the earth.

That there are bad actors out there, and those who defend them by shouting
about bad law, doesn't tell us anything about the justness of law, or the
character of people (aside from the shouty ones).

I do believe in a moral good to violate unjust laws. It isn't always worth the
tradeoffs, some people have obligations that weigh heavily in the decisions,
and there are countless other concerns, but the fact remains, law and morality
are at best only vaguely related.

------
sphinx65
What an incoherent article

------
aub3bhat
Meh, this is just ridiculous moral posturing.

Which laws are scared and which aren't?

Are you telling me that you never violated copyright, or say helped a friend
install torrenting software ("technically clueless people who will attempt to
use you and your skills as tools to commit some crime").

"Just say no" was the famous anti-drug slogan, we all know how that War On
Drugs attitude ended up afflicting american society.

Finally even Supreme Court justices find this type of hard-line attitude
ridiculous.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/us/politics/supreme-
court...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/us/politics/supreme-court-
naturalization.html?_r=0&mtrref=t.co&mtrref=www.nytimes.com&gwh=5EB6517587B933A83FACF0BCCB8DCC6A&gwt=pay)

~~~
adrianmonk
Even if you don't think 100% of laws are sacred, you can still draw a dividing
line somewhere. A rational, consistent dividing line.

Anyway, the guy made it clear he had ethical problems with it because he could
see how it was unfair to whoever ended up buying the car. So he wasn't
avoiding it just because it was illegal.

~~~
yannyu
Can you? I'm not sure most people are as consistent with their views on what
laws are "good" or "bad" as you might think. Most people tend to judge the
morality of their actions by intent, and judge the morality of others' actions
by consequence, and thus form a picture of "I am more moral than most people".
I'm sure that a deep analysis of pretty much anyone's morality will show a few
logical inconsistencies.

~~~
foreigner
> Most people tend to judge the morality of their actions by intent, and judge
> the morality of others' actions by consequence, and thus form a picture of
> "I am more moral than most people".

Wow that really moved me.

------
atmosx
> I grew up in Amsterdam, which is a pretty rough town by Dutch Standards.

I stopped reading after the first phrase because I disagree with the premise.
Amsterdam ranks 12th in the "most liveable cities" according to the
Telegraph[1].

[1] [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/galleries/The-worlds-
most-...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/galleries/The-worlds-most-
liveable-cities/amsterdam/)

~~~
orbitur
You even quoted "by Dutch standards" so I'm not sure what you think you're
pointing out.

~~~
maxerickson
Amsterdam was also much seedier 25-30 years ago.

~~~
fjdlwlv
It was much speedier before the new odomoter laws

