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Perks & Paintball For Employees At Cybercrime, Inc.
Barence writes "Innovative Marketing Ukraine was in the business of churning out some of the world's most pernicious, and profitable, computer viruses. As the company grew, it added a human resources department, hired an internal IT staff and built a call center to dissuade its victims from seeking credit card refunds. Employees were treated to catered holiday parties and picnics with paintball competitions. Top performers got bonuses as young workers turned a blind eye to the harm the software was doing. 'When you are just 20, you don't think a lot about ethics,' said one former Innovative Marketing programmer. 'I had a good salary and I know that most employees also had pretty good salaries.' The firm has been closed down after the US Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit seeking its disbandment in the federal court. But an examination of the FTC's complaint and documents from a legal dispute among Innovative executives offers a rare glimpse into a dark, expanding — and highly profitable — corner of the internet."
Poverty and hard living in places like the Ukraine and Nigeria doesn't tend to encourage much empathy among scammers and phishers. People (like the OLPC guys) always talk about how bringing the internet to the third world is going to make lives better and all that. But they ignore the fact that a lot of those poor people are going to use this new-found freedom to scam those in the developed world, people who have a lot more resources than they do. Over time, this kind of activity can become normalized, enjoying quasi-legal and moral sanction (as was the case here).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Funny, I did think about ethics when I was 20.
Yeah... Seems to me that the late teens/early 20's are when most people get all activist and start trying to save the world.
At that age, the save-the-world types do it because their friends are doing it. Early to late teens are the age when people cheat in school, bully each other, shoplift, vandalize; generally people are at an ethical low point at that age.