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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."
Funny, I did think about ethics when I was 20.
Then again, I wasn't a piece of scum.
LOL, sounds like fun. They're still assholes, though. Too bad really hardworking ethical employees get shafted world-wide. And... really, did they do more harm than some of the world-widely known software companies in the world?
He's either dodging the question, or he really didn't think about what he was doing? Most people in the malware authoring business probably at least understand the consequences of what they do, even if they don't care. Akin to these guys: http://www.securityfocus.com/news/11476
Emotions! In your brain!
Of course the real irony here is that in a software development group that was very successful doing work that was not only legal, but benefited the public, we were treated like shit, and these guys were treated great.
Something managemant should think about, but never will.
They are amoral which is somewhat essential to the core goal of providing profit for the shareholders. This company is just an extreme example of this. I actually find the more interesting parts of the article are those that focus on the methods and such like this quote: ""You can install it by any means, except spam," says one affiliate recruiting site, earning4u.com, which pays $6 to $180 for every 1,000 PCs infected with its software. PCs in the US earn a higher rate than ones in Asia." The methods more than the perks are what to me makes the article interesting.
ACK
"When you are just 20, you don't think a lot about ethics"
of equal validity:
"When you are just 30, you don't think a lot about ethics"
"When you are just 40, you don't think a lot about ethics"
"When you are just 50, you don't think a lot about ethics"
etc...
people are ethical or they are not. age has nothing to do with it. but its a nice rationalization on his part. people usually blame the evil media, the evil liberals, the evil conservatives, their evil parents, etc.: age old tired variations on the theme "the devil made me do it"
everyone has rationalizations for why their own poor personal choices are actually not their fault. which is of course pure unadulterated bullshit: if you did, it's your fault. end of fucking story. as soon as you break that thought, the whole idea of personal responsibility and morality is nullified
so this guy is saying is just a phase he'll outgrow, no big deal. nice one, asshole
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I can't speak for others, but I would qualify under you having nothing but fully paid or free software and music. I still strongly agree with the posters pointing out the bad ethics of this company and its employees. I also would argue that stealing music is not very comparable to what IMU was doing. Have you ever had your ID stolen? Have you ever had your music passed around free on the internet? They are not nearly the same.
You know, I remember I was about 18 when I wrote a virus just for curiosity sake. (Yeah, I know, slow learner;)) Just for the reference, back then it meant the kind that copies itself at the end of executables (or for other viruses into the boot sector), rather than the modern day Internet worms.
It probably wasn't the most advanced virus out there, but it was a neat piece of assembly by _my_ standards, and I was pretty proud of it.
I actually considered releasing it into the wild, but basically... I dunno, something seemed _wrong_ with doing so. There was no way I could justify to myself doing something destructive to a lot of perfect strangers that had done me no wrong.
I didn't think of it as some formalized ethics system, or anything. Heck, I was almost allergic to even the idea of philosophy in any form. It seemed a pointless waste of time to sit and think about abstract artificial dilemmas, instead of doing something actually productive. Like code something. And I was quick to denounce anything that even remotely looked like artifficial and arbitrary social rules and conventions. But it just seemed wrong to do that anyway. Not because it conflicted with some abstract code or philosophy, but just it seemed wrong to do that.
I think in the end that that _is_ ethics.
So it seems hard for me to swallow a justification like in the summary along the lines of, "hey, at 20 you don't think about ethics." On the contrary, I would expect anyone who got to 20 to be perfectly capable of asking themselves "is it right to do this?"
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