[anitil]

The one ethics course I took as an EE undergrad taught me exactly one lesson - that the whistleblower always has their life ruined, and even ones who (in the US) have received significant payments typically regret it.

I think it's the reverse of the lesson they were trying to teach.

[keiferski]

Not directly related to tech, but I really recommend the movie The Insider for a look at how whistleblowing goes. It’s about the tobacco industry but can likely be generalized to any situation.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Wigand

[imtringued]

Hacker One's business model is creating a pen for all the whistleblowers (security researchers doing bug bounties) so they are trapped inside it and can't escape unless they want to lose their ability to get paid in the future.

It's a classic Monopsony.