[ryandrake]

One thing I learned early in my career, and numerous times during it: For every ethical stand you take against writing a bit of software you consider questionable, there's a line of other software engineers out the door willing to do it. I remember when as a junior engineer, I worked up the courage to tell my boss I had a moral problem with writing some code that would help the product cheat at a benchmark. He totally understood, and I didn't get fired or anything--just moved on to a different project. Bob, two cubicles down, was more than happy to write the benchmark-cheating code.

Software engineers and other technology creators don't take a "Do No Harm" oath like doctors. Many of them have never even taken a single Ethics In Technology course at university (it was an optional class when I was in undergrad decades ago). And, even in the alternate universe where ethics was baked into engineering training, all it takes is a single rogue willing to ignore them, and now the world has to deal with it.