[olivierlacan]

You may be working with people who, at the beginning of their careers, worked on exciting and challenging projects as junior engineers for U.S. defense contractors to either detect the precise location of specific Wi-Fi clients.

Ask them when they realized that their work was extensible to any radio frequency client (cell, Bluetooth) and used for targetting missile strikes. I can guarantee you know at least a few people in the industry who did.

Just because we can doesn't mean we should. This story reeks of DoD funded research which somehow gets whitewashed as "cool new tech thing!" on tech blogs when it should really be sending chills down your collective spines.

This capability may be fringe and nation-state controlled for a few years, then it will inevitably fall into the hands of large and well-funded criminal organizations, abusive spouses, and of course overfunded trigger happy SWAT teams — who will still manage to get their court order addresses wrong and kill innocent people and pets over a no-knock warrant.

All this triggers in me is the irrespressible urge to get technologists to finally get it through their thick skulls that what we do does kill people exactly like doctors. We've just refuse to take responsibility for it when any other industry would have seriously discussed ethics board and licensure at this point. No matter how complicated such an effort would be.

[serverholic]

I’ve noticed a distinct lack of caring regarding social responsibility in the tech industry even though we are some of the most privileged workers in the entire labor force.

[nobody9999]

>I’ve noticed a distinct lack of caring regarding social responsibility in the tech industry even though we are some of the most privileged workers in the entire labor force.

I'd posit that "lack of caring" in the tech industry is, at least in part, because (not "even though") "we are some of the most privileged workers in the entire labor force."

It's hubris, greed and a lack of empathy for society at large and for other humans.

There definitely are folks who do care. But when such folks speak out, they are usually ignored or derided for "tilting at windmills" because "privacy no longer exists" and "there's money to be made" and other weak-sauce rationalizations.

And the hoi polloi mostly don't understand the issues, and just like having "free" services, not realizing they're still paying. With their data, privacy and online (and increasingly offline, with cameras everywhere, spying "IOT" devices, brisk business for data brokers, etc.) personages in the hands of (at least based on their behavior) sociopathic tech bros whose only interest is in maximizing revenue -- and today that's accomplished through "targeted advertising."

Which doesn't really work, but advertisers are willing to pay top dollar for such data in the amoral pursuit of greater profit. Not that profit is, in and of itself, bad. But abusing others to get that profit is bad.

Others, political operatives, some law "enforcement" agencies, stalkers and other scum that it does "work" for are focused on advancing their agendas, avoiding real police work and harming others, not making the world a better place.

Until the incentives are the right way round, that's not going to change.

I'd love to paint a picture of benevolent tech workers/managers/founders who have society's and the individual's best interests at heart.

But (with apologies to Quentin Tarantino), that shit ain't the truth. The truth is the hoi polloi are the weak. And we're the tyranny of evil men. cf. The banality of evil[0].

[0][ https://www.britannica.com/story/what-did-hannah-arendt-real...

Edit: Fixed prose. Added Hannah Arendt quote and discussion of same.

[golergka]

> their work was extensible to any radio frequency client (cell, Bluetooth) and used for targetting missile strikes

Good. I didn't work on such tech, but I would be excited and proud to, if I was working for a country like US, which I believe in.

[nigerian1981]

Proud of the tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed by the US?

[akimball]

I think you lowballed that by a factor of 10