Stuxnet 2

[beej67]

Lets talk hypothetically for a second, and lets strip out the religion and politics, since that won't really address the business ethics issue. Heck, I personally wouldn't work for a company that made weapons in the first place, unless my customers were responsible private citizens.

Lets say you work for a manufacturing company that produces hardware often used by government entities in expensive, sensitive work relating to national security. Another government entity or small group of government entities approaches you to provide expertise in a complicated plot to sabotage your own hardware for one of your other customers, whom they oppose politically.

Do you do it at all? If you felt justified in aiding the sabotage of your other customer, for political or other reasons, why did you sell that customer the hardware in the first place? And here's the one I really can't get my head around - Do you ask to be paid for your help in sabotaging your other customer?

I welcome opinions of all flavors on this, but I especially welcome informed opinions from people who have worked for international government agencies and had to deal with this sort of conflict of interest before.

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[JohnRBaker]

Are we talking about "Another government entity or small group of government entities" which are ostensibly part of the SAME government as was the "government entities" which purchased the hardware originally? Or are you talking about a situation where your company has sold some military hardware to a foreign government (one for which at the time of the sale is was legal to do business with) but subsequently, for whatever reason, our own government, or some other nation's government, has come to you (your company) and asked for this so-called "expertise" which would in essence sabotage what was sold to that original customer?

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[drawoh]

beej67,

You will have to be more specific for me to understand this.

You design a system of tank armour and sell it to the Upper Slobovians. You design new armour piercing weapons and sell them to the Lower Slobovians. You design upgraded tank armour and sell it to the Upper Slobovians...

I would say that this was unethical, but I would also note my belief that violence causes weapons, not the other way around. The Slobs should be pickier about who they deal with.

I would be concerned about agencies of my government sabotaging each other's work.

--
JHG

 

[KENAT]

Sadly these situations are rarely that simple, the below while still simple is maybe a bit more typical.

You work for a defense (or similar) company in 'Western country A'.

Your employer sell weapons to the Upper Slobovians, since their enemy the Lower Slobovians are also Western country A's enemy. This is approved by the govt of Western country A and complies with international sanctions yada yada yada.

Over time there is a change in the regime/political climate in some or all of the 3 countries. Details not overly important but fundamentally now relations between the Upper Slobovians & Western country A have soured while relations with the Lower Slobovians have improved.

The Lower Slobovians, with the approval of the govt of Western country A approach your company about countering the weapons you sold to the Uppper Slobovians.

Do you do it?

Having worked for a defense company, with no real qualms over it, I'd say yeah I'd probably do it.

I mean, if you sold cars and then saw one of your customers using their car to escape the scene of a crime would it be unethical for you throw thumb tacks in their path or some such?

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[TheTick]

You are applying American ethics to a situation that is only American by association.

Stuxnet originated in Israel, where the line of separation between state and industry is quite blurry. Stuxnet attacked German-made components. Germany is a strong ally of Israel (anyone who doesn't know this knows next to nothing of modern Israel). Germany is also a place where the line between state and industry is fuzzy.

 

[KENAT]

TheTick you make a good point but, I'm tempted to say that when it comes to defense matters (or vaguely related fields like nuke energy etc.) that in most countries the line of separation between defense companies and state is blurry.

If for no other reason the government oversight of arms exports limits the ability of defense companies to sell to anyone they like.

Additionally many governments have some kind of State brokerage or similar to actively promote selling defense articles as part of their foreign & economic policy. Foreign Military Sales, Rosboronexport etc. are examples of government involvement in the actual selling of defense articles. Heck for big deals high ranking government officials (sometimes even head of state) will travel to other countries to press their arms companies case.

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[beej67]

Each of the hypothetical scenarios in responses above posits a change of political position. Lets presume for the sake of argument there is no such shift - things are as they were before you were born. Lets also presume your company is headquartered in a third/fourth country, on a separate continent from any of the previously mentioned companies, with historically positive relations with the saboteurs but no historically negative relations with the customer you're being asked to sabotage.

Lets also presume the act of sabotage itself is not simply creating an upgrade that obsoletes your previous product (commonplace and not unethical, ask Apple) but specifically sabotaging the product you sold to your customer, at the request of another competing customer.

So back to the Slobivians. Your company is from Germinostan. You sell highly sensitive national security widgits to the Upper and Lower Slobivians. Germinostan has a pretty good relationship with the Upper Slobivians, and is indifferent to the lower Slobivians. No relationships change. Upper Slobivia approaches you to join their covert operation to sabotage all of your widgets in Lower Slobivia.

Generally, do you do it?
If so, do you ask to be paid for doing it?
Do you only do it if there are strong external motivations for doing it?
If there are strong external motivations for doing it, should you have not sold them the widgits in the first place?

Now I realize there's a lot more to the "real life" question of Stuxnet. Particularly, there's personal ethics and religious conflict, and I acknowledge that sometimes those can trump business ethics, depending on the scenario. I'm asking specifically about the business ethics element, though, and it's cleanest to discuss that element with a hypothetical.

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[KENAT]

beej67, the national policy still comes into play in these kinds of situations, even your version.

To try and ignore that and focus on just business ethics seems silly.

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[beej67]

Also, to be very clear, I think Siemens ducks the question anyway. As I understand it, all Iran's stuff was illegally procured in the first place, so Siemens has no client relationship with them. But the hypothetical could apply to a lot of stuff, particularly as the geopolitical situation evolves over the next couple of decades.

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[beej67]

KENAT: In your opinion, does national policy always trump business ethics, sometimes trump it, or never trump it? Does your answer vary depending on the nature of the national policy?



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[KENAT]

I would say that generally national policy trumps business ethics (not personal morality though - I want to be clear on that) especially given that any enforcement of business ethics is typically by some branch of government it's difficult to argue otherwise. Sure you can claim that 'ethics' is separate from legality or enforcement of legality but there is generally some correlation - at least to the 'spirit' of the law.

Of course there are situations where the super secret spy agency doesn't let the board of trade know you were helping them out and you get screwed etc. but that's just one reason why it's difficult to give simple answers or even pose meaningful simple questions.

These types of situations have existed as long as there has been international trade. Certainly even in the run up to WWI & WWII there were sales of arms & arms related technology between various countries that eventually ended up on opposite sides.

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[IRstuff]

Seems to me that your question is deliberately loaded; since you claim to no want to discuss politics, yet your scenario is rife with political overtones.

"nd here's the one I really can't get my head around - Do you ask to be paid for your help in sabotaging your other customer? "

Sure, why not? If you are truly asking about an unnatural, apolitical, areligious, scenario, then it's purely a business decision. The only real question is whether it's ECONOMICALLY rational to do the job, i.e., do you care about repeat business or retaliation. Can it be traced back to your company? Once those questions can be answered to your benefit, then the job is just a job, for which you should be paid for. In fact, the bill should be particularly high to cover the downside risks.

Take the converse scenario; your product has known weaknesses, for which one customer will pay you to develop a defense against. Would you take the job strictly as a business decision? Would you warn your prior customer that such a defense has been developed and you could be paid to do the same for that customer?

TTFN
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[jmcoope3]

Since when does engineering have anything to do with social, political, or spiritual preference?

If you're upset you are designing a giant blender for babies, you shouldn't have taken the contract or you can politely resign from your position and move on. Our ethics are bound by scope, contract, budget, and engineering principal.

Leave the gooshy stuff to the salesmen.

 

[patprimmer]

A read up on the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer might throw a slant onto this. His opinion certainly changed during his life with some severe political/career consequences.

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[looslib]

In the early '80's i worked for a defense contractor who did just what you can imagine. They built radar and anti-radar systems for planes like the F15 and F16. They also built ground-based portable radar units. Our actual customer was the US government in most cases who then resold the complete aircraft to lots of countries. I don't think we designed specific software to overcome other systems that we built.

One story from when I worked there. Marketing had arranged to bring in foreiegn miltary advisors to look at the equipment their countries were buying. Little did the aircraft radar group know that the jamming radar group had sceduled a visit the same day. We had the Egyptians touring one area of the plant and being carefully guided around so they would not see the Israeli officers in another part of the plant. Luckily the buildings were almost 2 million sq. ft. of space, so it was easy to plan the tour routes to miss each other.


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[TheTick]

Then there was the Falkland conflict. Much of Argentina's air force was US built, then used against one of our allies.

 

[KENAT]

Tick, they also had a bunch of British and French kit.

Like I mentioned though that kind of thing dates back to antiquity.

I suspect at some point some cave man was killed with flint head spear his tribe had traded with another tribe or some such.

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[beej67]

Sure, why not? If you are truly asking about an unnatural, apolitical, areligious, scenario, then it's purely a business decision. The only real question is whether it's ECONOMICALLY rational to do the job, i.e., do you care about repeat business or retaliation. Can it be traced back to your company? Once those questions can be answered to your benefit, then the job is just a job, for which you should be paid for. In fact, the bill should be particularly high to cover the downside risks.

Do you guys think this opinion/position varies by industry?

To take a civil engineering slant on the scenario - I cannot do a project for Developer A and a project for Developer B, then be the expert witness in Developer A suing Developer B to tie his development up in court long enough for Developer A's to open first. Doing so would be a conflict of interest, and would also pretty well wreck my reputation in the industry among other developers. Violates professional ethics, at least as I understand it.

Hell, when I used to do a lot of work for (Big Box Hardware Store A), it was company policy that I was required to never do any projects for (Big Box Hardware Store B). Not only that, if I had another unrelated project I was in the middle of designing, and my client chased (BBHS B) to fill his anchor retail spot, we had to recuse the job and pass it off to another engineer to complete.



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[IRstuff]

You stipulated that the product was your own, though, and that it was specifically a product, and not simply services.

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[IRstuff]

And, in the vein of altering products, that's done all the time, so that ATT can't sell the exact same handset with the same features that Verizon might sell.

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