Comments on: Government right, Ruk’s Blues are his own making

By: Black Friday at the Guardian | NJN Network

Black Friday at the Guardian | NJN Network — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 12:19:52 +0000

[...] the Guardian comment I pointed to discussions on the topic at CEO Blues and Liberal Millionaires Club, without using HTML [...]

By: disabilityalert

disabilityalert — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 20:47:50 +0000

Thanks for your comment. For more of my logic see Stirring up the ethical hornets nest

By: oliver

oliver — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 18:57:45 +0000

This is a strangely prissy stand you seem to be taking. Even if the coding knowledge Peter used had been proprietary and either of monetary or strategic value, Peter did not use it for a commercial purpose or make it any more widely available to others than it already was. What’s proprietary to the government, furthermore, is proprietary to the people of PEI, on whose behalf and authority it supposedly acts every time and in every way it acts at all. The government is not just “a client,” in other words, and neither is the disposition of legal records–required by law to be public–just any kind of information which relates to just any kind of job one performs under contract. If you want to talk about something that rises to the standard of ethics, consider if the previously inconvenient-to-access data in question had been about the number of citizens killed by government administered vaccinations; or numbers of civilians killed by operations in Afghanistan. If you inflate the moral significance of Peter’s coding and publishing of the Web site it looks a lot more like whistle-blowing than a violation of the public trust–which is what customer disservice or betrayal gets called when the customer is the government.

By: Stirring up the ethical hornet’s nest « NJN Network

Stirring up the ethical hornet’s nest « NJN Network — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 11:43:33 +0000

[...] I didn’t use the word “unethical”, simply withdrawing previously published support based on professional ethical standards in the article Government’s right, Ruk’s Blues are of his own making [...]

By: Stirring up the ethical hornet’s nest « Liberal Millionaires Club

Stirring up the ethical hornet’s nest « Liberal Millionaires Club — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 11:37:08 +0000

By: Black Friday at the Guardian « NJN Network

Black Friday at the Guardian « NJN Network — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 17:50:48 +0000

[...] the Guardian comment I pointed to discussions on the topic at CEO Blues and Liberal Millionaires Club, without using HTML [...]

By: Black Friday at the Guardian « Liberal Millionaires Club

Black Friday at the Guardian « Liberal Millionaires Club — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 16:22:51 +0000

[...] the Guardian comment I pointed to discussions on the topic at CEO Blues and Liberal Millionaires Club, without using HTML [...]

By: disabilityalert

disabilityalert — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 13:21:42 +0000

As to running bots on this site or any other site, the information on all our sites is copyright by PEI Disability Alert or on my personal sites by Stephen Pate. You are not authorized to re-print without my permission, which so far we have not withheld. You cannot reprint the sites in whole or in part, nor may you print the information in anyway that distorts compromises or otherwises changes the intent of the copyright holders unless it is to parody the sites, which is a valid form of free speech in the USA if not in Canada.

We got our come-uppance yesterday when we re-printed the Globe article and then read their copyright notice.Oops they only allow the headline and link to their site. It’s their copyright and they make the rules. The doctrine of fair use would allow anyone to reprint brief excerpts for commentart, criticism, educational and other valid purposes. A quick edit and we came within their rules of permission.

Cheers, Stephen Pate

By: disabilityalert

disabilityalert — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 12:59:26 +0000

Thanks for your comment.

I can program and ran a shop of C and SQL programmers but I’m not good at it. I understand what is going on but don’t have the attention span to do it. How’s that for honesty.

It’s not what he did, although I suggest most people in the public wouldn’t be able to do it. I asked I few programmers I knew and they didn’t or wouldn’t do it.

The situation is: anyone other than a former employee of the Province or contractor would likely be free to do what Peter did. However, Peter is hacking a former client or employer’s site. Bad form, bad ethics, and perhaps a breach of fiduciary trust with the province.

Call up your employer or top clients today and ask them how they would feel if you came back five years after the relationship ended to extract data from their website, just a little screen scrapper bot though. Most savy people wouldn’t take me up on the dare since the clients would say goodbye farewell adieu to you.

We are expected to show ethics and part of that is keeping away from clients once the relationship ends. If you think you have the right to go back later, put a disclaimer on all your quotes and contracts telling clients in advance “I might run processes on your webscreens like Google later on if I like.” That would be the ethical thing to do. Then the client can say – cool or forget it.

By: Darren

Darren — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 01:28:30 +0000

I am guessing you’re not a programmer, but what Mr. Rukavina did doesn’t require any special insider secrets. I could spider your blog to pull out your posts and display them in a different format and display them in a different format, for example, in an hour or so. Its pretty easy.