While I think it's a clever spin. I don't see why Groupon can't do the same in an instant if it proves to be effective. If that happens these guys just become another Groupon clone competing on lower rates for merchants.
>In college, I never took a course on Compilers or Programming Languages...
>I got the job through a summer internship, which allowed me to bypass the rigorous 8-interviews-in-a-day hiring process. And I lucked out... completely escaped having to code over the phone.
I'm not trying to troll. However, I honestly do consider you landing a Google engineering internship/job with those school background (and zero coding experience outside of school up to that point) being pretty lucky. Consider this guy[1]. I believe he would've most likely gotten the internship had he gone through the same interview process as you. I know that's just my subjective opinion. However, the bottom line is he went through a very different (arguably harder) interview process than you did. It's harder in the sense you could have very well failed had you been asked to code over google doc + phone. The key factor here is this process that Google uses everyday to turn down countless competent but not extraordinary people - you did not have to go through it. That is the basis I deem you lucky.
There is a certain level of respect (among other befits) given to former or current Google engineers among hackers. And I would argue that is the case largely because of the very difficult process that they had to through to become one. I can totally understand why you had the sense of inferiority and insecurity of your coding abilities, having not gone through that process.
Of course none of this makes your point of everyone is good at different things and you should not beat yourself up any less significant. I agree with you on most other points. I'm also happy for you that you've overcome these self defeating thoughts and have proven to yourself. As some one else mentioned in the comments, the problem was you being you own toughest critic.
Who said anything about firing? How does hiring one guy on to join the team == firing of all of the previous guys? Is there a one man network security team rule at Valve that I'm suppose to know about?
This may be a dumb question, as I'm not very familiar with how these things work. Why do they charge less when the transaction is a physical swipe 2.75% vs 3.5% + 15¢ if you enter numbers manually? Does it actually cost Square less when you swipe? If not, what is the idea behind this encouragement of physical swipe?
>What i don't understand is that you keep saying he was not motivated by self gain... people do things for their own satisfaction...
That's a different kind of self gain than the one I was talking about. There is no need to point out/talk about the one you mention - every action anyone does is/can be argued for self satisfaction/gain of some sort - since everyone does it already. Yes I agree with that one. However, the gain I'm talking about is taking away a physical object away from someone else for the sake of gaining possession of it. Again, this is not what motivated the kid to break in and obtain a copy of the source code. However this type of gain is exactly what motivated the guy from Roosevelt's story. My original reply was trying to point out this difference.
>...you cannot recognise the significance of actions beyond their physical consequences.
Yes I can. Not only I can, I am also making a distinction between the actions with obvious physical consequences and the actions with less/no obvious physical consequences. It is you who insist on generalizing the two into the same thing and cannot see the (somewhat subtle) difference.
>The only way he could fail to be aware of the negative repercussions is if he accidentally took the source code and thought it was something else. He clearly did know what the code was, its value and why it was protected...
I beg to differ. That is just one extreme way. It is definitely not the only way he could have failed to be aware of the negative ramification. This is where evaluating his intentions/motivations is helpful. He loves the Valve company. He wants to play this game that he's been waiting for 4 years to ship. But the game keeps on getting delayed. He wants know the progress of the game's development. So then he decides looking at the source code is a good way to achieve this. I think it's very reasonable to argue that, "Had he known that by doing what he did would only further delay the game he wants to play and cause his heroes a lot of trouble, he would not have done it." The ramifications in this case is not as nearly as straight forward compared to breaking into a factory for the sake of gaining possession of the factory's secret plans. I really hope you can see this difference.
>so i don't see how what he did was any different from someone breaking into a factory and stealing secret plans
I think I've already done the best I can to explain to you the differences. If you still cannot see it then you are just going to have to figure this one out on your own/with someone else. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_Dichotomy
That might be a good place to start. I notice coders often tend to engage in this kind of over generalization/all or nothing thinking.
I think it highly depends on the delivery. I've mentioned this in another comment lower in the thread. Basically, had he contacted Valve and informed them about security the flaws and then shared the source code with Valve to show/prove the potential danger (instead of the guy who leaked it,) I don't think it's totally unreasonable for Valve to hire him on to the security team after he truly demonstrates skill and passion for the company.
You are still not understanding what I'm trying to say. We are talking about intentions here. Not actions. I'm not saying he's not guilty of those crimes. I'm just saying he did not exhibit the undesirable character of intentionally hurting others for self gain. When he committed the crimes he might not have thought about how much Valve would suffer as a result. This is a very different mentality than breaking into someone's safe to take away physical objects. The result of you taking away physical objects is immediately clear - the other party will suffer a loss of those objects.
I disagree with you if you are saying that he had planned for months with the intention of taking away Valve's secrecy and confidentiality so he can hurt them and as a result gain something from it. There is no question that a crime has been committed. What we are debating about is whether he exhibited the same immoral character that Roosevelt condemned. I believe that no he did not exhibit the condemned character of intentionally hurting others for self gain - at least not through his actions of making a copy of Valve's source code.
One of the reasons I believe that is because the ramifications of making copies of someone else's information is not very obvious compared to taking away a physical object from them. When you take something tangible from someone it is immediately clear that the other person will be suffering a loss. However the act of looking at files stored in a remote server (and as a result creating copies) is much less obvious. I think it is very plausible that the kid was just trying to see the state/progress of the game that he has been anticipating so long for (4 years) and simply did not think about the ramification of his actions. This is totally different than the pre-meditation of a crime with the intention to put another party at harm. He has zero motivations to harm Valve. He sees them as his heroes and still is a big fan.
This is a nice story however I don't think the same principal should apply in this case. You have to look at intention of the behavior to judge ones character like Roosevelt did. In Roosevelt's case the intention was clear, the guy took away from another and knowingly disregarded the loss the other guy suffered. It's this character of hurting others to benefit self that made the behavior bad and immoral.
In this kid's case, information was copied. The intention was not to take away sacarce resource for self benfit. He got the source simply because the act of looking produced a copy. Not because he was trying to seek self gain. You should not equate the two and pass the same judgement of character simply because we tend to label both acts as "theft." They are completely different. I really think there should be another word to distinct between these different acts.
If the article was 100% accurate, then I would have due to this particularly unusual circumstance. The kid was too naive and handled the situation poorly. The leak in fact was purely accidental. I think if he had contacted Valve and gave them the source code instead of to the guy who leaked it, the whole thing would have had a very different turn out.
The kid recognized what he did was wrong and regretted it. That was why he came forward and emailed Gabe. If he really just wanted steal and cause harm, he would have never been found or caught. You can tell he truly loved the company and was simply misguided in the way he chose to show it. Yes he made a mistake, but I would have still given the kid a chance rather than beat him down. It's this kind of tragic beat downs that often create villains. (in the worlds of comic books at least. =)
Ahh, I see. Point taken. I would still hire this passionate kid and put him on the network security team. I would then make a public announcement about how the job you get depends on what skill you demonstrate. Which should be the way it works anyways. If you want to join us as a game developer then you need to demonstrate your game developing passion and skills. Either through creating mods with our SDK/platform or writing/creating your own from scratch. However if you want to join us as a network security expert then you got to beat this kid we just hired! =P
As far as I know he was the only one who have succeeded in not only hacking in, but also not being traced back despite all of Valves efforts. (They even got the FBI involved.) How many of the "hackpplicants" can you say the same about? The only reason Valve even knew who did it was because he came forward to them. He admired Gabe and his team so much that his dream is to join them. All of this indicate to me that he would make an awesome employee. I have little doubt that he would have poured his heart and soul into the company had he been given the chance. In fact that is the main reason why I found the story to be so tragic.
I found the story to be quite tragic. This kid really saw the people at Valve as his heroes. Valve knew this and totally abused of that fact. They tricked him and was planning to hand him to the FBI, despite the fact he was (still is) their biggest fan and that the leak was accidental. I would have really hired him if I was in Gabe's position. He had both passion and skills. I think he would make an awesome YC applicant if he directed those to creating a web startup.
I usually tend to avoid the 1 to 2 hour long video/talks. However in this case, the value received from its content absolutely justified every minute of its length. I wish more people would not dismiss it because of its length like I almost did.
same here.. and then showing the guy being another computer ai/robot...