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Comment by morganvachon | Hacker News Reader

In a practical sense, it's not much different from a math instructor having you clear the memory on your graphing calculator before an exam; it's an anti-cheating measure and given that this is an online assessment, it almost makes sense.

However, from a philosophical point of view, it's Draconian and unnerving. What assurance does the interviewee have that Amazon isn't storing and using all this telemetry? Amazon is dictating the entire procedure, right down to the specific browser and extension, and the interviewee has no control over this. In fact, I have to wonder if the job seeker's acquiescence is part of the assessment; if they will bend over and take this massively invasive procedure, perhaps they will make for a good little subservient drone at Amazon.

I'm with the author, screw that shit.

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> "it's not much different from a math instructor having you clear the memory on your graphing calculator before an exam"

This sort of behavior by teachers is exactly what got me to write my first serious z80 assembly program to mimic all of the menus on the TI-83 circa 1996. Teachers had already caught on to the fact that there were programs that would display the "Mem Cleared" message on the calculators, so mandated they had to do it manually. I never used my program to cheat, I just didn't want to lose my games (had a really good zelda clone & penguins).

I can assure you that, for the vast majority of the population, it has the intended effect of keeping the calculator from storing digital cheat sheets.

I admire your tenacity too.

I do not disagree with your assessment, but it was a great motivator for me to learn z80 assembly. I just wish I knew how to use the stack. Modern me shudders at how horrible that code was - it worked, but god damn was it ugly. I still have the Z80 assembly reference manual on my bookshelf. It just hasn't been opened in close to 20 years. I've never had a physical x86(_64) reference manual, but I usually keep PDFs handy - just in case while debugging. I think I still have Atmel AVR & Motorola 68k docs physically somewhere...

I know Z80, more or less, but it's hard to get your hands on the link cable for a TI-83+ where I live.

I'll probably have to order one off Amazon at some point.

On the TI-84 (not sure about earlier models) you could archive programs which made them stick around past a memory wipe.

I'm sure that the candidate has no such guarantee. But does some kid barely out of college care more about potentially landing a job at Amazon or about the small chance that Amazon will retain some info collected during the test? It's a tradeoff, but it's nothing compared to the tradeoff we make by using Facebook or Google services.

> It's a tradeoff, but it's nothing compared to the tradeoff we make by using Facebook or Google services.

I don't disagree, and I recently stopped using all Google products in part because of how much information they have collected and still want to collect from me. After the account suspension drama from several days back, I was spooked and came to realize just how dependent I was on the company, and what I stood to lose should I come into the crosshairs over a simple ToS violation or even just a random bug in their service.

But that only strengthens my point of view about this hiring process and how wrong it is. When a company wants to exert that much control over someone who doesn't even work there yet, it speaks volumes about their overall culture and attitude towards people in general.

> However, from a philosophical point of view, it's Draconian and unnerving. What assurance does the interviewee have that Amazon isn't storing and using all this telemetry?

How is that different from being recorded by multiple cameras during an on-site interview?

I honestly don't see why the information they're collecting is a big deal. They are remotely interviewing you for a position, and would like to minimize cheating as much as possible. Instead of sitting you in a room, they use the technology available on your computer, while clearly telling you upfront what kind data will be collected. If you don't like it, get an interview elsewhere.

saying "if you don't like it get an interview elsewhere" is pretty unhelpful, because that's pretty much what he did; refused to continue with the current process. it also doesn't really work in the real world, because nothing would ever get fixed. if there were awful terms in a license agreement and someone found out, it's all well and good to say "go somewhere else", but what if it's in something like, say, windows that many people are forced to use for various reasons. sure, you might be able to go somewhere else but the practice still needs to be criticised and shown to others

Yeah, I somehow felt that people were going to read that last sentence and forget everything before it. Bad call keeping it in I guess.

well, as i said in another comment as well, if your questions can be answered by a quick web search, then maybe they should think about how you actually work; you web search a LOT. ask questions that filter on something less obvious

there are still in person stages; this is just a filter for them. it's not like it's the only data you get to hire or not hire someone

Why is everyone assuming that a cheater will only do a "quick web search"? You could call someone to walk you through it over Skype, or get a person to solve it over remote desktop, or even have a friend sit in and do it for you, etc.

These are the cases where monitoring is needed. Whether or not what Amazon is doing is actually effective is another issue entirely. All I'm saying is that it's not as huge a deal as a lot of people on this thread are making it out to be.

> How is that different from being recorded by multiple cameras during an on-site interview?

I'd refuse this too. But the difference is that the on site one isn't a massive security threat.

>while clearly telling you upfront what kind data will be collected

It doesn't even satisfy the legal requirements for informing people their personal data is going to be collected (in my country at least). They don't tell you what happens to the data, who has access to it, they don't provide a way to let them know you want it deleted, and so on.

I agree, but it's an OK start.

" it's Draconian and unnerving"

Let's chill here, 'Draconian' is a strong word.

'What if Amazon is using the data for nefarious purposes'.

It's a reasonable conclusion, but also a big 'what if' :)

Their motivation is pretty reasonable - they just want you to be able to take a test remotely.

They 'dictate the process, right down to the extension' for reasonable cause.

It's reasonable to ponder the ways in which there could be bad things going on, but I don't think it's reasonable to assume that there is, or even malicious intent here.

It just 'seems' creepy.

In the future, could you not use the phrase "bend over"? I don't think it has a place on HN.

...Aparently, HN disagrees.

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