Revenue Canada worker's video game draws criticism | Hacker News Reader

Revenue Canada worker's video game draws criticism

cbc.ca

36 pointsspeg27 comments

Basically in the game you take a phone call from some guy and try to get him to answer a sufficient number of security questions that you can actually change whatever needs changing.

Being too fuzzy on the details and not pushing for enough information results in the caller being happy(ish), but you get an e-mail from the boss afterwards telling you you're fired. Being sarcastic or downright rude results in the person on the other end making a complaint to your boss, resulting in you getting an e-mail firing you when the call ends.

Amusingly, I'm not actually sure whether it's possible to finish the game while both managing to make the change the user wants and not getting fired. I think the best ending I've got so far was the caller failing to make it past all the security checks, and having to drop the call.

The game does not use any real recorded voices and it doesn't particularly make fun of callers. Just the caller is somewhat quick to anger and doesn't know the answer to any questions, really.

This is a massive overreaction by the minister, who obviously hasn't played the game either.

I do believe the National Revenue Minister is overreacting just a tad bit. Creating a game about phone support is conduct that is "offensive" and "unacceptable"? An investigation is required to ensure that confidential taxpayer information wasn't compromised?

So, fire him and then ask to start a potential criminal investigation over this?

Seems to me that politicians in Canada need something more substantial to complain about.

My guess is that the content used in the game may have been garnered from his day job, and therein lies the risk.

There's a difference between "Lots of callers can't remember their SIN, I'll use that" and "David Johnson, of 123 Maple St, Vancouver, BC, gave 112211 as an invalid SIN, let's put him in the game".

I agree. I don't know the game, but it seems likely that there is more to it than your first example. I doubt that they would be reacting the way they are otherwise.

Of course, this might be my own misplaced optimism.

The distinction doesn't matter.

Callers agreed to their conversation recorded only on the condition that 1. it will be used for training purposes and 2. security purposes. There was never an agreement regarding the callers' conversation recorded to be used in a game that makes mockery of the callers and potentially make money from them.

I don't think he recorded it as much as remembered experiences he had and transcribed them down independently.

Take a listen to the video. It seems to me that he's imitating (badly) caller voices, not using recordings. That would indeed by highly unethical.

I hope you are not suggesting the guy asked people on the phone to answer his questions multiple times with different answers each time so that he could record them to create a branching storyline that the player chooses from in the game?

Gallant has received a slew of tweets of encouragement, and he has tweeted that sales of his game are "through the roof.”

He probably doesn't need the job that badly any more, then.

Even before his "loss" of employment he was pulling in decent money.

A lot of indie developers would be jealous of him, and now even more so.

To give you an idea of how federal tax workers act here is an example.

In my region is a big tax centre and it was discovered these people who process taxes, federal workers, smoke illegal smuggled cigarettes. Someone searched through the old cigarette buts around the smoking area of the building and found a lot were off-tax, Native, illegal cigarettes.

These people make $60,000 to $80,000 per year in an area where a good wage is a full-time minimum wage job.

Combined with the low cost of living here and a massive wage these people these federal tax workers are beyond arrogant.

How do they acquire the tax free cigarettes? Is it against the law for them to buy them?

Tax-free cigarettes are available for sale in "smoke shacks" in native territories. By law, they can be sold tax-free only to Status Indians, but illegal sales to those that do not have the status are rampant. So essentially it is a contraband, only within a country.

When I was a kid in small-town Ontario, buying tax-free cigarettes was a lot like buying marijuana - you went to the guy who was known to sell them, who was usually hanging around the high school, and he hooked you up.

In my day the cigarettes were name brands, sold to low-tax American states and then smuggled back into Canada through Indian reservations - you couldn't tell you were smoking smuggled cigarettes by looking at the butts. Now Indian reservations manufacture their own untaxed cigarettes - which is completely legal, when bought and smoked on the reservation. However, they're also illegally sold off the reservation.

In Ontario at least, it's against the law to buy these cigarettes off the reservation. The penalty is a fine. Enforcement, for the individual buyers, is pretty much non-existent.

It's even easier than that. I know of local stores in my area (heart of the GTA) that sell them over-the-counter. You just have to know how to ask.

Makes sense, I'm from Ontario too and I knew kids in school who got cigs (under 18) but since I didn't smoke I never tracked down how to do it.

Interestingly, some provinces place weekly or monthly limits on the purchase of tax-exempt smokes in order to combat this. However, their method of synchronizing the limits with retailers is laughably outdated and insecure (one province transmits drivers' license numbers and home addresses in plaintext using plain FTP or dial-up). Because of this, some retailers are able to forge the necessary ID to obtain limitless tax-exempt cigarettes which are then sold to non-Indians.

Source: I worked as a network technician for several retailers across Canada who were later penalized for fraud of this sort. Yikes.

Yes very much against the law.

The cigarettes would have to have been smuggled into the province and being a tax department worker for the federal government it makes it far worse.

That is an outstandingly mild offense and does not broach anywhere near the borderlines of "arrogance".

It's classic arrogance, CCRA employees act like anyone who doesn't pay every last stupid tax is a criminal, then they flagrantly violate the law.

You're probably going to loose your job if you bitch about it publicly.

Doesn't matter if it's in a game or on Facebook or out in the lobby.

In what world could this ever be considered a thing that shouldn't be opposed?

While I can imagine some situations where I would definitely agree, I'm not sure this is one (I'm not sure it isn't either; I don't have all the details). I think he's entitled to vent in his personal life without presuming it will affect his work, and since people's private lives are increasingly public, the lines of visibility and freedom are under pressure to move. I think I'd rather those lines move in the direction of increased individual rights and free expression than the other way, but I'm OK with an "assessment" of his supposed "crimes against humanity" as long it isn't a substitute for rational judgement and is allowed to conclude dispassionately that he's not breaching anyone's privacy or other rights, if true. I don't think it's enough that CRA doesn't like it... At face value it seems harmless. (I might be inclined to call him immature though... Obviously most people's jobs feel like banging your head on a table; do something else if you can, but publicly resenting people just asks for the same in return. And so on...)

That video was hilarious. I'm sure some game company would hire him.

Someone like this doesn't belong in a government job. They need to find a corporate drone and he's not that person.

Can-Con!

Here's the link to his game: http://www.davidsgallant.com/igtced.html

Personally, I think he managed his workplace stress constructively. He made a game people may enjoy rather the six o'clock news for doing something rash.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com