I am not here to defend those engineers, but it's a very easy trap to fall in to. An interview I enjoyed reading, as a warning, was with a programmer who wrote adware [1]. It was just one more small step each time, first kicking competitors off, than maybe sneaking in an easier re-install, then maybe not going away... In the case of these overdraft fees, it doesn't even seem to me that it would take a particularily skillful or creative engineer to implement it, just a conniving enough boss to ask. After that, it's just any one person who's willing to do it for the paycheque, and we see many other people do much worse to get a paycheque.
As an engineer myself, it's even scarier when the problems are challenging and exciting, but the application scares me. Oh man, would I ever like to try and put together advanced intercept/listening systems (think cell phones, over the air)! I get excited thinking about all the technical challenges, so if someone wanted to pay and support me to do it, wow that'd be interesting! It takes me a moment to stop and think to realize that I don't want to be involved in giving that kind of power to the people who would want it.
As an engineer myself, it's even scarier when the problems are challenging and exciting, but the application scares me. Oh man, would I ever like to try and put together advanced intercept/listening systems (think cell phones, over the air)! I get excited thinking about all the technical challenges, so if someone wanted to pay and support me to do it, wow that'd be interesting! It takes me a moment to stop and think to realize that I don't want to be involved in giving that kind of power to the people who would want it.
[1] http://philosecurity.org/2009/01/12/interview-with-an-adware...