The situation hasn't changed at all. There are tons of compliance auditors, and they can write all the policy they want, but they can't audit the day to day.
When I was at Facebook, there was a very strict official policy and warning in Bootcamp that "The security team knows when you impersonate a user, and you will be fired if it's not for good reason". I still saw people impersonating their girlfriends, their ex girlfriends, their crushes; None of them got noticed or even fired, and there was tacit acknowledgement that it was widespread. This was the same company that encouraged people to install their root certificate so they could MITM your connections[1].
You need to be worried about both. There's probably more banal evil than there was, but it's not because the assholes with petty power have disappeared.
All that said; The BOFH stories were never about the kind of evil you actually find in technical circles. There were juvenile power fantasy about being an evil trickster god; They were catharsis about all the times you are angry and frustrated at your coworkers; Yes, you want to hit them, shock them, throw them down the stairs - The same way that you wish you had a rocket launcher to blast the car ahead of you off the freeway. It's ridiculous power fantasy, and it's kind of shameful that tech has so many people that view it as "unhealthy" rather than crass for the sake of being crass; It is over the line twice.
When I was at Facebook, there was a very strict official policy and warning in Bootcamp that "The security team knows when you impersonate a user, and you will be fired if it's not for good reason". I still saw people impersonating their girlfriends, their ex girlfriends, their crushes; None of them got noticed or even fired, and there was tacit acknowledgement that it was widespread. This was the same company that encouraged people to install their root certificate so they could MITM your connections[1].
You need to be worried about both. There's probably more banal evil than there was, but it's not because the assholes with petty power have disappeared.
All that said; The BOFH stories were never about the kind of evil you actually find in technical circles. There were juvenile power fantasy about being an evil trickster god; They were catharsis about all the times you are angry and frustrated at your coworkers; Yes, you want to hit them, shock them, throw them down the stairs - The same way that you wish you had a rocket launcher to blast the car ahead of you off the freeway. It's ridiculous power fantasy, and it's kind of shameful that tech has so many people that view it as "unhealthy" rather than crass for the sake of being crass; It is over the line twice.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/29/18202880/facebook-researc...