“We didn’t sell it to a data broker. We sold it to Jeff. Not our fault if Jeff sold it to a data broker”

You’re being very black and white here. Engineering work both uses the scientific method (e.g. test a hypothesis to prove it true) and the literal science (e.g. proven hypotheses) to achieve the structures we have today.

In the same way, the formal study of computer science is through the scientific method, but that often comes as a byproduct of trying something new through software development, and proving, through hypotheses and testing, that the outcome is repeatable. Many computer science white papers have come out of hacky software engineering projects that were then formalized.

You’re saying pure cryptography is science though. Is it only science if you are a tenured professor or research professional, or it gets published in a journal? (Which as I outlined, software dev does all the time). I’m confused