This paper focuses on the ethical position of the ethnographer when encountering unethical activities. Ethnography affords a rich insight into cultures, often behind previously secure doors but it is also a demanding science. Our gatekeepers control our access and our relationships with them can determine our destiny. This paper offers an exchange with ethics and the conditions experienced during an ethnography that challenged and disturbed this researcher's understanding of its rules and expectations. By drawing on data and experiences from a classroom ethnography it aims to consider the limits of ethics and the generic ritual that regardless of cost we must do no harm to others.