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Comment by drzaiusapelord | Hacker News Reader

>He deserves a monetary award.

Heaven forbid, people submit security issues because they want to be helpful or care about the project.

Heaven forbid we ask of a corporation that they compensate us for a job they should have done and preventing huge losses and a PR nightmare.

Had I been OP I would have sold the exploits with no remorse, we don't need companies like that on the market, rewarding corporations for bad behaviour with free labour is fucked up on every level.

You would have committed a felony?

Depending on where OP lives, that might not have been a felony.

I'm pretty sure that in my country I can sell whatever software I want, as long as I brand it as 'automatic patch management testing' or something...

Seriously? In America today, just releasing balloons into the air is a felony: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/anthony-brasfield-fla-man-charge...

That word has lost all weight, right along with "terrorist".

Okay, so forget the word felony. "You would have aided/abetted a malicious criminal and profited monetarily by doing so?" My point is that selling an exploit doesn't become morally okay just because the company doesn't offer a bounty.

Except that morality is highly subjective and some people would be completely fine commiting a criminal activity just for the hell of it.

You say it's subjective and then the reason you give is that some people would, knowing that it's criminal, still commit a crime.

It looks like their view of the activity isn't that it's fine to do, rather that they don't care that it's not fine. This implies that they know and accept that it's not fine.

I don't know what to say after reading this. Did the act come into force after BP spill?

Maybe they should have a bounty program, but they don't, and they made that clear. They didn't ask anyone to perform "free labor," and I don't think they have any obligation to pay for labor they didn't ask to be performed. I don't see anything unethical in their behavior. Your beef seems more to be with the researcher who decided to perform free labor for this company.

Selling exploits to the black market does strike me as unethical, though.

>Selling exploits to the black market does strike me as unethical, though.

If I gave them away and they get exploited is it unethical? If I gave them away publicly vs privately does it make a difference? If I responsibly reported to the manufacturer a month previously?

I guess intent matters, and I'm ok with that being the line. In the end though I feel the rewards for fast production far outweigh the consequences of security bugs. My firefox updated last night and added pocket and I was reminded that I couldn't even remove the useless bloody thing.

> If I responsibly reported to the manufacturer a month previously?

I'm not an expert on responsible disclosure, and I think reasonable people can disagree on the best course of action. I think selling exploits on the black market is always unethical.

> I couldn't even remove the useless bloody thing.

Right click, "Remove from toolbar".

The black market does not want serverside Pocket vulnerabilities. These bugs only have value to Pocket.

I'm a photographer and freelance software developer, I know all about not doing work for free and what that does to our industries.

This isn't doing work for free, this is a hobby. The time spent by this person was not requested by Pocket and they shouldn't be maligned just because they're not paying him.

Also, "sold the exploits with no remorse" really makes you sound like a troll. So I'm feeding.

If you're that worried about compensation, the correct answer is to determine up front whether there's a bounty program, and if not, move on. Not to do work you had every reason to believe would not be compensated, then complain when it isn't compensated.

You can ask them for a bounty program in the future, but you don't really have a right to get upset when they don't honor a bounty that was never promised. It's like demanding a reward for returning a dropped wallet.

So can I correct the grammar on your website and then send you an invoice?

If you want to get paid for your security work, you should convince someone to hire you, not work on spec for someone who did not hire you.

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