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Comment by sofixa | Hacker News Reader

> leak Auernheimer was a member of the hacker group known as "Goatse Security" that exposed a flaw in AT&T security in June 2010, which allowed the e-mail addresses of iPad users to be revealed. The flaw was part of a publicly-accessible URL, which allowed the group to collect the e-mails without having to break into AT&T's system. Contrary to what it first claimed, the group revealed the security flaw to Gawker Media before AT&T had been notified, and also exposed the data of 114,000 iPad users,

You know that someone leaving their front door open by accident is not an invitation or an excuse to enter and collect whatever you want, right? Especially when you're a complete and total piece of shit, some jail time is not an overreaction ( if it was a normal human being, leniency for a first offense is natural and to be expected).

As for Sony execs, if only that was the first case white collar crime was brushed off.

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I’ve heard the “leaving your door open” thing before and I don’t think that’s a good analogy here. That’s not how the internet works. I send requests to other machines and ask them for stuff and whether they respond or not is on them. That some folks make terrible decisions when it comes to how they store their data isn’t really anyone else’s problem. A better analogy might be “In the uk, if you leave something on the pavement outside your house then you don’t want it anymore and it’s Ok if other people take it. I decided to leave a stack of personal data there and someone just took it.”

> I send requests to other machines and ask them for stuff and whether they respond or not is on them.

So by this logic, SQL injection is perfectly fine? RCE is perfectly acceptable too? After all, my machine is just asking for stuff and the other machine is responding in a way its code tells it to.

The open door analogy fits pretty well here, really. Just because you see an opening doesn’t mean you’re allowed in.

This is silly. It was a publicly accessible URL. A better analogy would be leaving your window blinds open and being upset that your neighbors can see you inside your home. Your neighbors aren't at fault, you are, and you can face criminal charges if you do something lewd inside your home while visible from public property. AT&T is completely at fault here for publicly distributing private info.

For an analogy who went all the way up to the Supreme Court see: https://news.artnet.com/market/arne-svenson-neighbors-photog...

This woman was not guilty after doing this with special equipment, a telephoto lens(!).

There was also that guy in another case sitting in his kitchen naked while drinking coffee and reading the morning paper. Some woman decides to walk into his back yard with her kid, sees him, and called the police on him for indecency...it took years for him to get let off and cost him a ton of money to not get any penalties. He was nearly held liable for what someone saw inside his house when they had to be trespassing to see it!

This case should be held up as a troubling indictment of current legislation, not held up as an example of freedom of expression.

It also happens to be irrelevant to the case above, as it seems to have been specifically decided on the merits of the photographs as Art. It would be hard to claim that leaking the emails to Gawker was a form of art, so it may well have ended up differently.

Another major difference is that Svenson intentionally omitted faces, so determining identity is very difficult. Leaking emails to Gawker for users' AT&T accounts is partially identifying its users, so it could even be considered a hostile action (against either AT&T, its customers, or both).

If that is hostile, then what is ISPs selling browsing data [1]? Google gathering location data even on those who opt out? Facebook gathering contacts lists and text messages [2]?

And no, not selling that data doesn't make the act non-hostile. If company X possessing that data is hostile, why is Facebook/Google/AT&T/Microsoft having it any better? Because of their saint-like reputation?

[1] https://www.howtogeek.com/724472/do-isps-track-and-sell-your...

[2] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-gathers-texts-phone-da...

For anyone confused, this wasn't argued before the US Supreme Court, it was argued before the NY State Supreme Court, which _isn't_ the highest court in the state (that's the Court of Appeals).

In this analogy, responsible disclosure would be something like I take a peek in your window and then let you know that I can see inside, and then you can take appropriate action since you probably didn't know your blinds were open a bit.

What weev did was more like set up a 3d scanning apparatus outside the window and create a perfect 3d scan of my entire house through the little opening in my blinds.

I still disagree. Those other systems are not the web. If i can look at a url and get your secret data, that’s on you. I think the other reply who gave the analogy of leaving the blinds open was a better one than mine.

[ and just off-topic slightly, yes, I think RCE and SQL injection are perfectly fine. ]

>I still disagree. Those other systems are not the web. If i can look at a url and get your secret data, that’s on you. I think the other reply who gave the analogy of leaving the blinds open was a better one than mine

With you so far...

>[ and just off-topic slightly, yes, I think RCE and SQL injection are perfectly fine. ]

WTF?! Seriously? There's a huge difference by tweaking the content in a query string of a URL vs injecting known malicious code/content.

Yes, seriously, and I have thought about this a lot. I appreciate it’s not a popular position and I’m not likely to win any debates on the topic. If a computer is voluntarily connected to the internet then it’s there to explore and there should be no penalties for getting into those machines and looking around by connecting remotely. Malicious outcomes in the real world, obviously this is different. Hack in, look around, fine. Hack in, explode powerstation, not fine.

I am inclined to agree - intent matters.

RCE/SQLi, then contacting the relevant company to notify them about the problem, shouldn't be a crime. RCE/SQLi, then dumping all the data and exorting the company with it, should definitely be.

> Malicious outcomes in the real world, obviously this is different.

I definitely agree with you on this point. If someone looked in my window from the street and saw me eating breakfast, no harm no foul. If I didn't want them to see me I should have closed the blinds. But if someone sets up a camera at the exact same spot and streams it to twitch, I feel like I should have some recourse. (I don't think, legally, I would, but ianal).

In general, yes, absolutely.

I wonder how this works with scraping. If I automatically scrape and store sensitive data by accident, surely that would be the site's fault?

> You know that someone leaving their front door open by accident is not an invitation or an excuse to enter and collect whatever you want, right?

Did I claim it was? I accurately described the e-mails as "accidentally accessible" (since I don't think what weev did rises to the level of "using an exploit"), and contrasted the severity of the act with what Sony did, and the severity of its consequences for consumers with what Google and others routinely do.

> Especially when you're a complete and total piece of shit

Then charge him with "being a piece of shit". But given Sony's, Google's, Microsoft's,... general behavior, he's not the only one that could be accused of that.

It's like leaving the front door open for a laundromat. If it's open it's expected to be ok to enter and use.

Both the internet and the laundromat go by "If it's publicly accessible, it's publicly available."

The AT&T emails were what they got him on, but they were mad at him for a lot more than that. Do some research if you’re curious. Smart guy with a lot of wasted potential.

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