Hacker News Reader

Comment by nik_0_0 | Hacker News Reader

I found myself wondering if perhaps the 'white-hat' reference is a blunder in the headline. This article woefully lacks any actual details regarding what he did or how he approached communication with Facebook, only stating that he was a white-hat hacker for Yahoo once (which obviously proves nothing).

View on HN

I searched around a little bit, since I found the lack of details somewhat disturbing. This is the best I found: http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Facebook-hack-lands-UK.... From the sounds of it, he broke into an employees account (likely their work computer, possibly further access). I'm speculating, but that makes it sound like he stole some portion of the Facebook source code, coupling that with the "intellectual property" claims.

I'm curious about this line, towards the bottom:

   his intention throughout was to contact Facebook in due course when he had rectified their problems

Sounds like the classic "but what I would have done..." defence (unless they have backed it up with clear evidence, of course, I didn't check).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com