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Comment by account42 | Hacker News Reader

You think walking through an unlocked door should result in federal charges?

Walking through an unlocked door that has a sign "private property, do not enter", searching for sensitive information, finding it and exposing it surely could.

Or not, depending on how the party who owns what's inside that door feels. But if it feels he should be prosecuted, then hell yes, the state should do that. My 2c.

So what about using rakes or bump keys? Very low tech, very easy. Can defeat some poor quality locks.

Still sounds like petty crime that doesn't need the FBI to roll in.

The point is that in the physical world there is some notion of proportionality in the response to trespassing depending on the actual damage done and sophistication and premeditation of the act. We don't generally lock up people because they accidentally walked into an area they shouldn't have. But once computers are involved we have laws that automatically make even even minor infractions into a big scary issue that allows the government to essentially destroy someone's live.

So now the door is unlocked?? Where are the goal posts?

Don't mess with people's stuff if they don't want you to. This seems very simple to me. But I'm aware that you're trying to find some fringy gray area where you think it will be OK to mess with people's stuff even though they don't want you to.

If we're making an analogy to the Weev case then yes the door was unlocked, with the explicit intent that the general public could come through that door and access some of the documents.

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