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Comment by dminuoso | Hacker News Reader

If I infiltrate someone else’s computer, secretly run code in order to to exfiltrate data I risk prison time because objectively it seems to satisfy criminal laws over where I live.

How do prosecutors in any modern country/state not charge this behavior when done by a website owner?

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The difference is that there's implied consent to run arbitrary (albeit sandboxed) code when you visit a website. Moreover it's not the website causing the code to be executed, it's your browser. Otherwise if the bar is "code is being run but the user doesn't know about it", it would lead to either any type of web pages with javascript being illegal (or maybe without javascript, given that CSS turing complete), or a cookie banner type situation where site asks for consent and everyone just blindly accepts.

> if the bar is "code is being run but the user doesn't know about it",

.. would lead to all modern electronics being illegal, not just web pages with javascript.

I guess it’s fortunate that this quote only includes a portion of the assertion they’re making. What happens when you include the rest?

> any type of web pages with javascript being illegal

Inshallah

I suppose it depends on what you mean by "modern"

In Europe we have the GDPR which does exactly this

The GPDR is not criminal law. But ignoring that, regulators barely pursue GPDR violations.

Consider the swaths of dark patterns surrounding cookie terror banners. The GPDR language is extremely clear that none of them are legal, but virtually nobody is ever punished.

> The GPDR is not criminal law

While the GDPR does not directly prescribe prison sentences, it absolutely enables countries to establish criminal offences for severe data protection violations, and they will clearly extradite!

https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/media-centre/news-and-blogs...

> But ignoring that,

No don't ignore that. When you're so completely wrong about the first thing you say, everything that follows is going to be even more wrong.

> Consider ... cookie ... banners. The GPDR language is extremely clear that none of them are legal

You are confusing the ePrivacy directive (2002/58/EC) with the GDPR (2016/679).

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