Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Courts: Violating a Website’s Terms of Service Is Not a Crime

eff.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 174 posts

Re: Courts: Violating a Website’s Terms of Service Is Not a Crime

#101

Post by tedunangst »

aidenn0 wrote: post #72
kbos87 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A pirated copy doesn’t need to equate to a lost sale in order for it to be stealing. You took something of value that was created or owned by someone else. Whether it’s a physical or nonphysical good is completely beside the point.

English is certainly imprecise, but I would claim that if I commit some act X, and you have no less property than if I had not committed act X, then whatever else we can say about act X, I fell confident that it is not stealing.

And yet people get all worked up about "stolen" passwords. I still have my password. What's the problem?

Re: Courts: Violating a Website’s Terms of Service Is Not a Crime

#102

Post by rypskar »

benchaney wrote: post #84
rpedela wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

API key != TOS

The TOS is the reason that people use API keys instead of just reverse engineering the protocol (which is what an attacker will do).

No, CSFR tokens, validating API keys, restricting the origin of request, etc is how to restrict access to the API. TOS is only text to keep the honest honest, the security layer is to keep the attackers and others without access out. A TOS is the web-site telling how it want you to behave, and all it can do if you don't behave that way is to do its best to not let you in. Nothing of this stops you from trying to reverse engineer the protocol.

The best part with using an API is that, at least in theory, it is stable and will not have changes that breaks your integration with it

Re: Courts: Violating a Website’s Terms of Service Is Not a Crime

#103

Post by asfdsfggtfd »

tedunangst wrote: post #100
kaspiCZ wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's try to flip the perspectives. Let's say you created a game. Let's pretend you want to make money off of it, because you put quite some time into it. Time you could have used to make money by other means. How would you go about it?

I'd put my Twitter handle in the game to build a following so even more people download my next free game. Make it up in volume.

∞ × 0 = 0

Re: Courts: Violating a Website’s Terms of Service Is Not a Crime

#104

Post by asfdsfggtfd »

kbos87 wrote: post #65
pwaai wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As someone that was prevented from distributing Linux at high school because the administrators thought that any copying was piracy I remember having this discussion with in HS and also at work with people who were convinced pirating a PSX game is same as stealing, while not realizing there is no evidence that suggests a pirated copy means a lost sale (people can't afford it in places like Brasil where they still p…

A pirated copy doesn’t need to equate to a lost sale in order for it to be stealing. You took something of value that was created or owned by someone else. Whether it’s a physical or nonphysical good is completely beside the point.

Look it's not stealing - stealing is a concept related to physical goods.

That doesn't mean that it is right. Piracy is still wrong even though it is not stealing.

And the GP seems morally confused. Sharing FLOSS software is very very different morally to pirating games.

Re: Courts: Violating a Website’s Terms of Service Is Not a Crime

#105

Post by cosmie »

gsich wrote: post #98
cosmie wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Franz[1] is the closest thing I’ve found to a client around newer IM protocols. [1] https://meetfranz.com/

Includes a Monero miner.

Interesting. I hadn't realized that before. In the Windows version, there's no reference to it anywhere. And I no longer have a Mac to check that out (although it did trigger the dedicated GPU in the MBP, I attributed that to the FB Messenger plugin).

In looking for references to the miner, people seem to mention Rambox[1] as an alternative. I can't say much about that as I just came across it, but it looks promising as well.

[1] http://rambox.pro/

Re: Courts: Violating a Website’s Terms of Service Is Not a Crime

#106

Post by tomsmeding »

nothrabannosir wrote: post #31
saurik wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I continue to be shocked that Twitter convinced an entire generation of software developers that you need to obtain something called an "API key"--which can somehow be refused or even revoked once granted--in order to write a client for their protocol. "Back in my day", we just reverse engineered the official client and used whatever algorithm it used to talk to the server and called the war won :/.

It should be illegal for companies like Twitter to forbid this. Users should be free to access their data, and free to use any tool to do so. The revered network effect is anti consumer and it must be broken. This is the one regulation that could save a nation from FB, Twitter, Instagram and their ilk. Any politician to run on this could shoot somebody in the middle of a crowded street without losing my support.

> Any politician to run on this could shoot somebody in the middle of a crowded street without losing my support.

That might be a bit overdone, but I get your point.

Re: Courts: Violating a Website’s Terms of Service Is Not a Crime

#107

Post by theBobBob »

This might be a somewhat unpopular opinion but I think that there should be some way (definitely not through criminal prosecution) for a website or similar to say "You can use my service for free, but only under the following restrictions". Not sure what the "punishment" should be for breaking these rules.

Re: Courts: Violating a Website’s Terms of Service Is Not a Crime

#108

Post by quotemstr »

cosmie wrote: post #90
Sniffnoy wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, interesting. Its website isn't very informative though. I can't find a list of protocols, annoyingly.

It has a plugin architecture. Most of the core services it supports are listed in the Franz Plugin repo[1]. Note that it's not just about IM protocols, but rather a one-stop messaging app in general (so supports things like Gmail). And there are quite a few third-party plugins floating around, as well. And a good number that haven't been ported from Franz 4 to Franz 5. [1] https://github.com/meetfranz/plugins#example…

Huh? Based on the code, it looks like this thing just embeds stock web clients in some kind of webview and uses a little bit of JS injection to extract message counts. It's nowhere close to actually reverse engineering any protocol.

Re: Courts: Violating a Website’s Terms of Service Is Not a Crime

#109

Post by clarry »

kaspiCZ wrote: post #93
untog wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Piracy isn't stealing... and besides, no one can afford the games anyway... besides, you should see what the industry does to the artists in the first place... The gentleman doth protest too much?

Let's try to flip the perspectives. Let's say you created a game. Let's pretend you want to make money off of it, because you put quite some time into it. Time you could have used to make money by other means. How would you go about it?

> Let's try to flip the perspectives. Let's say you created a game. Let's pretend you want to make money off of it

I wouldn't have gone that far because I'm smart enough to tell that making money with a game is pretty damn hard (and it has nothing to do with piracy).

But if I had done stupid anyway, I would blame myself.

I could "want to make money" off of my turd too, and put hard effort into it, that doesn't mean I'm entitled to success.

Re: Courts: Violating a Website’s Terms of Service Is Not a Crime

#110

Post by quotemstr »

saurik wrote: post #18
prepend wrote: post #2

This is positive news. It seems like the more liberal approach taken when protocols were written is being challenged more by young users who grew up under more stable rules that accepted terms of service as very strong. When I was growing up you went by what the protocol allowed. If an http response came back you have access, if it prompted for credentials, then you didn’t have access. The mere idea that a web server…

I continue to be shocked that Twitter convinced an entire generation of software developers that you need to obtain something called an "API key"--which can somehow be refused or even revoked once granted--in order to write a client for their protocol. "Back in my day", we just reverse engineered the official client and used whatever algorithm it used to talk to the server and called the war won :/.

Right. I've definitely noticed a certain technical meekness lately, and honestly, I'm worried that it's connected to the broader cultural trend toward deference to authorities. Break some rules!
Post reply on HN