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Teenager facing prison for downloading unsecured files from government website

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Re: Teenager facing prison for downloading unsecured files from government website

#171

Post by inetknght »

jopsen wrote: post #164
astrodust wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the amount of 4chan material you've archived increases the probability of not archiving something illegal quickly diminishes to zero.

The more systematic your collection the better your defense will be. Intent and knowledge of the illegal material of which you are in possession could easily be a requirement. I'm no laywer, but archiving the internet is hardly illegal.

> I'm no lawyer, but archiving the internet is hardly illegal.

Tell that to the part of the law enforcement that decided to arrest this kid for accessing a public website.

Re: Teenager facing prison for downloading unsecured files from government website

#172

Post by rayiner »

doomtop wrote: post #166
rayiner wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A "link" is a DOM element in a web page which references a URL, but a URL is not itself a link. To point a finer point on it: the fact that a URL is referenced in a link means that a user is supposed to see and access it.

Sounds like you might be thinking of an anchor element. People ask for the "link" when they mean the URI all the time.

Wikipedia disagrees:

> In computing, a hyperlink, or simply a link, is a reference to data that the reader can directly follow either by clicking, tapping, or hovering. A hyperlink points to a whole document or to a specific element within a document. Hypertext is text with hyperlinks. The text that is linked from is called anchor text. A software system that is used for viewing and creating hypertext is a hypertext system, and to create a hyperlink is to hyperlink (or simply to link). A user following hyperlinks is said to navigate or browse the hypertext.

The URL in the abstract is not a "link." A link is an element in hypertext.

Re: Teenager facing prison for downloading unsecured files from government website

#173

Post by jopsen »

XorNot wrote: post #19

And this is why I'm going to route all my kids traffic through an offshore VPN by default and whitelist low latency stuff.

I've been thinking I wanted a router with two wi-fi networks.

One that goes through the ISP and one that goes out over a proxy.

I haven't found a solution just yet. I guess a raspberry pi with iptables and routing based on device ID could do the trick too.

Re: Teenager facing prison for downloading unsecured files from government website

#174

Post by gitgud »

rayiner wrote: post #140
samatman wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It... it is accessible from a link That's what a url with an id in it is a link

A "link" is a DOM element in a web page which references a URL, but a URL is not itself a link. To point a finer point on it: the fact that a URL is referenced in a link means that a user is supposed to see and access it.

Obscurity does not mean security. Just because the link wasn't referenced does not imply it is sensitive information.

Should you not have the freedom to type what you want into the address bar of a browser?

Re: Teenager facing prison for downloading unsecured files from government website

#175

Post by rayiner »

hug wrote: post #151
rayiner wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I already play with urls that have possible id's in them out of habit Do you jiggle door handles out of habit to see if they're unlocked? It's antisocial behavior. If you were supposed to have access to that document, it would be accessible from a link or search box on the main site.

Poor analogy. What he was doing (incrementing an ID to access a series of files) is more like leafing his way through a filing cabinet. A filing cabinet that was ostensibly filled with public-access files, and he was told he was allowed to be in the filing cabinet. So while going to the filing cabinet to get the file he'd been directed to, he leafed through other files too. Why not? They're all public information, si…

If someone told you that you could get a specific file from a filing cabinet, it would be antisocial of you to start flipping through the other files to see what was in there.

Re: Teenager facing prison for downloading unsecured files from government website

#176

Post by tytytytytytytyt »

brandon272 wrote: post #84
tytytytytytytyt wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more like having a 'Please take these unwanted items' bin and sending people to prison when they take something that you mistakenly put in the bin.

A HTTP server may as well equate to a public building with a sign outside saying "Come in and take whatever you want from any room at any time, unless the room's door is locked!" (locked = authentication) The Nova Scotia govt forgot to lock one of those doors and are now furiously trying to shift blame. I haven't seen them apologize or address their own internal incompetence in any of the news articles I am seeing ab…

"These dang kids these days just don't have a sense of responsibility!"

Re: Teenager facing prison for downloading unsecured files from government website

#177

Post by mistermann »

gowld wrote: post #127
rayiner wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "older generation" does not use metaphors because they are limited in their thinking. They do it to illustrate the principles underlying law. A basic principle of private property is that you don't have to secure it. The burden is on the would-be trespasser to figure out what rights she has with respect to the property and act accordingly. Snooping around private property out of "curiosity" is illegal, whether or…

This is absurd. This is not private property. Ordinary law-abiding people do walk into government offices and ask questions, and when they get answers, do continue asking questions and getting answers. Ordinary law abiding people to browse all the products on display at a store. Ordinary law abiding people do flip through all the pages of a catalog that is sent to their home. This Orwellian attitude that looking at a…

> This Orwellian attitude that looking at anything is criminal if the government retroactively decides they didn't want you to see it, is terrifying.

This is the big problem here. There's no way the way the Freedom of Information Act in Canada is written the way it is because of the democratic wishes of Canadians. Every day our government moves further away from governing according to the will of Canadians and more toward the will of.....I don't even know. Saying it is the will of politicians doesn't explain some of the strange behavior we've been seeing in this country for quite some time.

If our fate is to ultimately live under a quasi-dictatorship masquerading as a democracy, then so be it, but I wish we could just be honest about it. This objectively false "Canada is a democratic nation" claim is infuriating to me.

Re: Teenager facing prison for downloading unsecured files from government website

#178

Post by rayiner »

gitgud wrote: post #174
rayiner wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A "link" is a DOM element in a web page which references a URL, but a URL is not itself a link. To point a finer point on it: the fact that a URL is referenced in a link means that a user is supposed to see and access it.

Obscurity does not mean security. Just because the link wasn't referenced does not imply it is sensitive information. Should you not have the freedom to type what you want into the address bar of a browser?

"Security" is irrelevant--there is no obligation to "secure" private property. Obscurity, on the other hand, implies that the property owner did not intend for people to access certain property. That is what matters.

Re: Teenager facing prison for downloading unsecured files from government website

#179

Post by scrumption »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #117
goshx wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If things should be secure, they should be behind authentication and authorization for that content. To argue about what is the best ID to be used is just trying to fix what is not broken, IMHO.

Security is multi layered.

Obscurity is not a security layer.

Re: Teenager facing prison for downloading unsecured files from government website

#180

Post by jessaustin »

rayiner wrote: post #153
jessaustin wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A consideration of real property illustrates nothing about URLs. Speech is a much more apt comparison, in that one host says one thing, and then another, if it freely chooses to do so, responds by saying something else. (In Canada, though, the speech comparison might not help much?) This comparison is much more cogent than anything involving a "trespasser". Of course, authoritarians prefer the stupid comparison.

Computers are dumb pieces of property. They are not capable of speech (though people might use them for speech ), nor are they capable of "choos[ing]" to do anything. Analogies that anthropomorphize computers are nonsensical. The only people here are the teenager and the property owner. And the intent that matters is the intent of the property owner. Did the property owner intend those documents to be publicly access…

Phones, bullhorns, billboards, postcards, bumper stickers, guitars, TV transmitters, etc. are dumb pieces of property that people use to communicate. (Why don't I have to get permission to look at your billboard?) Computing devices are different from most of these in a single respect: they can act autonomously, as their operators intend. In fact it is customary that they do so, just as it is customary that billboards are viewed by the public. Jeff Bezos doesn't have to stay at the console approving everything whizzing in and out of AWS. There's nothing anthropomorphic about recognizing that intent may be coded in such a way that a computer obeys that intent. In future please consider reading more charitably.

You post often enough on this topic that we all know your position, before you post. Consider, if you will, whether your preferred position is one that will lead to improvements. I posit that it will not. Your position, if adopted, would lead more faceless totalizing organizations to amass, against our will, more of our personal data, and to be less careful stewards of the same. We have far more to fear from those organizations than from 19yos.

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