11–20 of 99 posts
This ruling is really confusing for me. So I feel pretty strongly that what van Buren did is a massive abuse of authority and it warrants punishment. Yet so many people I usually agree with (SCOTUS judges, EFF, privacy lawyers) are all calling this a win. Am I missing something? To me, this ruling means that if a person is granted technical access to a computer system, then that person cannot be held criminally liabl…
This ruling is really confusing for me. So I feel pretty strongly that what van Buren did is a massive abuse of authority and it warrants punishment. Yet so many people I usually agree with (SCOTUS judges, EFF, privacy lawyers) are all calling this a win. Am I missing something? To me, this ruling means that if a person is granted technical access to a computer system, then that person cannot be held criminally liabl…
That said, I have sympathy for the dissent as well which essentially argues that the majority is drawing an awful fine distinction here. i.e. so long as you're OK to access a system for some purpose, you're fine so far as the CFAA is concerned.
This ruling is really confusing for me. So I feel pretty strongly that what van Buren did is a massive abuse of authority and it warrants punishment. Yet so many people I usually agree with (SCOTUS judges, EFF, privacy lawyers) are all calling this a win. Am I missing something? To me, this ruling means that if a person is granted technical access to a computer system, then that person cannot be held criminally liabl…
They would not be criminally liable under CFAA, but they can absolutely be charged with other crimes in such a circumstance
This ruling is really confusing for me. So I feel pretty strongly that what van Buren did is a massive abuse of authority and it warrants punishment. Yet so many people I usually agree with (SCOTUS judges, EFF, privacy lawyers) are all calling this a win. Am I missing something? To me, this ruling means that if a person is granted technical access to a computer system, then that person cannot be held criminally liabl…
Now Van Buren is given a key to access the filing room for his duties, and then uses his key to go in and look up the file on some license plate in exchange for money.
Clearly, this is a terrible breach of trust and authority. It should be against policy. He should be fired. Likely there should also be criminal statutes about police or government employees selling or abusing government records.
But he's not guilty of breaking and entering. He was given access to that data, even if this is not what he was supposed to be going in there for.
As one of the justices noted, if merely misusing computer access that you were otherwise allowed to access were a criminal offense, then potentially "an employee sending a personal email or checking sports scores on a work device" could be criminal, rather than just breaking a company policy.
This ruling is really confusing for me. So I feel pretty strongly that what van Buren did is a massive abuse of authority and it warrants punishment. Yet so many people I usually agree with (SCOTUS judges, EFF, privacy lawyers) are all calling this a win. Am I missing something? To me, this ruling means that if a person is granted technical access to a computer system, then that person cannot be held criminally liabl…
I wouldn't disagree with your judgement here, but you wouldn't charge him with murder right? Neither should you charge him with hacking.
> If I start selling off information about user to third parties (say journalists), how can that be legal?
Well, by default it would be legal, except I imagine any employment contract would have a provision around privacy, disclosure, and trade secrets, etc. You'd be in violation of the contract, and since you made money from it, some form of fraud or similar would apply.
The question is, would you consider that the same crime as someone without access to the production database breaking in and grabbing the data, and perhaps just giving it away for free (so they'd avoid committing a bunch of other criminal acts).
This ruling is really confusing for me. So I feel pretty strongly that what van Buren did is a massive abuse of authority and it warrants punishment. Yet so many people I usually agree with (SCOTUS judges, EFF, privacy lawyers) are all calling this a win. Am I missing something? To me, this ruling means that if a person is granted technical access to a computer system, then that person cannot be held criminally liabl…
Id agree all this means a bent cop got off on a technicality and the tabloid press get a free pass.
The key takeaway for me is how this decision affects port scanning. According to the article: > Van Buren is really good news for port scanning, for example: so long as the computer is open to the public, you don’t have to worry about the conditions for use to scan the port. As a frequent user of nmap, this is good to hear.
But I am confused by the implications here.
How is port scanning different legally from brute forcing passwords? Iterating integers is fine, iterating the dictionary is not? What if there's an integer ID in the URL but it's MD5 hash'd and I recognize for what it is and iterate integers and MD5 them?
This ruling is really confusing for me. So I feel pretty strongly that what van Buren did is a massive abuse of authority and it warrants punishment. Yet so many people I usually agree with (SCOTUS judges, EFF, privacy lawyers) are all calling this a win. Am I missing something? To me, this ruling means that if a person is granted technical access to a computer system, then that person cannot be held criminally liabl…
I don't think even this is something that follows naturally.
For example, a human can sit next to the highway and write down license plates. However, it is still a crime if you use a computer to do the same (and perhaps sell a huge database containing this information).
This ruling is really confusing for me. So I feel pretty strongly that what van Buren did is a massive abuse of authority and it warrants punishment. Yet so many people I usually agree with (SCOTUS judges, EFF, privacy lawyers) are all calling this a win. Am I missing something? To me, this ruling means that if a person is granted technical access to a computer system, then that person cannot be held criminally liabl…