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

Governor vows criminal prosecution of reporter who found flaw in state website

missouriindependent.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 705 posts

Re: Governor vows criminal prosecution of reporter who found flaw in state website

#211

Post by the_arun »

kamkazemoose wrote: post #187
klyrs wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I ask you to show me a document, and you willingly show me the document, who exactly is responsible for the disclosure?

Say you are invited to your friends apartment in an apartment building, but none of the apartments have locks. So you decide to open up some other random apartments and look through their things, who is responsible?

I think in this example both are equally responsible:

1. People who kept their doors unlocked

2. Person who randomly entered doors & found things.

We need to take care of security of our properties, though stealing is wrong.

Re: Governor vows criminal prosecution of reporter who found flaw in state website

#212

Post by unethical_ban »

bawolff wrote: post #195
michael_michael wrote: post #124

After the Affordable Care Act went into effect I signed our company up for our state's marketplace. While browsing our plan options, I noticed the url used a scheme like marketplace.org/employers/341/plans.aspx. Of course, I tried changing the number in the url to 342 to see what happened. To my astonishment, it loaded up the next company's plans, including a list of employee names, ages, plan cost, and SSNs. After I…

> After I shopped a few other companies to see how our plans compared Yeah once you start using a vulnerability maliciously to obtain confidential data for your own personal gain, even if its a stupid vulnerability, you're not really good-guy security researcher anymore. If all you did was the bare minimum to demonstrate the vuln exists, that's cool. If after you do that you continue to use it to obtain confidential…

You lost me at "maliciously".

What harm was done by someone comparing prices? What organization lost money? Who got worse health service?

"Unethical" and malicious is the current, profit-driven health insurance system.

I know you're coming at it from an absolutist perspective, but I disagree entirely with passing judgement.

Furthermore, the fact that you seem more upset with the person who glanced at a few plan prices rather than at the healthcare system, or the incompetent website operators, is telling.

Re: Governor vows criminal prosecution of reporter who found flaw in state website

#213

Post by javajosh »

jeremyjh wrote: post #194
javajosh wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't stress how differently power works in the Southern States (EDIT: Missouri is a midwestern state officially, but I've always considered it part of the South). It's a very traditional place, where you do not dare contradict, let alone correct, your boss. There is none of this "avoid surrounding yourself with sycophants because they will only tell you what you want to hear" business. There is no upside to speaki…

Missouri is not even remotely considered to be in "the south". At least not by those who live there or in neighboring states.

You're right! It's part of the midwest officially. Apparently it does share at least some of the classic characteristics of the southern states.

Re: Governor vows criminal prosecution of reporter who found flaw in state website

#214

Post by tombert »

Shared404 wrote: post #162
tombert wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think "view source" is a hacking tool invented by the notorious hacker group "4chan". I say we start a change.org petition to get Google to remove it from Chrome.

I think "view source" was actually invented by the Russians, then leaked by "4chan" - They're an individual, not a group. You probably got it mixed up with Lunix, that was invented by "4chan".

Completely tangential, but have you seen LUnix (Little Unix)? It's actually pretty impressive for something on the C64. Full on preemptive multitasking seems pretty impressive for something as little as the Commodore.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LUnix

Re: Governor vows criminal prosecution of reporter who found flaw in state website

#215

Post by jeremyjh »

javajosh wrote: post #213
jeremyjh wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Missouri is not even remotely considered to be in "the south". At least not by those who live there or in neighboring states.

You're right! It's part of the midwest officially. Apparently it does share at least some of the classic characteristics of the southern states.

I think it has no more in common with them than other non-southern red states.

Re: Governor vows criminal prosecution of reporter who found flaw in state website

#216

Post by pwillia7 »

kamkazemoose wrote: post #187
klyrs wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I ask you to show me a document, and you willingly show me the document, who exactly is responsible for the disclosure?

Say you are invited to your friends apartment in an apartment building, but none of the apartments have locks. So you decide to open up some other random apartments and look through their things, who is responsible?

I was thinking of a similar analogy but I don't think it holds.

The right analogy would be if I was in the apartment complex and I said to a door not mine "I'm home open up!" If the door opened and I did it intentionally, am I liable?

I still feel like yes but since you have to request the document and receive it I think it's different than just checking locks.

Re: Governor vows criminal prosecution of reporter who found flaw in state website

#217

Post by K5EiS »

comeonseriously wrote: post #176
michael_michael wrote: post #124

After the Affordable Care Act went into effect I signed our company up for our state's marketplace. While browsing our plan options, I noticed the url used a scheme like marketplace.org/employers/341/plans.aspx. Of course, I tried changing the number in the url to 342 to see what happened. To my astonishment, it loaded up the next company's plans, including a list of employee names, ages, plan cost, and SSNs. After I…

> ... someone from their IT department rang me on the phone and started grilling me about how many other plans I browsed, and insisted that I clear my cache and browsing history, and notified me that they would be watching to make sure nobody at our IP address didn't access any other plans while the issue was being fixed. An IT employee who doesn't know about VPNs. Sigh.

Maybe he was hoping OP didnt know about VPNs, it's not an uncommon scare tactic to imply being tracked is unavoidable.

Re: Governor vows criminal prosecution of reporter who found flaw in state website

#218

Post by mindcrime »

natechols wrote: post #181
mindcrime wrote: post #163

I try to be an optimistic person, I really do. I try to remind myself that the sky isn't literally falling, and that the world is a more generally pleasant and peaceful place today than what it has been throughout much of history. But. Every time I see something like this, it just about drains my spirit to nothingness. I want to embrace nihilism and just quit giving a fuck about anything or anybody when I see stupidi…

Read more history! (Especially read what the Wilson administration did to the Socialists - the origin of the phrase "yelling fire in a crowded theater." Many of us would riot if this happened today.) Stories like this have been happening since long before I was born, and will continue to happen long after I die, because voters will continue to elect stupid people some fraction of the time. The correct response isn't…

The correct response isn't nihilism, but constant vigilance, and constant shaming of elected officials who abuse their powers.

I want to believe that, but after watching the Trump administration and how people seemed to embrace him more and more despite his continuing shameful acts, it's just hard to sustain belief that this all leads anywhere.

Sorry guys, not trying to be Debbie Downer here. I guess I'm just in a shitty mood today for some reason.

Post reply on HN