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Belgium legalises ethical hacking

law.kuleuven.be

51–60 of 74 posts

Re: Belgium legalises ethical hacking

#51
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if a Belgian hacker is researching a Belgian company and a single server happens to be outside of Belgium territory, they're suddenly breaking the law?

Well, unfortunately, yes. Belgium can’t give you a license to commit a crime in another country.

But the inverse seemingly works with regards to GDPR?

If a Belgian citizen in Belgium hacks my US server they are not protected by this Belgian law.

Yet if a Belgian citizen in Belgium visits my US server they are protected by GDPR?

How does that work then?

Re: Belgium legalises ethical hacking

#52

I'm divided on this one. On one hand, I can see a lot of good in this, because, well, I'm on HN. On the other hand, I think people would find it weird that anybody would be allowed to do that IRL with physical building, so why allow it on the internet? Given that the consequences of probing a website are less than cracking on an office, and the surface of attack bigger on a website, with potentially a larger cascade,…

The physical world and the Internet are completely different environments, and analogies don't transfer. In the physical world attackers are resource constrained, create evidence that allows for attribution, post-facto enforcement is mostly successful, attacks are mostly destructive, and security can only ever be "good enough" bar.

Meanwhile in the electronic word, many attacks can be easily scaled/automated so they're always happening, attribution is very hard, there's little post-facto enforcement especially across borders, most attacks don't do much damage in and of themselves, and most security problems are logic bugs which are yes/no affairs.

It's not particularly interesting if a "white hat" physical attacker demonstrated they could get into a safe with a drill over the course of a week. And one probably can walk down a street testing businesses' doors after hours without too many repercussions if you're dressed nice and don't fit the cops' stereotype of "criminal".

Also there's a huge tendency in the digital security world for system owners to play up damages from minor break ins or even mostly innocuous actions (eg port scans), to distract from the humiliation of themselves having failed. And if we did want to make punishment more in line with real world analogs, then the penalty for most unauthorized accesses should be akin to misdemeanor trespassing.

Re: Belgium legalises ethical hacking

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By (b) I mean “security doesn’t matter,” in the sense that very few companies have ever died from security incidents. Ashley Madison, and Mt Gox come to mind. I suspect Lastpass will be added to that list soon.

Just checked: Ashley Madison is still in business and reached their highest (known) peak of users in 2019, about 4 years after the leak.

This begs the question: who's more stupid, the business that negligently screwed their customers, or the customers who came back after?

Re: Belgium legalises ethical hacking

#54
post #40

I guess the people cheering this have not lived in Europe. Typically what happens is that some of the local hackers who naively trust the state and disclose their hacks will have the book thrown at them. Either on the basis of an inconsequential technicality or because authorities arbitrarily decide the hack intended to cause harm or was not "proportionate", enabled by the vague wording of the law. Meanwhile the actu…

I live in Europe and I don't know many if any story of ethical hackers getting incarcerated. In my youth in Italy, when I dabbled in "hacking", the stories going around at the time on IRC were that if you were ever nabbed hacking a server, you would get recruited by the local cyber police force (Polizia Postale)

German hacktivist Lilith Wittmann was charged for responsibly disclosing a vulnerability in a server of a political party, but charges were dropped after a public outcry.

Re: Belgium legalises ethical hacking

#55
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, unfortunately, yes. Belgium can’t give you a license to commit a crime in another country.

But the inverse seemingly works with regards to GDPR? If a Belgian citizen in Belgium hacks my US server they are not protected by this Belgian law. Yet if a Belgian citizen in Belgium visits my US server they are protected by GDPR? How does that work then?

If a Belgian citizen in Belgium visits your US server for commercial purposes then international trade treaties apply, and those treaties model your business (which might just be a sole proprietorship) as having a Belgian subsidiary that is doing the actual commerce with them.

Same reason that if a country Y has a law against selling thing X, but no law against buying thing X, then you, outside of country Y, are still not allowed to sell+ship X to people in country Y. For purposes of commercial interactions with people in country Y, you're acting as a local subsidiary subject to those laws. (In fact, for tax reasons, you may not even be able to sell into many countries without having a real established domestic incorporated business in those countries.)

Note that this doesn't apply if there's a (multinational) import/export business involved — in which case, you have no obligation to avoid selling X into the country, because you're selling X to your own domestic country-Z arm of the importer/exporter. It's then the import/export business's duty to comply with laws about what can be sold in country Y (and to pay any import tariffs, etc.)

Re: Belgium legalises ethical hacking

#56

I'm divided on this one. On one hand, I can see a lot of good in this, because, well, I'm on HN. On the other hand, I think people would find it weird that anybody would be allowed to do that IRL with physical building, so why allow it on the internet? Given that the consequences of probing a website are less than cracking on an office, and the surface of attack bigger on a website, with potentially a larger cascade,…

Like with physical business, if you can't guarantee proper security - you should not be in this business. Companies cut costs on cyber security whenever they can. And if you try to expose it you can get sued. It's about time this ends. Hopefully everywhere soon.

> Like with physical business, if you can't guarantee proper security - you should not be in this business.

What's an example of a business that can guarantee proper physical or computer security? I can't think of any. All I know about managing security is that you first acknowledge that you can't ever be completely safe. I'll assume you mean they guarantee that they have done due diligence to reduce their threat profile — which isn't really saying much either.

Re: Belgium legalises ethical hacking

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just checked: Ashley Madison is still in business and reached their highest (known) peak of users in 2019, about 4 years after the leak.

This begs the question: who's more stupid, the business that negligently screwed their customers, or the customers who came back after?

There is an unstated implication that negligence doesn't happen twice.

I'd sooner assume the membership count comprises bots and repeat throwaway/voyeur accounts.

Re: Belgium legalises ethical hacking

#58
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good. Make it law in every other country too. You would not believe the amount of duct tape holding systems together; crowd sourcing the inspections would at least get eyeballs on the problems, even if it caused an uptick in security incidents. (Former pentester @matasano, though only for a little over a year.) After witnessing the results of over 50 pentests, you’re dragged to the conclusion that (a) companies usual…

> By (b) I mean “security doesn’t matter,” in the sense that very few companies have ever died from security incidents. The cost is borne by the customers whose data is exposed, not the companies who allowed the breach. Shouldn't the companies be liable for millions of dollars on a sane justice system?

Know of any?

Re: Belgium legalises ethical hacking

#59

I'm divided on this one. On one hand, I can see a lot of good in this, because, well, I'm on HN. On the other hand, I think people would find it weird that anybody would be allowed to do that IRL with physical building, so why allow it on the internet? Given that the consequences of probing a website are less than cracking on an office, and the surface of attack bigger on a website, with potentially a larger cascade,…

The physical world and the Internet are completely different environments, and analogies don't transfer. In the physical world attackers are resource constrained, create evidence that allows for attribution, post-facto enforcement is mostly successful, attacks are mostly destructive, and security can only ever be "good enough" bar. Meanwhile in the electronic word, many attacks can be easily scaled/automated so they'…

Your last point makes a lot of sense actually, although pretty hard to convey to the general population.
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