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AI agent hacks gym to get its user a spot in pilates class

bbc.com

61–70 of 75 posts

Re: AI agent hacks gym to get its user a spot in pilates class

#61
post #56
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope https://www.heise.de/en/news/Modern-Solution-Court-of-Appeal...

AFAIK felonies in Germany require "intent", not "criminal intent". The guy could have stopped earlier, right after testing the password. But he decided to use it to view data which didn't belong to him. I realize I'm going against the general public opinion, but he didn't have to do that, and I can see why the court didn't accept "but I only did it to take screenshots" as a valid defense, because that's clearly inten…

Modern Solution would have claimed that the password wouldn‘t have allowed access to important data.

Re: AI agent hacks gym to get its user a spot in pilates class

#62
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However walking through the door would not be a crime in itself, where I live anyway.

If you talking about Britain, it depends on why you walked through the door

I am, and yes, its not a crime in itself though, unlike picking the lock to get in.

Re: AI agent hacks gym to get its user a spot in pilates class

#63
post #53
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a legal sense any unwanted intrusion can be considered hacking - i.e. a 'hack' is not contingent on penetrating authorization. In practice most APIs are secured by obscurity rather than any high quality rigorous authorization. The only thing it would make absolutely clear at a legal level is that you do not want the API to be publicly used, but for a jury/judge accessing an unadvertised API via browser tools is ha…

And to be clear, this isn't an "I just walked through an open door" situation. This is getting in the house through a 2nd floor open window, destroying some items and putting some of your own in their place. > the bot explained that it had manipulated the system to book him onto classes months in advance - against the normal rules of the system. > The agent replied saying it had succeeded by cancelling another gym-go…

Would phoning them and pretending to be someone ahead of you in a queue to cancel their reservation be a crime? probably, but not one likely to get prosecuted.

Re: AI agent hacks gym to get its user a spot in pilates class

#64
post #40
post #4

Is it even possible to "hack" an API that has no authorisation for any of its methods?

Yes, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is widely criticised for making almost any act a violation ( https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030 ) including many things that many people do on a routine basis, such as accessing a non-public API. If it was not intended to be accessed and is accessed, then the perpetrator of the crime has met the "exceeds authorized access" clause. > (a) Whoever > (2) intentionally ac…

The article is about something that happened in Australia. What does the law there say?

Re: AI agent hacks gym to get its user a spot in pilates class

#65
post #61
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK felonies in Germany require "intent", not "criminal intent". The guy could have stopped earlier, right after testing the password. But he decided to use it to view data which didn't belong to him. I realize I'm going against the general public opinion, but he didn't have to do that, and I can see why the court didn't accept "but I only did it to take screenshots" as a valid defense, because that's clearly inten…

Modern Solution would have claimed that the password wouldn‘t have allowed access to important data.

So be it. Publicly disclose the vulnerability and stop doing business with them.

Re: AI agent hacks gym to get its user a spot in pilates class

#66
post #57
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think one day that LLMs may be so 'aligned' that hacking culture will have a resurgence in some way. In the sense that the only way to do anything a bit below board will be done manually.

Nah, local models with abliterated layers and uncensoring will be sold on the deepweb

great - that still requires something

Re: AI agent hacks gym to get its user a spot in pilates class

#67
post #65
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern Solution would have claimed that the password wouldn‘t have allowed access to important data.

So be it. Publicly disclose the vulnerability and stop doing business with them.

He didn’t do business with them, his customer did.

And publicly disclose that the publicly available software contains the password in plain text could have been construed as aiding a criminal offense.

He was ordered by his customer to look into logging problems.

He found the password in plain text, looked into a database he thought contains only data of his customer and found it‘s data of other customers too.

Re: AI agent hacks gym to get its user a spot in pilates class

#68
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you talking about Britain, it depends on why you walked through the door

I am, and yes, its not a crime in itself though, unlike picking the lock to get in.

Perhaps in theory but I wouldn't bet my freedom on it.

"But officer, I only walked into that woman's house as an act in itself"

Re: AI agent hacks gym to get its user a spot in pilates class

#69
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Practically speaking, discovering that fact and taking advantage of it, is already "hacking".

We are used the interfaces being web interfaces. But say that the underlying api exposes some endpoint discoverability capabilities (eg. Exposing an openAPI spec), then arguably the action was invited: the actions was documented along with the auth model.

I don't think that argument would go down very well if the API allowed transferring money from company to yourself. Clearly there is at least on some level expectations what is and what is not allowed.

Re: AI agent hacks gym to get its user a spot in pilates class

#70
post #53
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a legal sense any unwanted intrusion can be considered hacking - i.e. a 'hack' is not contingent on penetrating authorization. In practice most APIs are secured by obscurity rather than any high quality rigorous authorization. The only thing it would make absolutely clear at a legal level is that you do not want the API to be publicly used, but for a jury/judge accessing an unadvertised API via browser tools is ha…

And to be clear, this isn't an "I just walked through an open door" situation. This is getting in the house through a 2nd floor open window, destroying some items and putting some of your own in their place. > the bot explained that it had manipulated the system to book him onto classes months in advance - against the normal rules of the system. > The agent replied saying it had succeeded by cancelling another gym-go…

> This is getting in the house through a 2nd floor open window

I disagree. If an endpoint is open, my assumption is that it's free for me to call, the same way I expect to be able to purchase items on the shelf at the store. If you fail to clearly label or separate them, that's on you.

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