It must be mental masturbation day here on HN.
This hacker might seem shady, but throwing him in jail is bad for everyone
201–210 of 213 posts
Re: This hacker might seem shady, but throwing him in jail is bad for everyone
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then, it seems, a good solution to solve the problem is to have server owner to declare in advance what are intended use and what's not. Accessing information without providing the correct password is certainly unintended use, so is guessing passwords. And accessing knowing the password is definitely the intended mode of operation. A logical step is to make that machine readable. Oh, wait, suddenly this is getting to…
> Then, it seems, a good solution to solve the problem is to have server owner to declare in advance what are intended use and what's not. You mean like the Terms of Use for the AT&T website? http://www.att.com/gen/general?pid=11561#14
Wait: so before accessing a website I have to go read its terms of use?
What if I set up a website, put a clause saying "you agree to pay $50/page view" in there, and hid it away. Google crawlers will find my site in no time, and then I can start raking the dollars in, right?
Re: This hacker might seem shady, but throwing him in jail is bad for everyone
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sort of, but in machine-readable form and under well-known location (like /robots.txt) so you could read and comply with them before you access the site. As for those exact terms, I suspect (IANAL) those exact terms prohibit almost any access to the site, as, for example, they forbid any programmatic access to obtain the information, and I haven't heard of any non-software user-agent implementations.
You can translate "programmatic" as "automated" as in "someone coded a program/tool to, in a programmatic way, access the website and retrieve the data" As opposed to a human being in a non-programmatic way, opening his browser and accessing the website. What's so hard about it?
> someone coded a program/tool to, in a programmatic way, access the website and retrieve the data
Doesn't, for example, Firefox, perfectly fit this description? Yes, I do manually enter the base URL to access, but if that's the distinctive feature...
> As opposed to a human being in a non-programmatic way, opening his browser and accessing the website.
... then manually typing in ./scrape.py www.att.com is non-programmatic, too. :)
Or, maybe, I'm not getting the correct meaning of "automated" due to bad English comprehension and false analogies from other languages. But I always thought every request on the Internet is automated and done by some kind of hardware+software combo, so forbidding "programmatic" access is complete nonsense (access control and rate-limiting are the proper solutions).
(And, if that matters, author of scrape.py does not need to conform to AT&T's TOS if s/he don't actually use the script by themself.)
Re: This hacker might seem shady, but throwing him in jail is bad for everyone
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
He didn't exploit it or sell it and he's fucked. We're ignoring intent because a crime has yet to be committed. Intent doesn't matter without a crime. If intent is the only dividing line, you are in favor of thoughtcrime.
Well...his crime actually was that he intentionally accessed data he knew he should not have been accessing. That is a crime. Thus he was found guilty. I'm not sure why this is so hard to reconcile or is being purposefully ignored just because this crime is one of many that involves a computer.
Please show me the section of US legal code regarding intentional access of data one knows one should not be accessing; without mentioning trespass, which he did not do, and without mentioning causing a computer to act in a manner the owner does not desire, which he also did not do.
Re: This hacker might seem shady, but throwing him in jail is bad for everyone
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
A bit nitpicky on one portion over an otherwise good analogy. If they library is funded by a city, the list of employees and their salaries are public knowledge. I use to work for a small town library in high school. I could see all of my high school teacher/staff information along with co-workers and any other town staff salaries in the town record (publicly displayed in the library itself). Of course, what you may…
OH MY GOD ARE YOU SERIOUS.
I thought it was funny itself. It did make one teacher uncomfortable -When the class was pestering them about salary,I mentioned the information was available publicly to the class (not that any of them would have gone to check). It does have its uses. Their salary is paid for by taxes. People want to know what their taxes are paying for (especially since education in the town was debated hotly for different reasons).
Re: This hacker might seem shady, but throwing him in jail is bad for everyone
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well...his crime actually was that he intentionally accessed data he knew he should not have been accessing. That is a crime. Thus he was found guilty. I'm not sure why this is so hard to reconcile or is being purposefully ignored just because this crime is one of many that involves a computer.
Please show me the section of US legal code regarding intentional access of data one knows one should not be accessing; without mentioning trespass, which he did not do, and without mentioning causing a computer to act in a manner the owner does not desire, which he also did not do.
Sorry no legal code offhand, but you can surely break the law without trespassing and "causing a computer to act in a manner the owner does not desire". This shouldn't be hard to comprehend.
The law involves intent. They proved he intended to act in bad faith while gathering that data and he was rightfully found guilty.
Re: This hacker might seem shady, but throwing him in jail is bad for everyone
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please show me the section of US legal code regarding intentional access of data one knows one should not be accessing; without mentioning trespass, which he did not do, and without mentioning causing a computer to act in a manner the owner does not desire, which he also did not do.
Sorry no legal code offhand, but you can surely break the law without trespassing and "causing a computer to act in a manner the owner does not desire". This shouldn't be hard to comprehend. The law involves intent. They proved he intended to act in bad faith while gathering that data and he was rightfully found guilty.
The law requires intent and a crime. If you cannot tell me which specific crime, your argument is invalid.
Why you are having a hard time understanding that "we put him in jail because we don't like what he did" is wrong I have no idea. You must be a troll disagreeing on purpose.
Re: This hacker might seem shady, but throwing him in jail is bad for everyone
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry no legal code offhand, but you can surely break the law without trespassing and "causing a computer to act in a manner the owner does not desire". This shouldn't be hard to comprehend. The law involves intent. They proved he intended to act in bad faith while gathering that data and he was rightfully found guilty.
The law requires intent and a crime . If you cannot tell me which specific crime, your argument is invalid. Why you are having a hard time understanding that "we put him in jail because we don't like what he did" is wrong I have no idea. You must be a troll disagreeing on purpose.
His crime was obtaining information he knew he shouldn't have been accessing. He didn't get out in jail because someone didn't like what he did, he got put in jail because he broke the law.
Re: This hacker might seem shady, but throwing him in jail is bad for everyone
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
The law requires intent and a crime . If you cannot tell me which specific crime, your argument is invalid. Why you are having a hard time understanding that "we put him in jail because we don't like what he did" is wrong I have no idea. You must be a troll disagreeing on purpose.
His crime was obtaining information he knew he shouldn't have been accessing. He didn't get out in jail because someone didn't like what he did, he got put in jail because he broke the law.
That's not a crime, which is why I asked you to point out the appropriate legal code. You are now considered a troll. Have a nice day.
Re: This hacker might seem shady, but throwing him in jail is bad for everyone
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
His crime was obtaining information he knew he shouldn't have been accessing. He didn't get out in jail because someone didn't like what he did, he got put in jail because he broke the law.
That's not a crime, which is why I asked you to point out the appropriate legal code. You are now considered a troll. Have a nice day.
Actually it is. He was found guilty.