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When your classmates threaten you with felony charges

miles.land

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Re: When your classmates threaten you with felony charges

#251

Post by buttercraft »

seanw444 wrote: post #243
giantg2 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, many professional researchers notify law enforcement when engaging in something that could be viewed as illegal or generate calls to the police. What should happen is the addition of a "reasonable" standard and using existing case law policy positions to not prosecute people who have a reasonable basis supporting their claim of security research. Instead we'll be left with the lazy lawmakers doing nothing…

I hate the use of "reasonable" in law. Who's to define what's reasonable?

Judges and juries

Re: When your classmates threaten you with felony charges

#252

Post by dannyphantom »

seanw444 wrote: post #243
giantg2 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, many professional researchers notify law enforcement when engaging in something that could be viewed as illegal or generate calls to the police. What should happen is the addition of a "reasonable" standard and using existing case law policy positions to not prosecute people who have a reasonable basis supporting their claim of security research. Instead we'll be left with the lazy lawmakers doing nothing…

I hate the use of "reasonable" in law. Who's to define what's reasonable?

That's fair.

The use of "reasonable" in generally used to qualify some standard of behavior or conduct that is expected from individuals in specific situations. Because "reasonable" is inherently subjective, the responsibility for making the determination is (generally) passed over to a jury who will weigh what the prosecution and defense have presented which entails previous cases, the specific fact pattern of the case being deliberated, etc.

There are also situations where an actual judge makes the determination but generally, in a criminal context, it's up to a jury.

Re: When your classmates threaten you with felony charges

#253

Post by abduhl »

feoren wrote: post #217
abduhl wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The employment of an individual that has an employment contract is governed by the strictest set of rules between the right-to-work state's laws and the employment contract. Literally every permissible provision of an employment contract can be a protection: golden parachutes, vacation days, sick days, payout of the same, IP guarantees for hobby work, employment benefits, etc. Right to work at its most generic level…

> golden parachutes Nobody has these except top execs who are already in a huge position of power. > vacation days, sick days, payout of the same Nope, not anymore: nothing is guaranteed with "flexible time off". I literally cannot meet my performance goal if I take more than 1 day of sick/vacation day PER YEAR. Yes, my raises are tied to this performance goal. Yes, it's probably illegal, but who cares? Nobody is eve…

I don’t know what to say in response to your complaints except negotiate better working conditions next time you get hired. The company wrote it. You accepted it. You can always ask for different terms and walk away if they don’t agree, start your own company, or change industries to one where companies are willing to negotiate.

If you want protections for employees, sure you can (erroneously, in my opinion) look to unions. If you want protections for yourself, look to negotiate.

Re: When your classmates threaten you with felony charges

#254

Post by ZoomerCretin »

Buttons840 wrote: post #151
mentalpiracy wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've seen examples of an employee contract, with things like "if any piece of this contract is invalid it doesn't invalidate the rest of the contract". This concept of severability exists in basically all contracts, and is generally limited to sections that are not fundamental to the nature of the agreement. (The extent of what qualifies as fundamental is, as you said, up to a court to interpret.) In your specific…

> especially the ones that protect you as the individual - will remain in force even if a sub section is invalidated In a right-to-work state, what protections can an individual realistically expect to receive from a contract?

"Right-to-Work" refers to the inability of unions to negotiate closed shops, where all employees of that "shop" must be part of the union.

You're thinking of "At-Will" employment, which allows employees and employers to end an employment relationship at any time for any (except for the few illegal) reasons.

Re: When your classmates threaten you with felony charges

#255

Post by bawolff »

epoch_100 wrote: post #103
bawolff wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After identifying a vulnerability, the researchers created administrator accounts using the database activity they obtained Ignoring the legalities of it all, this step crosses a line morally imo.

Really what happened is we checked whether we could set `isAdmin` to `true` on our existing accounts, and... we were able to. Adi's more technical writeup has details: https://saligrama.io/blog/post/firebase-insecure-by-default/

With further context that seems much more reasonable then it did at first glance.

Re: When your classmates threaten you with felony charges

#256

Post by jstarfish »

gruez wrote: post #49
seiferteric wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just pointing out the absurdity of it. I would much rather get punched in the face than serve 20 years in prison, but it is illegal to threaten the former, but perfectly fine to threaten the latter.

>I would much rather get punched in the face than serve 20 years in prison, but it is illegal to threaten the former, but perfectly fine to threaten the latter. How about you don't do the action that makes you punishable with 20 years in prison? On a more practical level, if someone is breaking into your house, should it be illegal to tell them to stop, on pain of you calling the police which presumably would cause t…

> On a more practical level, if someone is breaking into your house, should it be illegal to tell them to stop, on pain of you calling the police which presumably would cause them to be incarcerated?

Not a lawyer, but there's a fine line between extortion and not-extortion.

It's not extortion when you're making the threat to either stop an illegal behavior or secure something you already have rights to. Like, "I'm calling the cops if you don't return the kids on the time/date we agreed on in the goddamn divorce papers" is not extortion, because you have a legitimate claim to defend.

It is extortion when you're trying to use the threat of law enforcement as a means of engineering consent or coercing someone into doing something. Like, "I'm going to call the cops and tell them about your shoplifting unless you send me nudes/pay me $500/keep your mouth shut." You can't leverage withheld knowledge of a crime as a means of controlling someone. Otherwise it opens the door to "Remember that time you raped me? You need to do me another favor to make it right"-type of arrangements.

The first example would be extortion if the kids were returned late but it was not reported, and the other party continued threatening to report it after the fact to enforce future compliance.

Re: When your classmates threaten you with felony charges

#257

Post by dundarious »

valbaca wrote: post #223
dundarious wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your sentiment is silly. In general, with important caveats I will not state here, you can of course voice a threat to do an action that is legal (file a lawsuit), and may not voice a threat to do an action that is illegal (physical assault).

If it's a threat, then that's literally blackmail. It's only legal to use the legal action, period. Once you pull in a THREAT, it becomes blackmail/extortion.

A cease and desist letter is a "threat" and is not illegal/blackmail/extortion.

Re: When your classmates threaten you with felony charges

#258

Post by bawolff »

adolph wrote: post #181
epoch_100 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really what happened is we checked whether we could set `isAdmin` to `true` on our existing accounts, and... we were able to. Adi's more technical writeup has details: https://saligrama.io/blog/post/firebase-insecure-by-default/

Did you check with the target before you "checked whether we could set `isAdmin` to `true` on our existing accounts?" If you did not get consent from a subject, you are not a researcher. If you see a door and check to see if it is unlocked without its owner authorizing you to do so, you are on the ethical side of burglary even if you didn't burgle. Helpfully the "technical writeup" post links to "industry best practi…

I disagree with this take. There are certainly lines of what is and is not ethical behaviour (where they are is highly debatable), but the vendor doesn't have a monopoly on deciding that.

Re: When your classmates threaten you with felony charges

#260

Post by singleshot_ »

iancarroll wrote: post #236
singleshot_ wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One interesting thing about the statute of limitations is “the discovery rule.” For example, say the statute of limitations for 18 USC 1030 is two years. If a person hypothetically stole a scooter by hacking, two years later, they would be in the clear, right? No. The discovery rule says that if a damaged party, for good reason, does not immediately discover their loss, the statutes of limitations is paused until the…

The scooter company was well aware of it as I told them about that + several other issues immediately. :)

Well that makes me smile. I should have figured there was more to that story!
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