How do we help this guy? I Google'd "EFF Mike Parsons" and "EFF View Source" and found nothing. Surely there is a way to help this guy.
Reporter may be prosecuted for using “view source”
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Re: Reporter may be prosecuted for using “view source”
#82How do we help this guy? I Google'd "EFF Mike Parsons" and "EFF View Source" and found nothing. Surely there is a way to help this guy.
Funny. I literally just emailed the EFF to ask if they are looking at this case and/or are in a position to support the journalist if needed.
I also asked what they suggest individuals like us can do (if anything) to help.
Similar to you, I Googled first, and found a short comment from someone at the EFF but nothing indicating that they were directly involved in this case so far.
I'm not even a US citizen (I'm a Brit) but something about this case makes me incredibly angry and frustrated. Not just on behalf of the journalist himself but also because of the hugely negative impact it will have on responsible disclosure of security issues in the future if this action against him proceeds.
Re: Reporter may be prosecuted for using “view source”
#83We desperately need a law that says (or at least need people in power to understand that) if your server sends it (as an agent working on behalf of your interests), you decided it was ok for me to receive it! For HTTP this understanding is literally conveyed in the status code (200-OK). Once data is sent to the client, you can't say they are breaking the law by looking at it[0]. Anyone with a text-based browser would…
> We desperately need a law that says (or at least need people in power to understand that) if your server sends it (as an agent working on behalf of your interests), you decided it was ok for me to receive it!
No, this is a bad idea for a law. It's appealing to nerds (like myself), but it's not how the law does (or should) work. It's very easy to imagine scenarios where you could get a server to send you an HTTP 200 even though you knew you were accessing data you weren't supposed to. That should clearly be illegal. (It's not what happened here, though. This case is much sillier.)
Re: Reporter may be prosecuted for using “view source”
#84We desperately need a law that says (or at least need people in power to understand that) if your server sends it (as an agent working on behalf of your interests), you decided it was ok for me to receive it! For HTTP this understanding is literally conveyed in the status code (200-OK). Once data is sent to the client, you can't say they are breaking the law by looking at it[0]. Anyone with a text-based browser would…
I believe what we've got today in most countries is pretty ok, maybe ambiguous but it does the job as far as an ethically concerned person would go.
In my country they classify it as "unauthorized access". That's perfectly fine with me.
In other words, if your server sends it, and you intended to send it, then I can have a look at it. If your server sends it, but you never intended (sysadmin, programmer error, bureaucracy, unsecured servers etc), and it's clear for me the information was never meant to be public, then I'm committing unauthorized access.
You could say a transparent window is literally made for the purpose to be able to see through, but I'm certain I'd be breaking the law if I started taking pictures of people undressing in their homes.
Re: Reporter may be prosecuted for using “view source”
#85We desperately need a law that says (or at least need people in power to understand that) if your server sends it (as an agent working on behalf of your interests), you decided it was ok for me to receive it! For HTTP this understanding is literally conveyed in the status code (200-OK). Once data is sent to the client, you can't say they are breaking the law by looking at it[0]. Anyone with a text-based browser would…
Powerful Hacking Tool view source
Even the FBI agent quoted in the article got it wrong, stating “allowed open source tools to be used to query data that should not be public.” - as if proprietary browsers don't provide a View Source feature, only "evil" open source tools. Maybe I'm reading too much into it and it's a minor mistake but given the context even a potentially innocuous statement like that rubs me the wrong way for being incorrect.
Re: Reporter may be prosecuted for using “view source”
#86Someone - a particular political party - is attacking the free press and freedom generally. The only answer is to be heard, loudly, and vote them out of office. The cavalry isn't coming - nobody will save us but us.
It's not a partisan statement. I'm not saying it to favor one party or another (though unavoidably the other party would benefit - we'd be better off with multiple parties committed to democracy). We agree on freedom and democracy for all, we stand up for it, we give our 'lives, honor, and fortune' for it, or we are not the United States.
EDIT: I reworded it to remove political party names, to try to reduce any appearance of partisanship.
Re: Reporter may be prosecuted for using “view source”
#87We desperately need a law that says (or at least need people in power to understand that) if your server sends it (as an agent working on behalf of your interests), you decided it was ok for me to receive it! For HTTP this understanding is literally conveyed in the status code (200-OK). Once data is sent to the client, you can't say they are breaking the law by looking at it[0]. Anyone with a text-based browser would…
Still need to make illigal tricking the server into thinking it's OK. This area of law seems rather difficult to codify perfectly, but it's clear that "view source" shouldn't be a problem, since no trickery is involved. Generally, this should be called Honest but Curious behavior.
Re: Reporter may be prosecuted for using “view source”
#88“View source” is nothing like picking a lock. It’s more like opening the hood of a rental car and discovering a book full of trade secrets.
Re: Reporter may be prosecuted for using “view source”
#89Being prosecuted for data that was sent to you by the server… I hope the judge can figure out the problem with this concept.
Re: Reporter may be prosecuted for using “view source”
#90> “If somebody picks your lock on your house — for whatever reason, it’s not a good lock, it’s a cheap lock or whatever problem you might have — they do not have the right to go into your house and take anything that belongs to you,” Parson said. The reporter did the equivalent of noticing a lock was rusted through and barely hanging on. He poked the lock and it crumbled to pieces. He didn't take anything, he reporte…
Locks are a terrible analogy for what's going on here. This would be like the government publishing a newsletter, and then writing a bunch of teachers' social security numbers on it in invisible ink. Someone then noticed that you can still read the invisible ink, and then wrote an article about how incompetently the government managed the data. This is a simple case of an egotistical politician who wishes he was King…
I'd say even invisible ink is taking the analogy too far. It's like the government published a newsletter, printed the PII on the back of the paper, and now wants to prosecute the first person to look at the back of the page.