4 ms·

I disagree, because the analysis is faulty. Computers always do what you _tell_ them to do, not what you want them to do. The onus for keeping computerized ma

I disagree, because the analysis is faulty. Computers always do what you _tell_ them to do, not what you want them to do. The onus for keeping computerized material private is on the owner, and the owner screwed up royally by wrongly allowing sensitive material to be placed unprotected on a _public_ web site. Whether or not it was indexed is irrelevant - it was on a publicly accessible site, permissions set to publicly accessible, and the entire site was meant to be publicly accessible. One can close the analysis until the cows come home, it will not change this fact. Accessing that material is as illegal as finding a diamond ring (or personal files) while dumpster diving. Dumpster diving may be seen as tasteless or low-class, but as far as I know, it’s not illegal. Do we prosecute reporters for ferreting out publicly available, yet embarrassing, information?

rayiner 8y ago
> The onus for keeping computerized material private is on the owner I don’t think that’s a sensible rule and at the end of the day, it’s not the one that’s going to prevail. The Internet will be sanitized and made safe for all the people who forget their passwords and write them in their monitors. The Internet is for ordinary people now, not curious teenager hackers. And ordinary people will make the rules to suit themselves.
- jessaustin 8y ago
  Ordinary young people already laugh at this sort of ignorance. Ordinary old people will die soon.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    Ordinary young people today are probably even less computer literate than ordinary people my age (mid 30s). They grew up being spoon fed the Internet through the FB and Snapchat apps on iPhones.
    - jessaustin 8y ago
      Your entire argument is based on this idiosyncratic theory of widespread ignorance. This theory is simply wrong, as a matter of fact. Even if it were true, no historical case ever turned on the unprovable notion that most people are too dumb to understand the truth. Since you didn't respond when I raised it elsewhere in-thread, I would highlight again the fundamental imbalance between the rules you would impose on Facebook etc. and those you would impose on users. Firms that spend billions of dollars developing their systems only have to be as smart as the most ignorant person we can imagine. Their users, in contrast, must be geniuses to keep up with their many changes to TOS, interfaces, and functionality, while simultaneously those genius users aren't allowed to notice that numbers follow each other in sequence. This is nonsense on its face, but then again authoritarian maneuvers are their own justification, aren't they?
- pdonis 8y ago
  > The Internet will be sanitized and made safe for all the people who forget their passwords and write them in their monitors. And how, exactly, is this "sanitization" going to occur? Are you saying that having 15 police officers raid a home and confiscate multiple computers (all but one of which had nothing to do with the incident in question), arresting a completely uninvolved person on his way to school, and taking no action at all against the stupid contractor who set up the website, is an acceptable form of "sanitization"? > The Internet is for ordinary people now, not curious teenager hackers. That's not what the police action described in the article is saying. It's saying the Internet is for government and corporations, and God help the ordinary people who get in their way. (Btw, I include "curious teenager hackers" in "ordinary people". Perhaps the fact that you don't is part of the problem.)
- ScottBurson 8y ago
  This can't work, for the simple reason that the Internet has global reach. Unlike other kinds of personal property, a Web server is accessible to the entire world. There are lots of people out there who have no reason to respect US or Canadian law, and there always will be. Prosecuting this young man, or Weev, may make some "ordinary" people feel better, but doesn't begin to deter any actual criminals. The only solution is site owners taking responsibility for securing their sites, in accordance with the sensitivity of the information on them. The sooner "ordinary" people realize that, the better.
- rootlocus 8y ago
  > The Internet is for ordinary people If we're at the topic of wishful thinking, I wished ordinary people would understand basic things about the internet. The purpose of humanity as a whole shouldn't be to dumb things down for "ordinary people". It should be to better teach and educate new generations, so we won't be able to assume ordinary people are dumb.
- dSpect 8y ago
  Web scraping is a normal occurence on the internet not just limited to curious teenage hackers. When I grew up we didn't lock our doors because we knew and trusted our neighborhood. It's like you're asking 4chan to use polite vocabulary.
harryh 8y ago
Dumpster diving is legal (in most places but not all) because the owners has, by putting something in the trash, expressed their intent to not own the item in question anymore. A website isn't a trash can though. If I accidentally leave a diamond ring (or personal files) in public somewhere and you take them that is absolutely theft.
- fenomas 8y ago
  A web server is a thing people use to make files publicly accessible - it has no other purpose. It has stronger expectations against privacy than a trash can. As such, your analogies to situations (locked houses, unattended jewelry) with the opposite expectation just disprove your point. Assuming a file is private even though it's publicly accessible on a web server is as nonsensical as assuming an object is free for the taking even though it's an unattended diamond ring.
  - JorgeGT 8y ago
    I mean, it's in the name, web server. It serves things to people when people asks: - Hey, can I GET this drink? - 200 OK, here it is pal. - 204 Uh, the bottle appears to be empty - 206 I have only half the ingredients for the mix - 300 Stirred or shaken? - 301 That drink is now called this, but here it is! - 400 I can't understand what you say buddy, are you drunk? - 403 I'm sorry, but I must refuse to serve you that drink - 404 Oops, I can't seem to find the bottle - 411 How much do you want? - 413 That's too much drink! - 418 I'm actually a teapot - 503 Too busy right now!
  - harryh 8y ago
    A web server is a thing people use to make files publicly accessible False. There are lots of things on webservers that aren't public. Try to access: https://github.com/harryh/my-private-repo https://github.com/harryh/my-private-repo You can't, because github hasn't made a mistake and accidentally made all private repos public. If github screwed up one day and all private repos were temporarily made public it would be illegal for you to run a script that tried to scrape them all down to your personal hard drive.
- 8y ago

rayiner 8y ago

> The onus for keeping computerized material private is on the owner I don’t think that’s a sensible rule and at the end of the day, it’s not the one that’s going to prevail. The Internet will be sanitized and made safe for all the people who forget their passwords and write them in their monitors. The Internet is for ordinary people now, not curious teenager hackers. And ordinary people will make the rules to suit themselves.

jessaustin 8y ago
Ordinary young people already laugh at this sort of ignorance. Ordinary old people will die soon.
- rayiner 8y ago
  Ordinary young people today are probably even less computer literate than ordinary people my age (mid 30s). They grew up being spoon fed the Internet through the FB and Snapchat apps on iPhones.
  - jessaustin 8y ago
    Your entire argument is based on this idiosyncratic theory of widespread ignorance. This theory is simply wrong, as a matter of fact. Even if it were true, no historical case ever turned on the unprovable notion that most people are too dumb to understand the truth. Since you didn't respond when I raised it elsewhere in-thread, I would highlight again the fundamental imbalance between the rules you would impose on Facebook etc. and those you would impose on users. Firms that spend billions of dollars developing their systems only have to be as smart as the most ignorant person we can imagine. Their users, in contrast, must be geniuses to keep up with their many changes to TOS, interfaces, and functionality, while simultaneously those genius users aren't allowed to notice that numbers follow each other in sequence. This is nonsense on its face, but then again authoritarian maneuvers are their own justification, aren't they?
pdonis 8y ago
> The Internet will be sanitized and made safe for all the people who forget their passwords and write them in their monitors. And how, exactly, is this "sanitization" going to occur? Are you saying that having 15 police officers raid a home and confiscate multiple computers (all but one of which had nothing to do with the incident in question), arresting a completely uninvolved person on his way to school, and taking no action at all against the stupid contractor who set up the website, is an acceptable form of "sanitization"? > The Internet is for ordinary people now, not curious teenager hackers. That's not what the police action described in the article is saying. It's saying the Internet is for government and corporations, and God help the ordinary people who get in their way. (Btw, I include "curious teenager hackers" in "ordinary people". Perhaps the fact that you don't is part of the problem.)
ScottBurson 8y ago
This can't work, for the simple reason that the Internet has global reach. Unlike other kinds of personal property, a Web server is accessible to the entire world. There are lots of people out there who have no reason to respect US or Canadian law, and there always will be. Prosecuting this young man, or Weev, may make some "ordinary" people feel better, but doesn't begin to deter any actual criminals. The only solution is site owners taking responsibility for securing their sites, in accordance with the sensitivity of the information on them. The sooner "ordinary" people realize that, the better.
rootlocus 8y ago
> The Internet is for ordinary people If we're at the topic of wishful thinking, I wished ordinary people would understand basic things about the internet. The purpose of humanity as a whole shouldn't be to dumb things down for "ordinary people". It should be to better teach and educate new generations, so we won't be able to assume ordinary people are dumb.
dSpect 8y ago
Web scraping is a normal occurence on the internet not just limited to curious teenage hackers. When I grew up we didn't lock our doors because we knew and trusted our neighborhood. It's like you're asking 4chan to use polite vocabulary.

harryh 8y ago

Dumpster diving is legal (in most places but not all) because the owners has, by putting something in the trash, expressed their intent to not own the item in question anymore. A website isn't a trash can though. If I accidentally leave a diamond ring (or personal files) in public somewhere and you take them that is absolutely theft.

fenomas 8y ago
A web server is a thing people use to make files publicly accessible - it has no other purpose. It has stronger expectations against privacy than a trash can. As such, your analogies to situations (locked houses, unattended jewelry) with the opposite expectation just disprove your point. Assuming a file is private even though it's publicly accessible on a web server is as nonsensical as assuming an object is free for the taking even though it's an unattended diamond ring.
- JorgeGT 8y ago
  I mean, it's in the name, web server. It serves things to people when people asks: - Hey, can I GET this drink? - 200 OK, here it is pal. - 204 Uh, the bottle appears to be empty - 206 I have only half the ingredients for the mix - 300 Stirred or shaken? - 301 That drink is now called this, but here it is! - 400 I can't understand what you say buddy, are you drunk? - 403 I'm sorry, but I must refuse to serve you that drink - 404 Oops, I can't seem to find the bottle - 411 How much do you want? - 413 That's too much drink! - 418 I'm actually a teapot - 503 Too busy right now!
- harryh 8y ago
  A web server is a thing people use to make files publicly accessible False. There are lots of things on webservers that aren't public. Try to access: https://github.com/harryh/my-private-repo https://github.com/harryh/my-private-repo You can't, because github hasn't made a mistake and accidentally made all private repos public. If github screwed up one day and all private repos were temporarily made public it would be illegal for you to run a script that tried to scrape them all down to your personal hard drive.
8y ago