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They'll put you in jail for accessing a public url structure in an unintended manner, though, under the CFAA. To me that's a bigger deal.
by AlexCoventry 8y ago
They'll put you in jail for accessing a public url structure in an unintended manner, though, under the CFAA. To me that's a bigger deal.
- ryanlol 8y agoIf you're referring to weev, this is not an accurate description of his case.
- deft 8y agoWhat about the 19 yo arrested for accessing public URLs on a FOIA site in Nova Scotia? The case was dropped but he was still arrested. Happened earlier this year. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/police-drop-charges-in-nova-scotia-government-breach-1.4651543 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/police-drop-charg...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ryanlol 8y agoThat’s unfortunate, but it was under a different law in a different country. And yeah, he was released.
- AlexCoventry 8y agoI'd be grateful for corrections to any distortions or omissions in that description. I'd forgotten (or might not have heard at the time) that his conviction was subsequently vacated on appeal, but that was after he already spent over a year in prison. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weev#Conviction_overturned https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weev#Conviction_overturned
- ryanlol 8y agoweev wasn't put in jail because he accessed a public url structure in an unintended manner. weev was put in jail because he wittingly conspired with others to steal AT&T customer data via a vulnerability on their website. In his correspondence with journalists and IRC logs surrounding the event he went out of his way to make abundantly clear that he was fully aware that this access was unauthorized. At the time, weev himself described his actions as "theft". You could sum a SQL injection attack down to "accessed a public url structure in an unintended manner", but that'd just be terribly dishonest.
- AlexCoventry 8y agoYou might want to tell that to the judge who overturned his conviction, and the esteemed lawyers who wrote amicus briefs for him. I agree there's a continuum from hitting URLs with predictable structures to blatant hostility like SQL injections, but the problem with the CFAA is that it doesn't draw a clear line on that continuum.
- ryanlol 8y agoThe third circuit released weev due to improper venue choice, not because he didn't knowingly break the law. I'm not sure why the third circuit would be relevant at all in this conversation to be honest.
- AlexCoventry 8y agoFair enough. I'm not really familiar with the appeal.