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Would the author be in trouble by posting this? I really hope he would not.. I'm just afraid there's some sort of clause upon registration against this sort of

Would the author be in trouble by posting this? I really hope he would not.. I'm just afraid there's some sort of clause upon registration against this sort of hacks..

braythwayt 7y ago
"I had nothing to do one Sunday evening, so I played around with reverse-engineering the different scooter apps' APIs to see if I could find any loopholes. One would think that the more well-funded companies had thought more about their tech and would be good at preventing fraud. However, that isn't the case." That sounds an awful lot like the author thinks that what they were doing is fraudulent. But I seem to have misplaced my Law Degree, so I couldn't say. Personally, I am not sympathetic with attempts to "hack" a business' systems, whether by social engineering, attempting to exploit loopholes, or full-on exploiting security vulnerabilities. It may be legal, I cannot say, but when done in bad faith it is nothing more than parasitism. Or if you prefer, "exploitative." Now of course, if the author has no intention of using these fraudulently obtained promo codes, and this is supposed to be some kind of white-hat "security research," that's another matter. But this doesn't really look like it is being conducted for public benefit, e.g. to protect the privacy of users. And unsolicited testing of other people's systems seems like a legally perilous activity.
- rvnx 7y ago
  It's very weird, he seems to admit defrauding the system and bragging about. I don't think it's a very wise idea.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - NetOpWibby 7y ago
    Author must be a fan of rap music. Look no further than Bobby Shmurda and Tekashi 69.
  - fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
    A lot of hackers I read about have a great deal of bravo about things like this. Yeah sure you found a vulnerability in a companies API and got something for free. What I look forward to see is his next hack, where he somehow gets past the part where the company sends men with guns to his home to throw him in jail. Hopefully he can use the free rides to go someplace without a extradition treaty. Really he only managed to hack a small portion of the system and ignored the societal safeguards that are far more robust.
    - braythwayt 7y ago
      "bravado" :-)
      - fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
        My bad, I'll blame autocorrect
        braythwayt 7y ago
        Not bad! That's the beauty of crowd-sourcing. Fee free to use words that seem right, and if it turns out that there is a slight adjustment to be made, everyone learns for free.
gtirloni 7y ago
IANAL but this is in their user agreement [0]: 1.9 Unauthorized use, tampering and hacking. You must not tamper with, attempt to gain unauthorized access to, modify, hack, repair, any Voi material or hardware, source-codes, information, including the Voi App, Website and Scooter, for any purposes. The Voi App, Website and the Scooter may only be used for the purposes pursuant to this Agreement. If that's valid in court, that's another matter. It looks like the Sweden Penal Code has a definition of data breach and jail time [1] 0 - https://www.voiscooters.com/voi-user-agreement-12rr/ https://www.voiscooters.com/voi-user-agreement-12rr/ 1 - https://iclg.com/practice-areas/cybersecurity-laws-and-regulations/sweden https://iclg.com/practice-areas/cybersecurity-laws-and-regul... EDIT: Not discussing the technical details of this post because they are quite boring, to be honest. That's Web Security 101 and, given so many previous incidents, far from surprising that these companies aren't handling it well.
ryanlol 7y ago
He's in Sweden, which is a reasonable country. It is very unlikely that he'd get into any kind of trouble over posting this.
- 49para 7y ago
  Julian Assange might disagree.
  - lostmyoldone 7y ago
    That case was an odd one, for sure, but it was also so odd that one can't really use it as comparison. The only thing that's comparable was the pirate bay thing. I'm not going to say it was caused by innoffical, illegal, pressure from some influential country or person, but sometimes it feels like the only plausible explanation. Not only did the prosecutor act strangely, but also, reading accounts of what Assanges lawyer or witnesses has said in court ( regarding the extradition request ) is ... cringy more often than not.
- esoterica 7y ago
  Does a “reasonable” country not prosecute people for committing crimes?
  - lostmyoldone 7y ago
    In a reasonable country, the prosecutors office and the police are supposed to prioritize crimes that cause the greater danger to people, and/or to the society. If prosecuting is unlikely to increase safety and well being, the resources are better used where such positive effects can be achieved. Prosecutors and police alike certainly doesn't have a perfect track record in this regard, there's still quite some room for improvement.
    - esoterica 7y ago
      So we should just not prosecute fraud/theft and other nonviolent or white collar crimes at all?

Would the author be in trouble by posting this? I really hope he would not.. I'm just afraid there's some sort of clause upon registration against this sort of hacks..

braythwayt 7y ago

"I had nothing to do one Sunday evening, so I played around with reverse-engineering the different scooter apps' APIs to see if I could find any loopholes. One would think that the more well-funded companies had thought more about their tech and would be good at preventing fraud. However, that isn't the case." That sounds an awful lot like the author thinks that what they were doing is fraudulent. But I seem to have misplaced my Law Degree, so I couldn't say. Personally, I am not sympathetic with attempts to "hack" a business' systems, whether by social engineering, attempting to exploit loopholes, or full-on exploiting security vulnerabilities. It may be legal, I cannot say, but when done in bad faith it is nothing more than parasitism. Or if you prefer, "exploitative." Now of course, if the author has no intention of using these fraudulently obtained promo codes, and this is supposed to be some kind of white-hat "security research," that's another matter. But this doesn't really look like it is being conducted for public benefit, e.g. to protect the privacy of users. And unsolicited testing of other people's systems seems like a legally perilous activity.

rvnx 7y ago
It's very weird, he seems to admit defrauding the system and bragging about. I don't think it's a very wise idea.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- NetOpWibby 7y ago
  Author must be a fan of rap music. Look no further than Bobby Shmurda and Tekashi 69.
- fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
  A lot of hackers I read about have a great deal of bravo about things like this. Yeah sure you found a vulnerability in a companies API and got something for free. What I look forward to see is his next hack, where he somehow gets past the part where the company sends men with guns to his home to throw him in jail. Hopefully he can use the free rides to go someplace without a extradition treaty. Really he only managed to hack a small portion of the system and ignored the societal safeguards that are far more robust.
  - braythwayt 7y ago
    "bravado" :-)
    - fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
      My bad, I'll blame autocorrect
      - braythwayt 7y ago
        Not bad! That's the beauty of crowd-sourcing. Fee free to use words that seem right, and if it turns out that there is a slight adjustment to be made, everyone learns for free.

gtirloni 7y ago

IANAL but this is in their user agreement [0]: 1.9 Unauthorized use, tampering and hacking. You must not tamper with, attempt to gain unauthorized access to, modify, hack, repair, any Voi material or hardware, source-codes, information, including the Voi App, Website and Scooter, for any purposes. The Voi App, Website and the Scooter may only be used for the purposes pursuant to this Agreement. If that's valid in court, that's another matter. It looks like the Sweden Penal Code has a definition of data breach and jail time [1] 0 - https://www.voiscooters.com/voi-user-agreement-12rr/ https://www.voiscooters.com/voi-user-agreement-12rr/ 1 - https://iclg.com/practice-areas/cybersecurity-laws-and-regulations/sweden https://iclg.com/practice-areas/cybersecurity-laws-and-regul... EDIT: Not discussing the technical details of this post because they are quite boring, to be honest. That's Web Security 101 and, given so many previous incidents, far from surprising that these companies aren't handling it well.

ryanlol 7y ago

He's in Sweden, which is a reasonable country. It is very unlikely that he'd get into any kind of trouble over posting this.

49para 7y ago
Julian Assange might disagree.
- lostmyoldone 7y ago
  That case was an odd one, for sure, but it was also so odd that one can't really use it as comparison. The only thing that's comparable was the pirate bay thing. I'm not going to say it was caused by innoffical, illegal, pressure from some influential country or person, but sometimes it feels like the only plausible explanation. Not only did the prosecutor act strangely, but also, reading accounts of what Assanges lawyer or witnesses has said in court ( regarding the extradition request ) is ... cringy more often than not.
esoterica 7y ago
Does a “reasonable” country not prosecute people for committing crimes?
- lostmyoldone 7y ago
  In a reasonable country, the prosecutors office and the police are supposed to prioritize crimes that cause the greater danger to people, and/or to the society. If prosecuting is unlikely to increase safety and well being, the resources are better used where such positive effects can be achieved. Prosecutors and police alike certainly doesn't have a perfect track record in this regard, there's still quite some room for improvement.
  - esoterica 7y ago
    So we should just not prosecute fraud/theft and other nonviolent or white collar crimes at all?