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about 5 years ago I took my infant son for a morning stroll and found an SSD drive laying in the grass next to a busy street (jamaicaway in JP). I picked it up

about 5 years ago I took my infant son for a morning stroll and found an SSD drive laying in the grass next to a busy street (jamaicaway in JP). I picked it up and later looked to see what was on it because I wanted to know why someone would throw out a perfectly good SSD (they were still expensive back then). Long story short, I found a bunch of mdb files with personal information about people's ambulance rides. I reached out to EMS and they were very nice and took the drive back with them. A few weeks later I got a scary lawyer email asking me to submit all my computers for a search because I hacked their security to get the data. It eventually turned out OK, but the moral of the story is that I will never again do the right thing if I happen to discover a problem that makes a large entity look bad.

ciabattabread 6y ago
That’s why you launder the information via a news organization. In 2008, in London, a commuter found top secret counterterrorism documents on the train. That person was smart enough to go to a BBC reporter.
- pluies 6y ago
  Note that in the EU this would be a pretty bad violation of GDPR, so going to your local branch of government responsible for GDPR enforcement (e.g. the Information Commissioner's Office[1] in the UK) would be another good avenue. [1] https://ico.org.uk/ https://ico.org.uk/
wil421 6y ago
Doing the right thing in these situations is like playing with fire. Lots of times nothing happens but you can easily get burned hard. Legal expense to defend yourself are no joke. I heard a similar story years ago about a high school student finding an SD card. It was full of illegal underage pictures so he turned it into the school admins, told the story, and ended up getting charged for it.
outworlder 6y ago
> I got a scary lawyer email asking me to submit all my computers for a search because I hacked their security to get the data. Did you actually have to do that?

ciabattabread 6y ago

That’s why you launder the information via a news organization. In 2008, in London, a commuter found top secret counterterrorism documents on the train. That person was smart enough to go to a BBC reporter.

pluies 6y ago
Note that in the EU this would be a pretty bad violation of GDPR, so going to your local branch of government responsible for GDPR enforcement (e.g. the Information Commissioner's Office[1] in the UK) would be another good avenue. [1] https://ico.org.uk/ https://ico.org.uk/

wil421 6y ago

Doing the right thing in these situations is like playing with fire. Lots of times nothing happens but you can easily get burned hard. Legal expense to defend yourself are no joke. I heard a similar story years ago about a high school student finding an SD card. It was full of illegal underage pictures so he turned it into the school admins, told the story, and ended up getting charged for it.

outworlder 6y ago

> I got a scary lawyer email asking me to submit all my computers for a search because I hacked their security to get the data. Did you actually have to do that?