4 ms·

>If my code submits 1 fake application to each open position, once per hour or once per day (which is well within what I can do manually), and that code is shar

by vageli 5y ago

>If my code submits 1 fake application to each open position, once per hour or once per day (which is well within what I can do manually), and that code is shared between thousands of striking workers (and their supporters), and that results in downtime or inaccessibility, should that be illegal? If so, why? A lot of it hinges on intent. If the people striking are attempting to overwhelm the service, I could see that being illegal, regardless of whether or not a program was used to assist in the denial of service. Put another way, if I and a group of friends coordinate to call your office and tie up all of your phone lines, should there be legal consequences for my group?

ziddoap 5y ago
I agree intent matters. But if the intent is to strike, which is what my posts are in the context of, the intent is obviously to cause headaches. That's what strikes do - cause inconvenience (less production, picket lines slowing traffic into/out of the workplace, etc.) so that demands can be heard. >Put another way, if I and a group of friends coordinate to call your office and tie up all of your phone lines, should there be legal consequences for my group? I think this is somewhat detached - your friends aren't striking workers trying to make a point - but I think it somewhat depends on what easily available mitigations I could employ. Can I simply block the numbers? Then I should do that. Can I rate-limit the number of times a certain number can call me? Then I should do that as well. More illustratively, if my phone system is poorly designed and only accepts 1 phone call every 5 minutes or it crashes, should there be legal consequences for someone who calls twice in that 5 minute period? I say this, because if a website has no rate-limiting, no captcha, and can easily fall over -- is it really solely the fault of the striking workers who manually submit applications?
- Jiro 5y ago
  What if your phone system is poorly designed and only accepts 500 phone calls a minute or it crashes, should there be legal consequences for getting 600 people to call during the minute? What if your web site is poorly designed so that more than five million requests make it crash, and a DDOS sends ten million requests? Is it okay for the NSA to hack your computer to spy on you because computer software is poorly designed and includes exploits that allow hackers in? What if your automobile is poorly designed in that it can't handle having caltrops thrown in front of it to puncture the tires and cause a crash? All systems are "poorly designed" if by that you mean they'll fail under pressure but this could have been prevented. It would, after all, be possible to design a car that is more resilient to running over a row of caltrops, it would just be expensive and unrewarding most of the time. Of course, the person disrupting the system is a biased party. He shouldn't get to decide what counts as poorly designed in order to excuse his disruption; if you allow that, he's always going to claim that whatever vulnerability he found is just poor design. We don't think this is a good excuse for the NSA; it shouldn't be a good excuse for anyone trying to overwhelm a phone system.
  - ziddoap 5y ago
    Your whole comment is based on an analogy which I already said is detached from the issue at hand. None of your examples relate, at all, to a striking worker. Was my phone analogy poorly constructed? Yes. Does your extension all the way to NSA hacking innocent citizens make sense? No.

by vageli 5y ago

ziddoap 5y ago

I agree intent matters. But if the intent is to strike, which is what my posts are in the context of, the intent is obviously to cause headaches. That's what strikes do - cause inconvenience (less production, picket lines slowing traffic into/out of the workplace, etc.) so that demands can be heard. >Put another way, if I and a group of friends coordinate to call your office and tie up all of your phone lines, should there be legal consequences for my group? I think this is somewhat detached - your friends aren't striking workers trying to make a point - but I think it somewhat depends on what easily available mitigations I could employ. Can I simply block the numbers? Then I should do that. Can I rate-limit the number of times a certain number can call me? Then I should do that as well. More illustratively, if my phone system is poorly designed and only accepts 1 phone call every 5 minutes or it crashes, should there be legal consequences for someone who calls twice in that 5 minute period? I say this, because if a website has no rate-limiting, no captcha, and can easily fall over -- is it really solely the fault of the striking workers who manually submit applications?

Jiro 5y ago
What if your phone system is poorly designed and only accepts 500 phone calls a minute or it crashes, should there be legal consequences for getting 600 people to call during the minute? What if your web site is poorly designed so that more than five million requests make it crash, and a DDOS sends ten million requests? Is it okay for the NSA to hack your computer to spy on you because computer software is poorly designed and includes exploits that allow hackers in? What if your automobile is poorly designed in that it can't handle having caltrops thrown in front of it to puncture the tires and cause a crash? All systems are "poorly designed" if by that you mean they'll fail under pressure but this could have been prevented. It would, after all, be possible to design a car that is more resilient to running over a row of caltrops, it would just be expensive and unrewarding most of the time. Of course, the person disrupting the system is a biased party. He shouldn't get to decide what counts as poorly designed in order to excuse his disruption; if you allow that, he's always going to claim that whatever vulnerability he found is just poor design. We don't think this is a good excuse for the NSA; it shouldn't be a good excuse for anyone trying to overwhelm a phone system.
- ziddoap 5y ago
  Your whole comment is based on an analogy which I already said is detached from the issue at hand. None of your examples relate, at all, to a striking worker. Was my phone analogy poorly constructed? Yes. Does your extension all the way to NSA hacking innocent citizens make sense? No.