5 ms·
Just a nitpick, but "source code" might imply that it was something secretive. The guy found SSNs of teachers in MO served up publicly on a state website within
by kimbernator 4y ago
Just a nitpick, but "source code" might imply that it was something secretive. The guy found SSNs of teachers in MO served up publicly on a state website within the page's HTML. The governor went on a crusade against this guy because he didn't understand it, and despite being told by numerous experts that there was no case, he kept it going.
The worst part was that this guy was beyond reproach - he went out of his way to notify people and said he wouldn't mention it to news outlets etc until the issue was resolved. It was a clear case of the governor misusing his power to prosecute a free press that he didn't like using a pretext he knew was incorrect. While it's funny to poke at the governor for this, I personally believe it should have caused his removal from office.
https://missouriindependent.com/2022/02/23/claim-that-reporter-hacked-state-website-was-debunked-parson-still-says-hes-a-criminal/ https://missouriindependent.com/2022/02/23/claim-that-report...
excerpt:
State education officials initially wanted to thank Renaud for discovering the problem that, as investigators would learn, has existed undetected since 2011. And an FBI agent who looked at the incident informed the state that it was “not an actual network intrusion,” noting that the website in question “allowed open source tools to be used to query data that should not be public.”
State officials made it clear the information was on a public site, it was not encrypted or password protected and the reporter was not anywhere he wasn’t allowed.
The governor decided to blame a government failing on the reporter who discovered it.
Despite all this, Parson convened a press conference to label the reporter a “hacker” and demand a highway patrol investigation. He accused the Post-Dispatch of trying to use the security flaw to embarrass him, and his political action committee launched ads to raise money off Parson’s attacks.