This case has been going on for a few years. Last summer the court declined the prosecutor's case (in this system, the prosecutor files their case with the cou

This case has been going on for a few years. Last summer the court declined the prosecutor's case (in this system, the prosecutor files their case with the court, and the court does a quick scan and will dismiss the case before scheduling the trial if it's obviously unsound - happens fairly rarely). Prosecutors got this overturned by a higher court, which means this trial happened at the same lower court, but with a different judge than the one who initially dismissed the case. > According to a decision by the Jülich District Court on May 10, 2023, the criminal proceedings against the security researcher have been dismissed. The court assumes that no criminal offense has been committed because the data accessed by the security researcher was not sufficiently protected. "Only data that is specially protected against unauthorized access is subject to the scope of protection of the criminal offence. This presupposes that measures have been taken that are objectively suitable [...] to prevent access to the data," the court's decision states. "The court does not agree with the opinion of the public prosecutor's office that password protection as such is sufficient. A password does not always provide effective data protection, for example if it is too simple or is used in a standardized way for certain applications. In such cases, the provision of access to data does not constitute an offense." > Through its own investigations of the Modern Solution software, heise online was able to confirm that it did indeed contain a built-in default password. This meant that anyone who had examined the software, which was freely downloadable from the company's website, would have had access to the data on the Modern Solution servers.