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> In 2020 it admitted it hacked into one of its competitors and agreed to pay a $10m fine. Lol, if an individual does this, you're going to go to jail. A compa
by JohnMakin 2y ago
> In 2020 it admitted it hacked into one of its competitors and agreed to pay a $10m fine.
Lol, if an individual does this, you're going to go to jail. A company does this? Tiny fine. What a world we live in.
- sneak 2y agoCompanies can’t “do” anything, they have no hands or brains. Human beings performed the hack in question. Prosecutorial discretion is real and dangerous. There are two sets of laws at work in the US, one for us, and a different one for them.
- finack 2y agoCorporations really are amazing. They are, simultaneously, in a superposition of getting away with crimes because they don't exist, and providing goods and services and benefitting shareholders because they do. Remarkable.
- ceejayoz 2y ago> Prosecutorial discretion is real and dangerous. A complete lack of it is also dangerous; that's what gets us zero-tolerance policies of suspending victims of school bullying.
- cbsmith 2y agoThe particulars of the case matter. Describing it as "hacking" is more than a bit misleading.
- JohnMakin 2y agoThey were accessing a system via internal endpoints not released to the public. They were also using stolen credentials a former employee of songbird brought over to ticketmaster, and accessed devices using stolen credentials. If that isn't "hacking" then the word has lost all meaning. https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/ticketmaster-pays-10-million-criminal-fine-intrusions-competitor-s-computer-systems-0 https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/ticketmaster-pays-10-mi...
- LikelyABurner 2y agoIANAL but this is textbook unauthorized access of a computer as has been drilled into me in every boring corporate training I do for my security work and thus is "hacking". Telling the judge "but I wasn't wearing my black hoodie while listening to K-pop while doing it!" is going to be about as effective as telling the judge the legal code can't be trusted because it's not backed by a CI/CD system adhering to Agile practices. (Which a non-trivial number of Hacker News posters probably think would work.)
- cbsmith 2y agoA former employee taking IP with them is usually considered to be IP theft more than hacking, and that's basically what happened.
- JohnMakin 2y agoTwo things can be true at once - he stole credentials, and then used those credentials to gain unauthorized access to multiple systems (hacking). As far as credentials being intellectual property, that doesn't sound quite right but I'm not an IP lawyer and it doesn't really matter.
- cbsmith 2y agoLet's put it this way: we wouldn't call it hacking if he had held on to his badge/keys to the building and got the information that way.
- chimeracoder 2y ago> Let's put it this way: we wouldn't call it hacking if he had held on to his badge/keys to the building and got the information that way. If he did that it'd be prosecutable as breaking and entering, and it's perfectly reasonable to use the term "hacking" as the digital counterpart for "breaking and entering". EDIT: It also looks like you work at Ticketmaster, or at least used to? If that's the case, that's a rather weird thing not to mention in the context of this thread.
- finack 2y agoNo they don't. Rules for companies and individuals are different in this country, unless you possess some secret to getting away with potentially ruining the lives of 1.5 times the population of the United States with the financial equivalent of a slap on the wrist.
- cbsmith 2y agoThat hack impacted 1.5 times the population of the United States? I think you're conflating events.
- chimeracoder 2y ago> The particulars of the case matter. Describing it as "hacking" is more than a bit misleading. People have been prosecuted and convicted under the CFAA for significantly less. The CFAA is a terribly abused law, but that is a fair use of the word "hacking".
- cbsmith 2y agoIf he'd kept a key or badge and got the information that way, no one would call it hacking.
- chimeracoder 2y ago> If he'd kept a key or badge and got the information that way, no one would call it hacking. No, they'd have called it breaking and entering. I don't know what point you think you're making.
- cbsmith 2y agoNo, they'd have called it trespassing. That's the point I think I'm making.
- chimeracoder 2y ago> No, they'd have called it trespassing. That's the point I think I'm making. No, if someone retains a key to a location after their legal authorization to access the location has been rescinded, and then uses it to access that physical location, that is breaking and entering. Regardless, "if they committed this crime with physical means instead of digitally, there would be a different criminal charge and a different word for it" is a point that is not particularly insightful, relevant, or interesting to discuss.
- cbsmith 2y agoBreaking and entering requires the use of force. Absent that, it is trespass. The claim was that individuals suffer bigger consequences than people. The person involved was not fined $10 million. AFAIK, they were not prosecuted criminally.
- BobaFloutist 2y agoI agree, the company should go to jail.
- harry8 2y agoThe ceo and board of directors should go to jail. Suddenly these corporate crimes would stop happening. A company itself does nothing. People make decisions and carry them out and should be accountable.
- autoexec 2y agoI'd start there, but I'm fine with holding companies accountable as a whole at a certain point. A corporate death penalty could be a useful tool. At this point though I'd take just about any meaningful consequences for corporations that take actions which would land you or I in massive amounts of trouble.
- amelius 2y agoIf big companies don't respect my privacy, then I'm not going to respect IP laws ...
- autoexec 2y agoI understand the sentiment but while big companies can break the law with impunity you certainly can't. Companies can ignore IP law and any other law they want and they will very likely profit from it, even if they manage to get caught and earn a tiny slap on the wrist. If you on the other hand break even a minor infraction the state will throw the book at you with everything they have, your criminal record will mean that you will struggle to get work and housing, and you can lose everything.
- throwaway290 2y agoThen they disrespect IP laws on even bigger scale and use all of your code/text/images to train generative tools they sell for money. Can't stick it to them...
- cqqxo4zV46cp 2y agoI suppose that you’ve got the case law to back up your assertions about disrespecting IP laws? Or is this just another case of a developer thinking that they know how the legal system works.