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Embarrassed city sues annoying jerk who told everyone how full of crap city should was. Suing security researchers for investigating the contents of disclosed

by xbar 2y ago

Embarrassed city sues annoying jerk who told everyone how full of crap city should was. Suing security researchers for investigating the contents of disclosed information is ineffective at protecting anyone.

xyst 2y ago
Reminds me of a story on Dark Net Diaries. Researchers are hired by state to do physical penetration testing at some court house in the middle of nowhere. Pentesters get caught. Pentesters comply with security and local PD and explain situation. However some other asshole shows up to the scene claiming jurisdiction (county sheriff?), raises hell, makes a random call (county officials?), then arrest the pen testers on the spot for B&E. State leave them out to dry in some county jail cell. I think the state ultimately ended up getting embarrassed and tried to sue the company and pen testers for some civil damages and pursue criminal charges. In the end, they end up getting dropped and reputation of pen testers were ruined for a period of time.
- progmetaldev 2y ago
  This is definitely the current state of security within government. I can't say it's anything new, it's just that the technology changed. Now it's about officials protecting themselves from being scrutinized by throwing around the law to aid in silencing those that find issues with technology. In the past it was exactly the same, except it was about officials protecting themselves from being scrutinized by throwing around the law to aid in silencing those that find issues in government policy, or government officials that skirted the law in the name of protection of the US people, etc. I think it's easier to go after people under technology laws than it was over finding information through informants and full whistleblowers. More scenarios to find information come about, and more draconian laws follow.
- justinclift 2y ago
  Probably this story, though this is the Ars Technica thing about it: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/11/how-a-turf-war-and-a-botched-contract-landed-2-pentesters-in-iowa-jail/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/11/how-a... Follow up a few months later: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/01/criminal-charges-dropped-against-2-pentesters-who-broke-into-iowa-courthouse/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/01/crimi...

by xbar 2y ago

xyst 2y ago

Reminds me of a story on Dark Net Diaries. Researchers are hired by state to do physical penetration testing at some court house in the middle of nowhere. Pentesters get caught. Pentesters comply with security and local PD and explain situation. However some other asshole shows up to the scene claiming jurisdiction (county sheriff?), raises hell, makes a random call (county officials?), then arrest the pen testers on the spot for B&E. State leave them out to dry in some county jail cell. I think the state ultimately ended up getting embarrassed and tried to sue the company and pen testers for some civil damages and pursue criminal charges. In the end, they end up getting dropped and reputation of pen testers were ruined for a period of time.

progmetaldev 2y ago
This is definitely the current state of security within government. I can't say it's anything new, it's just that the technology changed. Now it's about officials protecting themselves from being scrutinized by throwing around the law to aid in silencing those that find issues with technology. In the past it was exactly the same, except it was about officials protecting themselves from being scrutinized by throwing around the law to aid in silencing those that find issues in government policy, or government officials that skirted the law in the name of protection of the US people, etc. I think it's easier to go after people under technology laws than it was over finding information through informants and full whistleblowers. More scenarios to find information come about, and more draconian laws follow.
justinclift 2y ago
Probably this story, though this is the Ars Technica thing about it: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/11/how-a-turf-war-and-a-botched-contract-landed-2-pentesters-in-iowa-jail/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/11/how-a... Follow up a few months later: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/01/criminal-charges-dropped-against-2-pentesters-who-broke-into-iowa-courthouse/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/01/crimi...