4 ms·

Any instance anywhere that a court has considered an UA sufficient for access control? Especially one published under a copyleft license?

by Topfi 5mo ago

xp84 5mo ago
I don't think courts basically ever settle narrow technical questions like that. Any court decision would carry with it particular baggage based on the rest of the specifics, so I don't think it would have established a clear precedent either way. The funny part here is it seems Bambu is more exposed to a libel suit than the developer is for... checks notes clicking 'Fork' on Bambu's github. Since the moment he did that, his software was supposedly in breach of Bambu's...expectations.
- Topfi 5mo ago
  Thanks, would have been surprised, was mainly asking because OP was mentioning legal concerns. This may be a case for their EULA, sure, but I would have been surprised if there was any legal precedent or grounding for such a statement.
petcat 5mo ago
Spoofing a User-Agent by itself is not illegal. Browsers, curl, bots, monitoring tools, and privacy tools do this constantly for legitimate reasons. The legal risk comes from why you are doing it and what protections you are bypassing. If you are doing it specifically to bypass Bambu's authorized access, then it is very likely to fall afoul of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The mechanism (spoofing the UA) is entirely incidental to the motivation (bypass authorized access), which is what the law cares about.
wat10000 5mo ago
weev got convicted for something pretty similar to this. His conviction was vacated, but he did spend time in prison for unauthorized access to an AT&T server that only required a specific user agent and a guessable numeric device ID number. At least in the US, the law against unauthorized access to a computer system has no requirements for how good the security has to be. If you should reasonably know you're not supposed to be using it, that's potentially enough to make it illegal.
- Topfi 5mo ago
  I checked and in that case [0] specifically, the court specifically doubted that such access was violating any applicable laws. Course, it got vacated before that could be properly addressed and this seems to be specific to NJ so if someone knows a broader case, happy to read up, but to me this makes the argument stronger that there is no reason to just presume such a "bypass" (if that counts, many of us have "bypassed" a lot via reading robots.txt, etc. in our youth) is inherently illegal. Again, happy to read if someone can provide a source saying something else. If Bambu want to argue EULA, go ahead, but let us not give these entities the ability to just wish something illegal because they simply dislike it, when there is no evidence it is. Am currently somewhat into the topic of UAs for a personal project (not connected to Bambu printers), so am honestly interested for any tangible information, I just dislike us assuming something illegal because a corporate entity views it in a negative light. [0] https://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/131816p.pdf https://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/131816p.pdf ("We also note that in order to be guilty of accessing “without authorization, or in excess of authorization” under New Jersey law, the Government needed to prove that Auernheimer or Spitler circumvented a code- or password-based barrier to access. See State v. Riley, 988 A.2d 1252, 1267 (N.J. Super. Ct. Law Div. 2009). Although we need not resolve whether Auernheimer’s conduct involved such a breach, no evidence was advanced at trial that the account slurper ever breached any password gate or other code-based barrier. The account slurper simply accessed the publicly facing portion of the login screen and scraped information that AT&T unintentionally published.")
  - wat10000 5mo ago
    There was more than one court involved. He was convicted. Then he appealed and the appeals court vacated the conviction. So from one perspective, "the law" as a whole decided that he wasn't guilty. From another perspective, he still got involuntary lodging courtesy of the state.
jrmg 5mo ago
Techies like us get caught up in mechanism all the time in discussions like this. But, though there are some explicit laws where that’s how it works, that’s not generally how the legal system works. If I have a private server, and I don’t give you permission to access it - or, even better, tell you not to, it doesn’t really matter how I secure it. If you access it, you’re in the wrong. To give a physical analogy, it doesn’t matter how I’ve secured my house. Even if the door is open, you’re not allowed to just waltz in (or, to take it a bit further, come in and start using my stuff).
- abigail95 5mo ago
  With no authentication it's a "gates down" scenario and it's assumed that if you put your server on the open internet you intend people to connect to it. With authentication it's "gates up" and then "without authorization" from CFAA kicks in. I think it's unlikely that a user agent string creates a "gates up" situation, especially not if it's from code granted under a permissive license.
  - 15155 5mo ago
    The law isn't some autistic computer system, "authentication" is a very broad and amorphous term.
    - ok_dad 5mo ago
      Even if that’s correct, Bambu has a right to then press charges on the users, but can’t really complain about the guy simply copying AGPL software to make it work. He’s not the one doing the illegal part. Bambu clearly didn’t want to press charges on their users, though, so they weaponized the law to try and prevent this, and it’s causing them issues. In any case, we’re not in some “only the laws matter” reality, we’re also have ethics and morals to consider, in which case Bambu is clearly in the wrong. If they want to secure their servers, they should do it properly rather than using legal threats.
      - 15155 5mo ago

Any instance anywhere that a court has considered an UA sufficient for access control? Especially one published under a copyleft license?

by Topfi 5mo ago

Any instance anywhere that a court has considered an UA sufficient for access control? Especially one published under a copyleft license?

xp84 5mo ago

I don't think courts basically ever settle narrow technical questions like that. Any court decision would carry with it particular baggage based on the rest of the specifics, so I don't think it would have established a clear precedent either way. The funny part here is it seems Bambu is more exposed to a libel suit than the developer is for... checks notes clicking 'Fork' on Bambu's github. Since the moment he did that, his software was supposedly in breach of Bambu's...expectations.

Topfi 5mo ago
Thanks, would have been surprised, was mainly asking because OP was mentioning legal concerns. This may be a case for their EULA, sure, but I would have been surprised if there was any legal precedent or grounding for such a statement.

petcat 5mo ago

Spoofing a User-Agent by itself is not illegal. Browsers, curl, bots, monitoring tools, and privacy tools do this constantly for legitimate reasons. The legal risk comes from why you are doing it and what protections you are bypassing. If you are doing it specifically to bypass Bambu's authorized access, then it is very likely to fall afoul of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The mechanism (spoofing the UA) is entirely incidental to the motivation (bypass authorized access), which is what the law cares about.

wat10000 5mo ago

weev got convicted for something pretty similar to this. His conviction was vacated, but he did spend time in prison for unauthorized access to an AT&T server that only required a specific user agent and a guessable numeric device ID number. At least in the US, the law against unauthorized access to a computer system has no requirements for how good the security has to be. If you should reasonably know you're not supposed to be using it, that's potentially enough to make it illegal.

Topfi 5mo ago
I checked and in that case [0] specifically, the court specifically doubted that such access was violating any applicable laws. Course, it got vacated before that could be properly addressed and this seems to be specific to NJ so if someone knows a broader case, happy to read up, but to me this makes the argument stronger that there is no reason to just presume such a "bypass" (if that counts, many of us have "bypassed" a lot via reading robots.txt, etc. in our youth) is inherently illegal. Again, happy to read if someone can provide a source saying something else. If Bambu want to argue EULA, go ahead, but let us not give these entities the ability to just wish something illegal because they simply dislike it, when there is no evidence it is. Am currently somewhat into the topic of UAs for a personal project (not connected to Bambu printers), so am honestly interested for any tangible information, I just dislike us assuming something illegal because a corporate entity views it in a negative light. [0] https://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/131816p.pdf https://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/131816p.pdf ("We also note that in order to be guilty of accessing “without authorization, or in excess of authorization” under New Jersey law, the Government needed to prove that Auernheimer or Spitler circumvented a code- or password-based barrier to access. See State v. Riley, 988 A.2d 1252, 1267 (N.J. Super. Ct. Law Div. 2009). Although we need not resolve whether Auernheimer’s conduct involved such a breach, no evidence was advanced at trial that the account slurper ever breached any password gate or other code-based barrier. The account slurper simply accessed the publicly facing portion of the login screen and scraped information that AT&T unintentionally published.")
- wat10000 5mo ago
  There was more than one court involved. He was convicted. Then he appealed and the appeals court vacated the conviction. So from one perspective, "the law" as a whole decided that he wasn't guilty. From another perspective, he still got involuntary lodging courtesy of the state.

jrmg 5mo ago

Techies like us get caught up in mechanism all the time in discussions like this. But, though there are some explicit laws where that’s how it works, that’s not generally how the legal system works. If I have a private server, and I don’t give you permission to access it - or, even better, tell you not to, it doesn’t really matter how I secure it. If you access it, you’re in the wrong. To give a physical analogy, it doesn’t matter how I’ve secured my house. Even if the door is open, you’re not allowed to just waltz in (or, to take it a bit further, come in and start using my stuff).

abigail95 5mo ago
With no authentication it's a "gates down" scenario and it's assumed that if you put your server on the open internet you intend people to connect to it. With authentication it's "gates up" and then "without authorization" from CFAA kicks in. I think it's unlikely that a user agent string creates a "gates up" situation, especially not if it's from code granted under a permissive license.
- 15155 5mo ago
  The law isn't some autistic computer system, "authentication" is a very broad and amorphous term.
  - ok_dad 5mo ago
    Even if that’s correct, Bambu has a right to then press charges on the users, but can’t really complain about the guy simply copying AGPL software to make it work. He’s not the one doing the illegal part. Bambu clearly didn’t want to press charges on their users, though, so they weaponized the law to try and prevent this, and it’s causing them issues. In any case, we’re not in some “only the laws matter” reality, we’re also have ethics and morals to consider, in which case Bambu is clearly in the wrong. If they want to secure their servers, they should do it properly rather than using legal threats.
    - 15155 5mo ago