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Cake day: July 5th, 2024

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  • The legal term is: unauthorized access to a computer system.

    No, the legal definition is this:

    In a legal context, hacking is a term for utilizing an unconventional or illicit means to gain unauthorized access to a digital device, computer system, or network.

    Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/hacking

    So this wasn’t illicit, because the FBI publicly published the data. So the argument has to be made with “unconventional”. This is what I disagree on.

    Think about it in any other way? So I’m just walking down the street… I see a house… I go open a door… I open the fridge. Make myself a sandwich. Then go to a bedroom that’s not mine. Put on some underwear that isn’t mine and leave some stains on the sheets…

    That’s illegal. There’s a law for that. There are also laws that protect digital assets in a similar way, and they fall under Cybercrime.

    Why don’t you just go rape somebody? And clearly you have authorization to access that vagina or that butthole or mouth or however your fetish desires???

    Calm down there, Epstein.

    Just tell me you’ve been on Epstein’s Island… Jfc? Wtf is wrong with you, CeeBee_Eh?

    You suck at rage baiting. I’m advocating for exposing more of the emails and not letting people refer to it as “hacking”, and you’re so enraged by someone disagreeing with you that you literally call that person “Epstein”. I know mental health care isn’t much of a thing in the US, but please find some help. For all our sakes.



  • In a legal context, hacking is a term for utilizing an unconventional or illicit means to gain unauthorized access to a digital device, computer system, or network.

    We can rule out “illicit” because the FBI published the data publicly. Now the heavy lifting has to be done by “unconventional”, which I don’t think qualifies here. A government agency published the credentials, which means no one had to do social engineering, sneak into an office, reverse engineer anything, or even guess a person’s birthday.

    Now if this somehow went to court, a judge might rule that this qualifies as hacking, but my opinion is that it doesn’t.


  • The base legal definition of “hacking” is “unauthorized access”. Then the trick becomes establishing “unauthorized”. The reason this matters is if a website is publicly accessible, then it’s assumed to be authorized even though it’s not explicitly stated by anyone. However, you are accessing information on a computer system you do not own and were not given explicit permission to access.

    Now let’s say in the HTML or JS there’s an endpoint to a backend server that’s not directly exposed via online searches or page links. And through that link you are able to expose sensitive data that’s not shown on the webpage.

    Now, how is the definition of “unauthorized access” or “hacking” applied here?

    Edit: yes this is splitting atoms, but that’s the world of legal definitions




  • So your claim is that if I sit down at a computer that isn’t mine and has no security measures in place, and then open a file, that I have legally “hacked” the computer?

    The minimal definition you can fall back to is “unauthorized access”. But now you have to establish and argue that an unsecured computer/system is off limits to everyone except the owner. Which then opens up a big can of worms with network connected devices, and demonstrates that such basic and literal verbatim interpretation doesn’t work in reality.