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posted by Fnord666 on Monday April 23 2018, @10:31AM   Printer-friendly
from the available!=permitted dept.

A 19 year old teenager was charged with 'unauthorized use of a computer' after downloading over 7,000 records from the Nova Scotia Freedom-of-Information web portal. The teenager whose name has not been released, has been accused of stealing documents from the portal, with many of them being publicly accessible and redacted.

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/teenager-charged-for-nova-scotia-freedom-of-information-web-portal-breach/

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by physicsmajor on Monday April 23 2018, @02:36PM (5 children)

    by physicsmajor (1471) on Monday April 23 2018, @02:36PM (#670751)

    And yet, the law says unauthorized access. He made HTTP requests, which were authorized by the distant server and data was sent. A rather robust case can be made that, by the server's actions, his access was completely authorized.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 23 2018, @02:42PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 23 2018, @02:42PM (#670755)

    But that's what they've done with these laws! If a computer system is set up to authorize something that somebody later realizes shouldn't have been authorized, it's as if it were never authorized in the first place. The law essentially exempts administrators from responsibility for their work.

    Of course, good admins know that it's still their responsibility to make damned sure the shit is secured. Bad admins, we hear about those all the time.

    (A good admin is invisible, which kind of sucks for those of us who do admin-type stuff for a living, but that's life for ya. [Incidentally, the invisibility of good admins is one reason why we need to organize and collectively bargain with employers, but I can see that will never happen. Our field will become a minimum wage job for the boss' nephew--no more status than a burger-flipper, and the public has been well trained to accept shit quality when it comes to computers.])

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 23 2018, @08:34PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 23 2018, @08:34PM (#670872)

    I agree, sounds like he needed a better lawyer. Crowdfund defense if this happened in US, and sick ton of experts who would 1) Make this case and 2) Make the authorities looks like imbeciles the longer the case went on. I guarantee that #2 would lead to dismissal of charges faster than #1.

  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday April 23 2018, @10:34PM (1 child)

    by FatPhil (863) <{pc-soylent} {at} {asdf.fi}> on Monday April 23 2018, @10:34PM (#670911) Homepage
    That case can be made. In the US it has been made. It wasn't understood by the guy with the gavel. Bang to rights. Next!
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday April 24 2018, @10:28AM

      by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Tuesday April 24 2018, @10:28AM (#671103) Homepage Journal

      Is there no such thing any longer as Due Process? We have so many hackers. In Canada, in England, in Russia, in many places. This one hasn't been convicted. I think he's guilty, but I'm not the judge.