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Confused Governor Says Looking at Webpage's HTML is Criminal Hacking

posted by FatPhil on Monday October 18 2021, @08:42AM   
from the don't-even-think-about-editing-the-URL dept.

upstart writes:

Confused governor says looking at webpage's HTML is criminal hacking:

Gov. Mike Parson is sick and tired of all these sophisticated, no-good hackers and he's not going to take it any more. It's too bad the Missouri Republican has no idea what he's talking about.

During a Thursday press conference, the confused elected official lashed out at a journalist who reported a vulnerability in an official Department of Elementary and Secondary Education website. The reporter, notably, waited until officials fixed the error before publishing the story. The flaw? The website apparently included teachers' Social Security numbers in the HTML.

"Though no private information was clearly visible nor searchable on any of the web pages, the newspaper found that teachers' Social Security numbers were contained in the HTML source code of the pages involved," reported the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

Parson, who apparently has never heard of "view source," obliquely threatened the Post reporter with prosecution.

"The state is committing to bring to justice anyone who hacked our system and anyone who aided or encouraged them to do so — in accordance with what Missouri law allows AND requires," wrote Parson.

[... - plenty snipped - ...] Parson, in other words, has no idea what he's talking about.

canopic jug augments that with the following other sources:

Governor Mike Parson wishes that ctrl-u or f12 will become illegal. This was actually a breach of personal information, including SSANs, for over 100,000 people.

https://text.npr.org/1046124278
https://www.salon.com/2021/10/14/missouri-governor-threatens-criminal-prosecution-of-reporter-found-security-flaw-in-state-site_partner/
https://itwire.com/security/missouri-goes-after-man-who-looked-at-source-code-on-state-site.html
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/missouri-governor-teacher-data-hacking-1242493/
https://coldstreams.com/2021/10/14/no-it-isnt-missouri-governor-says-viewing-html-source-code-containing-private-data-the-state-published-on-every-page-is-a-crime/
https://abc17news.com/news/missouri/2021/10/14/gov-parson-threatens-legal-action-against-reporter-who-exposed-flaw-on-state-education-departments-website/
https://heavy.com/news/gov-mike-parson-html-source-code-decoded-ssn/

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Original Submission

• damn those hackers!! damn those hackers!! (Score: 4, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 18 2021, @09:04AM (1 child)

  by Runaway1956 (2926) on Monday October 18 2021, @09:04AM (#1187933) Homepage Journal

  "The state is committing to bring to justice anyone who hacked our system and anyone who aided or encouraged them to do so — in accordance with what Missouri law allows AND requires," wrote Parson.

  Missouri will soon be looking for new web page designers, after they arrest the ones they have now. Hey, isn't that a STEM job? LOL

  --
  Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.

  Starting Score:	1		point
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• Re:damn those hackers!! (Score: 3, Insightful) by zocalo on Monday October 18 2021, @09:53AM

  by zocalo (302) on Monday October 18 2021, @09:53AM (#1187940)

  Other than the cluelessness of the Governor (is there a "y" in the day again?) that *is* the real issues her; the web devs ultimately wrote the code that resulted in that personal data being transmitted into the public domain. However, presumably that design was signed off by someone more senior, so if any heads are going to roll here by all rights Missouri should start with the dev's line management and work upwards. As a bonus, given where the buck is supposed to stop, they could actually address two separate issues with their state government at the same time.

  --
  UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!

  Parent