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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   Printer-friendly
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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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 18 2021, @08:25PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 18 2021, @08:25PM (#1188161)

    I recall a story about a school equating F5 with a DoS attack. One of the students refreshed the school website repeatedly, and seems their feeble system couldn't handle the load.

    Actually if the student was intentionally using F5 to bring down the website then it is a DOS attack.

    Don't matter if the target is weak or feeble.

    Just like intentionally showing flashing lights to someone to give them an epileptic fit can be a crime.

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