If You Get Caught Hacking, Don't Lie About It
from the rule-number-one... dept
Earlier this year, we wrote a story about a guy who was apparently arrested for using Lynx to visit a tsunami relief site. The story was very very thinly sourced, so we asked for more info... and no one seemed to have any. Perhaps that's because the story wasn't actually true. It's now come out that while the guy used that excuse originally, he later changed his story pretty drastically. He had donated to the site and when he didn't get a confirmation, he got worried that it was a phishing scam, so he went probing to find out if the site was legit or not. That's a somewhat reasonable defense (though, it doesn't mean you'd get off...), but it wasn't what he said originally, so a judge found him guilty of unauthorized access. From the judge's comments, it certainly sounds like a big reason for finding him guilty is the fact that his story changed so much.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
No Subject Given
It should read "If You Get Caught Hacking, Stick With Your Lie".
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The alternate outcome
I got a call from the principal that evening, and he was amazed that my son had been so up front about what he had been doing. In fact, he was so happy to have a student tell him the truth without hours of interrogation that he waived the mandatory three days of in-school suspension.
Honesty will always afford you a better result than trying to hide the truth.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: The alternate outcome
Dan
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: The alternate outcome
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: The alternate outcome
I dont hack so I guess im safe..
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: The alternate outcome
Second of all, making some broad generalized assumption like that is silly. Different circumstances call for different actions. Honesty may be the morally right thing to do but sometimes lying can keep your ass out of jail. The only bad times to lie are when you are caught red handed or when you involve other people in your lies without them knowing it and without them being able to back you up.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: The alternate outcome
Grow up. Lies are not only essential social lubrication, they are necessary for any truly honest person's physical survival.
Those who believe they are consantly truthful are merely in thrall to consensus reality.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: The alternate outcome
'If my child was honest and was rewarded, then all children will be rewarded for honesty.'
I'm certain that for this one pat on the back there are thousands who have paved a shorter road to their punishment. You have a good kid and he was lucky.
Honesty will not always afford a better result.
Michael Jackson may have lied.
OJ Simpson did lie.
I'm sure there were plenty of other times where other times where honesty put people in a worse place.
I'm just splitting hairs, though. ;)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
No Subject Given
Instead it is just another retread of the same misinformation.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Right...
Lynx is for security. I have Linux just so I can have security, but no, the government wants us all to be nice little conformists and go buy a Macintosh or shell out the same amount of money for a Macintosh to get the latest screw-up OS from Microsoft.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
"Probing?"
Port scanning is seeing if a port is open on a server. It is not illegal. All it does is send a packet to a port to see if the port responds or not. It is a very legitimate tool used by network admins. When you open a web browser, you are sending packets to port 80 on a webserver. If it responds, you know the port is open. You can test other ports the same way or with a tool that tests all. It can be known as a precursor for an attack by script kiddies, but nothing about it is illegal.
OS detection is just getting a fingerprint of a computer to see what operating system it is runining. Nothing illegal about that.
Doing a whois on a domian to see who owns it is redily availbe from arin.net. That is public information. What would be agaist policy is if someone lied on the domain registration, but not looking at the information to see who owns the site. That is what it is there for. The DNS ifo is there as well.
Lynx is a text based web browser. It is very popular and much faster to view websites via lynx. All it displays are content and links of a site. You can move from one page to another much faster because you do not have to wait for grpahics to load up. It is a standard browser availabe on most *nix boxes.
Would someone please enlighten me on what is "illegal" about any of that? Now if he tried to brute force his way into the websites ftp and was successful and replaced files, or gained ENTRY to the computer or server.. I could see it being illegal.
"Probing" a computer is not illegal. That is also a broad defination. What is illegal is gaining entry to one and altering or viewing content not meant to be seen.
Even if you goto a website.. say http://www.whatever.com/1/2/3/4/index.html and use your backspace key to back up to the directory before such as http://www.whatever.com/1/2/3/ or http://www.whatever.com/1/2/ is not illegal at all. If it lists files in the directory than someone had better be more worried about the security of the server, but it is on that site for public display and if directories are lsiting and you see the contents.. then its not illegal.
The way that is written makes no sense. Either that judge is clueless or a lot of details were left out of the story.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
What this UK Law says
(a) he causes a computer to perform any function with the intent to secure access to any program or data held in any computer,
(b) the access he intends to secure is unauthorized
...
(3) A person guilty of an offense under this section shall be liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months" - United Kingdom Computer Misuse Act 1990
"The complication arises as to whether the access is unauthorized given that the servers are connected to the public Internet." - Gillian Law - IDG, commenting on another case
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: What this UK Law says
Isn't this exactly what a web browser, ftp client, email client...is designed to do? We secure access and data in another computer...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: What this UK Law says
(b) the access he intends to secure is unauthorized
THAT is what makes it illegal.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
got it
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
what that is dumb
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
well i got caught hacking
[ link to this | view in chronology ]