Slashdot Mirror
Reuters Accused Of Hacking For Typing In URL
Aexia writes "Intentia International, a company in Sweden, is suing Reuters for publishing an earnings report posted on their website prior to its official release. The catch? The report couldn't be accessed through 'normal channels', you had to know, or guess, what address to type in order to retrieve it. The precedent this case sets will be interesting. If you don't use a hyperlink on a website, are you committing a crime? You can also read Intentia's take on the situation."
Here's a related thread from yesterday.
Here in Denmark we have a similar (but more serious) case. A micro-payment system called Valus owned and developed by a Norwegian bank (Den Norske Bank) was "hacked" on its premiere day by typing in a simple URL with the command SHUTDOWN at the end. The link to do this was published on an online debate forum and several people tried the link (although it had a warning that you should not try it:-). The problem was missing input validation (maybe the most basic security issue). Until now five people have been taken to court - one of them being the "mastermind" who posted the link. As a reaction to this behaviour Valus has been reported to the state agency for protection of personal data (Datatilsynet) for not securing personal data.
If they were to prosecute in the UK - I note Reuters replied to the allegations from their London HQ - here's what the law says:
So, it's quite straightforward really - if they can prove Reuters knew they weren't supposed to be looking at that material, then if the access was from the UK, a crime was committed.If Reuters can argue they didn't know the material was private, there is no case to answer.
Going back to the points some others have made about the information being publicaly accessible with no .htaccess protection, clearly this doesn't matter. If, for example, you were to make a clcik through that had to be viewed before you could see any of the content that stated the information was confidential then someone not supposed to be viewing it would be committing a crime to do so.
The problem with "ah well, these guys were just poking around, the publishers should have used proper security" is that it raises the bar of what security is to what we experts think it ought to be. Many people don't have the capability to employ such measures, so we're denying them legal recourse.
1. These people are experts.
2. From a practical viewpoint, it should not have been on that server if it wasn't to be served. Anyone with sensitive data should at least be able to employ that measure.
3. Why should they have legal recourse against typing things in the address bar of a browser?
He painted a unicorn in outer space. I'm askin' ya, what's it breathin'?
Yesterday, I, as an IT professional that makes purchasing decision for a large organisation, had never heard from this company. Now I know they make Collaborative Solutions. All it cost them was a bogus courtcase with Reuters.
This is clever marketing, nothing more, nothing less. Anyone can spot the lack of merits of this case from a mile away. Brand and name recognition of this company is soaring though. I wonder how their stock price is taking it?
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
If you do a Google search for intentia results, at least one early entry points to the Intentia 'press room' containing an earlier quarterly results announcement. The announcement page itself does have a 24 bit hex ID number in the URL (BA45EE etc) that would be hard to guess for a new quarter. But on the announcement page is this link:
Now the URL (which no longer works, natch) of the PDF file being linked to: is extremely easy to extrapolate to subsequent quarters. I have no doubt that's what Reuters did , for this company and many others with similarly easy naming schemes and early uploading schedules. And I have no doubt that other journalists pull the same trick. In this case, a company with results they'd rather nobody noticed has jumped at the opportunity to change the subject.