[jazzyjackson]

What is this “encoded viewstate” of which you speak?

It’s my impression that the reporter didn’t have to go so far as thumbing over to the network tab or otherwise open any envelopes, the social security numbers were instead embedded in HTML, just not visible in the painted layout. Kudos for attempting a framing for the prosecution, but I don’t think there are laws against opening mail addressed to me.

Edit: just saw the comment about .net using base64 encoded state, so I understand your argument better now. In that case, if a ROT13 encrypted message was sent to me without the key, being trivial to crack doesn’t imply I have the right to share state secrets… agreed the case is a little more complicated than journalists have made it appear, go figure.

[roywiggins]

People publish stuff they find in improperly redacted documents fairly frequently. Sometimes what happens is that the black bars covering the text in a PDF are just cosmetic, and the text is still there. Even if there's a state secret under there, it's not something people get prosecuted for (in the US). You generally have the right to publish state secrets that fall into your lap, even if they were obscured and might have required some technical spelunking inside a document.