| > Now, I'm obviously documenting this insanity to write a blog post over the next couple of days, Many countries have hacking laws that are exceptionally broad, written in the 1980s by legislators who had never even touched a computer. A law might, for example, ban "gaining unauthorized access to a computer system" This means that if you accidentally find what looks like a security problem, and you look around a bit to make sure you're not raising a false alarm - you're already in violation of the law. If your country has any such laws, to claim credit for your discovery would be to admit to a crime. And while you might not have done anything you think of as hacking, put yourself in the mindset of the site operator. They might feel as if you've put a gun to their heads, or that scaring you into shutting up and deleting any data you've downloaded is them protecting their customers - they might go to the cops and give the cops a very different perspective. If you want to alert the world to this breach, may I suggest downloading the breached data anonymously and e-mailing it anonymously to Troy Hunt of Have I Been Pwned? |