[anamexis]

> Greyhats [...] have explicit authorization from the owners of the systems to access their systems.

It sounds to me like you're describing whitehat. Greyhat do these things without authorization, but also without malicious intent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_hat

[ransackdev]

Ah yeah I guess it’s true they don’t have permission. At the end of the day I think it comes down to the owner choosing to press charges or not, or even detecting it and subsequently reporting it. I would guess that if the systems have ways to be hacked, the owners likely won’t see the hacks until the white/grey hat reports it to them.

Somewhat related, the hackers submitting a vulnerability disclosure to the companies are in a very “extortion-y” dynamic. I wonder how often companies get something like “pay us X amount or we let the world know today instead of waiting for you to fix it”.

[xwdv]

Greyhats may or may not have malicious intent. They don’t play by anyone’s rules but their own.

[anamexis]

A greyhat with malicious intent is just a blackhat.

[xwdv]

Not really, because it depends on who the target is. If the greyhat for example maliciously targets a Mexican cartel or Iranian nuclear centrifuge, are they really the bad guy?

[lvturner]

Which in turn depends on how many innocent bystanders get killed, maimed or injured as a result of those actions and if the means justify the end...

[xwdv]

It’s a very grey area. If we knew the answers with certainty there would only be black and white.