[jacquesm]

Why are you on HN?

A kid showed up a bunch of big names. That's the equivalent of a kid walking into a bank and somehow making it into the vault, alerting security to the fact that it's possible without actually making off with all of the gold. That's on the bank, not on the kid. Nobody came into your house or stole your property. If they had the police likely wouldn't show up, nor would the case make the newspaper even if - hah, as if that happens - they made an arrest.

The only reason you are hearing about this is because someone at 'bigcorp' didn't want to accept responsibility for their fuckups, and so they used the law to come down on some kid which effectively did them a service, which costs society a large pile of money, further externalizing the cost of their fuckup.

[umanwizard]

> without actually making off with all of the gold

This is the key difference. The comment I was replying to implied that the transaction was actually completed, or at least I thought it did.

If the guy[0] didn't indeed actually benefit from the vulnerability then that is a very different story, and I don't think he should be arrested in that case.

0: not "kid" -- he is 18 which I assume is above the age of criminal responsibility in Hungary.

[spockz]

How did the arrest go? For all you know it was the local cop that took him to the station and put him under arrest. Not to necessarily punish but to imprint that even though the action was minimally invasive for a simple bus ticket, it applied on larger systems, could have a significant effect. So more as a simple friendly deterrent rather than arrest and spent some nights in jail.

[abustamam]

I don't think you can call any sort of arrest a simple friendly deterrent, or intended not to punish. That shit's traumatizing. Should he have done that? Probably not. But did he deserve arrest for finding a vulnerability? This could have been a conversation that didn't involve police. The kid could have helped them improve their systems instead of spending taxpayer dollars to send cops to the kid to arrest him.

[motorest]

> A kid showed up a bunch of big names.

The kid purposely changed the price of a service to lower it to an insignificant fraction (reportedly from ~27£ to ~0.15£).

If that same kid went around a supermarket replacing price tags to lower the selling price, would you call it "showing up a bunch of big names"?

Say what you may about how broken and buggy the system was. Purposely misusing it for financial advantage is still a no-no.

[daseiner1]

if the kid could successfully modify the scanned value of physical barcodes a) that would be quite the feat and b) that would absolutely be showing up a bunch of big names

[giobox]

This attack has been done trivially for years - you just sticker over the barcode with the barcode of a cheaper item in the store. If you plan to use self-service checkouts for this scam, pick cheaper item with same weight or with a tag that prices cheaply per unit of weight (produce) etc.

[rafram]

It wouldn't be quite the feat at all. Barcodes for pre-priced items sold by weight (cheese, meat, etc.) encode the price in the last four digits. Replacing those would be trivial.

[achairapart]

Come on, a kid was just fooling around with the developer console and probably had a curiosity just like the comment above:

> Did you try adjusting price?

And he was punished for "hacking", not for stealing, and for indirectly putting to shame who was responsible for the epic fail.

[motorest]

> Come on, a kid was just fooling around with the developer console and probably had a curiosity just like the comment above

You're failing to address the point. It is also trivial to switch price tags in supermarkets. If a kid rips off the tag of an expensive product, tacks on another price tag for pennies, and proceeds to pay the reported price at the checkout counter, is this something deemed acceptable or even classified as vulnerability research?

Make no mistake: the system was a shit show and all companies involved pulled some "sociopath mid-level manager saving his ass" moves. But the issue is nuanced.

[achairapart]

There was no personal profit. He bought a ticket he never used, just to show to people on twitter how bad the system was. He could have silently taken advantage of his discovery and travel at no cost for a long time peraphs. But no.

Sounds more like vulnerability reasearch than crime to me.

[sgarland]

IANAL, and furthermore have no idea what Hungary’s legal system is like, but mens rea is a thing. If I break a window by using it as a target for practicing my golf swing (I don’t golf; I have no idea if this is something golfers do) I am culpable. If I break a window because I’m trying to land balls next to the window, I might be culpable. Again, IANAL, so if anyone wants to correct my analogy, please do.

[jacquesm]

How do you propose he would have been able to establish that this was indeed a vulnerability?

[motorest]

> How do you propose he would have been able to establish that this was indeed a vulnerability?

I could comment extensively on the issue, as it is not as cut and dry as you imply. Instead, I'm going to link to the HM discussion from 2017 , as I think it is insightful and covers nuances.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14835515

[detaro]

Did the kid go around changing price tags, or did they just show that it was possible?