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by pampa 4681 days ago
Denying bounty to a hacker on some bullshit "Terms of Service" violation excuse defeats the whole purpose of the bounty program.

Next time a hacker will just sell the exploit to somebody else, cash upfront, and wont bother reporting.

2 comments

It's not "bullshit Terms of Service" - Facebook clearly lays out the terms of the Whitehat program.

There was no bait and switch - it's very explicitly stated that he should not be exploiting the vulnerability, and that it needs to be clearly explained.

I respect that he found a vulnerability, but he still needs to adhere to a website's terms and conditions. If the security team he reports a bug to doesn't "get it" the first time he should try again, not publicize it on Hacker News and attract negative publicity by putting it on Mark Zuckerberg's wall.

It's not "bullshit Terms of Service", it's "bullshit excuse". There is a difference.
You originally said bullshit TOS, which is why I quoted that. It's not a bullshit excuse for all the reasons I already mentioned.
Replace:

"Next time a hacker will just sell the exploit to somebody else, cash upfront, and wont bother reporting."

With:

"Next time a hacker will make sure they follow the Terms of Service when reporting"

For a much more likely scenario.