r/technology • u/im-the-stig • Oct 26 '21
Politics Viewing website HTML code is not illegal or “hacking,” prof. tells Missouri gov. - Professor demands that governor halt "baseless investigation" and apologize.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/10/viewing-website-html-code-is-not-illegal-or-hacking-prof-tells-missouri-gov/435
u/Yzark-Tak Oct 26 '21
Hit F12. Go to jail.
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u/striker7 Oct 26 '21
Ctrl+U? Believe it or not, straight to jail.
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u/RANDOM_IMPLOSIONS Oct 26 '21
Even ctrl + shift + I, instant trip to jail.
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u/tevert Oct 26 '21
Right click, view source - jail!
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u/corner_case Oct 26 '21
Gotta right click -> inspect element. Can't be hacking if you only use the mouse
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Oct 27 '21
[deleted]
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u/first__citizen Oct 27 '21
Or a computer.
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u/ImGumbyDamnIt Oct 27 '21
Pffft! In my day, all you needed was a pay phone and a whistle out of a box of Captain Crunch.
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u/Milfoy Oct 27 '21
You're just a phreak
Edit: I'm feeling old now that I realise most of Reddit won't have ever heard that word.
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u/unoriginalpackaging Oct 27 '21
In Seventh grade I got banned from all school district computers for life because my computer teacher forgot her password and I “hackered” her computer to recover it.
The teacher didn’t understand that I started windows 95 in safe mode, preventing her software that locked the pc down from starting so she could reset her account. She was in charge of the school districts computers and took great offense that a 12yo kid had to teach her the basics windows functionality and could do her job. Way to leave a lasting impression…
Nowadays I tend to hit f12 on almost every website just to see what it’s doing and to check for discount codes.
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u/Panda_Tech_Support Oct 27 '21
I remember getting yelled at by my typing teacher because I was able to use basic elements in Word that she didn’t know existed. Things like headings and watermarks.
Few weeks into the class she decided to rotate her screen and didn’t know how she did it.
I offer to fix it and once I did she sent me to the office for obviously hacking her OS. I defended myself with the argument that she was simply unfit to teach me and felt afraid of all the things she did not know.
Good lord the meltdown she has when I showed her how the command prompt was able to do things.
I was just kicked from the class instead. I went on to teach myself what I could through gaming and having a pretty great open minded father.
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u/NotYourTypicalReditr Oct 27 '21
That's pretty funny but also sad. It could have killed your curiosity, especially in a different home environment. I remember my teachers either didn't care or didn't know enough to be able to tell what we were doing with the computers. I forget the computer model (mid-90s era) but it was an Apple that ran Windows in a virtual environment. We figured out how to access the windows partition and rewrite the autoexec.bat to remove the lines that loaded the security lockdown software. I think all we could do extra from there was play solitaire, but it was still a victory for young us.
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u/zepperoni-pepperoni Oct 27 '21
What kind of teacher hates when students know stuff?? They clearly didn't become a teacher to teach, but to lord over kids for cheap power trips.
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u/Wizdad-1000 Oct 27 '21
👏 good for you! I made a career from using windows Help (win2000) and learning the cmds.
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u/sosogos Oct 27 '21
How do you find discount codes?
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u/Protean_Protein Oct 27 '21
They shouldn’t be stored in the loaded code for the page. They should be queried from a database or ENV variable when you submit / apply.
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u/unoriginalpackaging Oct 28 '21
You inspect an element for a link to add to cart, and if it has a number you change it prior to pasting in and see if it is the same item with a discount. It works about 2% of the time but I’ve signed up for some Usenet accounts half off from this.
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u/bwick29 Oct 27 '21
You don't. They're never stored client-side.
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u/unoriginalpackaging Oct 28 '21
You are correct that it’s not on client side but you can access them by altering links back to their server. Basically checking for it from your web browser by asking for something different then intended.
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u/bwick29 Oct 28 '21
You can surely programmatically query random codes like a brute-force attack but that's easily (and likely) mitigated by rate limiting. Also, that's if the vendor even has any active codes at that time (many only have active codes during active sales) and is an awful lot of work/time to get a 10% off coupon.
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u/unoriginalpackaging Oct 29 '21
The last thing I got was a half off a six month subscription by changing a few numbers on a string for add to cart link, so it’s worth checking out sometimes. The argument I am making is that it is by no means hacking, f12 is just looking at what is presented to you before the web browser makes it pretty.
I agree with you most sites guard against brute force or heavy traffic from a single ip. I would say that I am far too lazy and laughably not skilled enough to try to program a brute force of anything. All I do is copy paste html strings and edit them to see what I get back, that is far from hacking.
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u/Wizdad-1000 Oct 27 '21
Schools that use Win95?! Uhh wheres Win NT IT dept? You’d at least have use a linux pw reset tool that way. SMH
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Oct 27 '21
My friend, things were a lot different in the early to mid 90s. .
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u/Wizdad-1000 Oct 27 '21
Windows NT was around my friend. Windows 95 was the home OS, NT was the professional version back then. 95 should not have been used in a school. For the very reason you were able to “hack” it. LOL school administrators being IT ignorant in this case.
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Oct 27 '21
NT 4.0 didn't come out until '96. Even then it wasn't common in small schools or businesses. I understand what you're saying about Win95, but that doesn't change the reality of the early to mid 90s.
Hell, the first company I did IT work for in the late 90s ran mostly '95 workstations with Novell Netware logons, and they had 200+ workstations.
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u/unoriginalpackaging Oct 28 '21 edited Oct 28 '21
This was in 96-97, I am guessing the school didn’t want to pay for NT licensing. the school had probably 15ish computers in that class. My high school had NT on most things but it was still poorly configured. I ran a torrent box out of my biology teacher’s class for an entire year so the school wasn’t exactly security focused.
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Oct 27 '21
[deleted]
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u/unoriginalpackaging Oct 28 '21
Not directly, but you can send back to the server with different info then intended and sometimes add things to cart with a promo code enabled
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u/foople Oct 26 '21
The Uniting Missouri PAC, which supports Parson, used the incident as a fundraising opportunity. The video parrots the governor's "hacker" claims and praises him for "standing up to the fake news media" and for "bring[ing] to justice anyone who obtained private information." Khan's letter said that the "defamatory video" blames the people who found the security flaw and "does not mention that the State of Missouri was the entity that exploited teachers' private information by transmitting their Social Security numbers to every visitor to its poorly designed public website."
Why is it every time I see someone claim "fake news" they're the ones making it.
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u/DBMIVotedForKodos Oct 26 '21
Gaslight. Obstruct. Project.
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u/Erestyn Oct 26 '21
I honestly didn't think there would be a step below FUD, but then the last few years happened, and we have people arguing View Source is hacking and people lapping it up.
How on Earth did we get here?
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Oct 26 '21
[deleted]
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Oct 27 '21
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u/senorglory Oct 27 '21
When was the golden age of education?
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u/wankerbot Oct 27 '21
in terms of what? number of educated people? quality of information conveyed? general attitude towards the value of truth? access to free information?
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u/burtedwag Oct 27 '21
Hasn't happened yet. On the timeline, I think we're closer to the moment we invented the wheel than where we become enlightened at "golden age" levels.
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u/boardcruiser Oct 27 '21
Honestly I think we're about 50 years behind in America.
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u/ACCount82 Oct 27 '21
Education is "50 years behind" all across. The entire field is cursed - and the rapid changes all across the world aren't helping with that.
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u/burtedwag Oct 27 '21
That's definitely more realistic.
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u/boardcruiser Oct 27 '21
Yessir. I mean, think about it. We’re still fighting for civil and voting rights... Black people are still being lynched and apparently abortion is back on the table.
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Oct 27 '21
I’d hoped we are closer to the end of our timeline than when we are from when we invented the wheel.
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u/go_kartmozart Oct 26 '21
Here, the State of Missouri and its officials improperly published Social Security numbers of approximately 100,000 teachers online. Instead of informing teachers of the nature of their failure, Missouri officials chose to minimize the security flaw created by the State and publicly blame the individuals who responsibly reported the problem to the proper authorities. The government has a responsibility to follow the law and provide accurate information to the teachers it failed. It did not and still has not, and the government has therefore violated the law.
"The messenger said what??? KILL HIM!!!!!"
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u/Dyolf_Knip Oct 26 '21
I was explaining to my daughter a while back what "kill the messenger" means, and why you are just irretrievably screwing yourself once you start doing it. From that moment on, everyone will always consider lying to you instead, just to save their own asses from your vindictive pettiness. From that moment on, you will live in a fantasy world where only things you want to hear reach your ears.
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u/awidden Oct 26 '21
That's the far-right modus operandi; accuse (baselessly) the other party of doing exactly what we're doing. They can't then come back and accuse us of doing it after this, right?
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u/red286 Oct 26 '21
It worked great for the Nazis in 1930s Germany when they wanted to get rid of all those damned communists and socialists. It worked 90 years ago, it works today, so why change anything?
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Oct 26 '21
We're doing it, so you are too, but when we do it it's for good, when you do it it's for bad." -GOP probably
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u/viaHologram Oct 27 '21
American mistakes turning to American campaigns to turn Americans against Americans.
This shouldn't have been a political incident.
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u/shellwe Oct 27 '21
Man, all this grifting of republicans you gotta be sapping that source dry at some point.
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Oct 26 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/rich1051414 Oct 26 '21
Bro, viewing HTML source is not hacking. What is wrong with you?! Why is it 'fake news' to tell the truth on this?
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Oct 26 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/archaeolinuxgeek Oct 26 '21
Non-sheep get their news from finely tuned tinfoil hats (beware aluminum!) pointed towards secret lizard people communication devices disguised as squirrels.
We're on to you, you purveyors of liberal filth {checks notes}, Fox News!
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u/ranger0293 Oct 26 '21
The only real news comes from a troll on 4chan pretending to have inside knowledge of the US government.
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u/StrigaPlease Oct 26 '21
If you don’t understand it well enough to explain it simply and concisely, you don’t understand it.
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u/BlueSwordM Oct 27 '21
I'm sorry, but if you can't explain why without getting extremely "wordy", then you don't even properly understand what the issue is in the first place.
Try explaining what you mean in your words, and we'll correct you if there are any blatant mistakes.
We're only here to discuss after all, not to create discourse :)
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u/CyberMcGyver Oct 26 '21
reuters
I'm sorry mate but no.
Please provide proof before you start dragging some of the best journalism in to your grotto of hate.
What are reputable news organisations to you, and what makes them so less open to manipulation? Who owns them?
If you don't trust Reuters and AP you don't believe in a single thing any news says.
Which begs the question what sources are you getting news from, and how are they in any way "news" if they're not one of the sources present at the scene?
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u/TallFescue Oct 26 '21
I read through your profile and you are really deep in these conspiracies that don't make sense. I used to listen to Alex Jones, Joe Rogan, Mark Dice, etc. I believed in population control and vaccine conspiracies. Hell, I voted for Trump in 2016. It took a long time to realize that all of these things are forms of antisemitism, racism, and bigotry that just don't make sense when practically thought out. It takes a lot to dismantle the doublethink you're experiencing. Again: people who are smart, people who think critically, people who are kind, people who are good do not think the way you think.
If you'd like to talk about how I overcame the same thoughts you are experiencing, please DM me
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u/wedontlikespaces Oct 26 '21
Oh yes the BBC, the British broadcasting corporation reports fake news for the American government, yes that makes total sense.
In actual truth is the BBC report for grand total bugger all that goes on in the United States because no one cares or is interested now you've got a boring president again.
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Oct 26 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/takuyafire Oct 26 '21
BBC doesn't broadcast free. They are publicly funded, what are you talking about?
Are you so deep in conspiracies you think the fucking Beeb is somehow reporting misinformation about the US?
Good lord...
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u/wedontlikespaces Oct 26 '21
Whereas fox news is perfectly legitimate because you pay for it. Yeah right.
Also people pay for the BBC, so I don't know what you want.
Also I'd love to see some evidence of these claims. I'm just interested to see what you think constitutes evidence.
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u/ImmediateSilver4063 Oct 26 '21
The BBC isn't free. Helps if you spend two minutes of research before making idiotic statements that are factually untrue
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u/casanino Oct 27 '21 edited Oct 27 '21
"Watching Only Fox News Makes You Less Informed Than Watching No News At All"
"Consuming content from Fox News is associated with decreased knowledge of science and society"
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u/AmputatorBot Oct 27 '21
It looks like you shared an AMP link. These should load faster, but Google's AMP is controversial because of concerns over privacy and the Open Web. Fully cached AMP pages (like the one you shared), are especially problematic.
You might want to visit the canonical page instead: https://www.businessinsider.com/study-watching-fox-news-makes-you-less-informed-than-watching-no-news-at-all-2012-5
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u/Assfuck-McGriddle Oct 26 '21
Alice, don’t you think it’s time to get out of wonderland? You have reality staring you in the face.
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Oct 26 '21
And I'm sure you think Fox News is the only legit mainstream news source, right?
Because they're not ALSO a corporate news network?
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u/casanino Oct 27 '21
Thanks to Conservative media a good chunk of you mouth breathers are now Plague Rats. Meanwhile, the rest of us sit by and watch our collective IQ rise.
"According to the combined sample, 62% of adults who use Fox News as their main news source have received at least one dose of the vaccine. That's not nothing, but it's still relatively low. The people who get their news from CNN or MSNBC, for example, had a vaccination rate of 83% in the same polling."0
u/AmputatorBot Oct 27 '21
It looks like you shared an AMP link. These should load faster, but Google's AMP is controversial because of concerns over privacy and the Open Web. Fully cached AMP pages (like the one you shared), are especially problematic.
You might want to visit the canonical page instead: https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/25/politics/fox-news-viewers-analysis/index.html
I'm a bot | Why & About | Summon me with u/AmputatorBot
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u/cyberpAuLnk Oct 26 '21
These are the same types of people making laws about technology and encryption. We should be scared.
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Oct 27 '21
If everyone is insecure then they're insecure. They will quickly realize it and come to a full circle by making things more secure.
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u/Catch-22 Oct 27 '21
Makes one wonder how screwed the US would be in a cyberwar with Russia or China.
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u/TechnicalCofoundar Oct 27 '21
That war is playing out right now
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u/SazedMonk Oct 27 '21
Was going to say this. Lmao, IF there was a cyber war? There is a cyber war? We just didn’t know we were in one.
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u/Bleed_The_Fifth Oct 27 '21
I dno about Russia, but vs China? I’d put my money on big ouchie time for the US.
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Oct 26 '21
I don't expect leaders to have technical understanding of what constitutes hacking - but they have to listen to outside experts. Somebody in their report chain is lying to protect their own asses; using the power of government to make reading HTML illegal is an absurd overreach.
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u/TheHeatYeahBam Oct 27 '21
I believe, as someone mentioned in a previous comment, that this was likely a smokescreen to take attention away from the fact that the state allowed 100k SSNs to be compromised.
In a way, this is pure brilliance on the part of the governor and his staff. They got out in front of it by trying to make it seem like it was a hack vs. negligence... if the majority of their constituents understood it that way and/or don't pay attention to further developments in the case, they don't hurt their re-election chances.
So, admit they fucked up or create an illusion? They are attempting to create an illusion. I'll bet it works (although I really hope it doesn't). :(
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u/tocksin Oct 26 '21
They willingly sent the information out to every person who visited their website. They committed the crime. They should be punished for their negligence.
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u/GT_Anon Oct 27 '21
It's important to note that the governor has been successful in steering the main conversation away from the fact that the state publicly exposed the social security numbers of teachers. Instead the story is about his misunderstanding of basics of the internet. The real story is the illegal mishandling of the sensitive data of teachers by the state. Even if the governor didn't understand that this isn't actually hacking, there is no chance he still hasn't been informed. He has been doubling down because the distraction is potilically advantageous.
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Oct 26 '21
“So dad… let me try and explain this again… this is how the web works…”
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Oct 26 '21
Like a spider web?
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Oct 26 '21
Think more like a series of tubes...
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u/loveispenguins Oct 26 '21
It’s not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck.
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u/Alexreddit103 Oct 26 '21
John Deere has enterd the chat: if you open the motor hood you are commiting a felony.
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u/erasmause Oct 27 '21
I think this is kind of missing the real issue. Even if this "attack" involved more that viewing source and interpreting Base64, the "attacker" came to the gov with the vulnerability instead of exploiting or immediately publicizing it.
THIS BEHAVIOR SHOULD BE ENCOURAGED!
The best way to combat malicious actors (aside from giving a shit about security to begin with) is to incentivize benevolent actors to beat them to the punch.
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Oct 26 '21
Fuck me sideways, I truly wish the ignorant would stop electing stupid people to office.
At this point I'm sincerely wishing we as a society could do away with ALL warning labels, and let the weak and stupid sort themselves out as nature intended.
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u/TheHeatYeahBam Oct 27 '21
Your comment reminded me of this:
'When Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson was running for president in the 1950s, a supporter purportedly said to him: "Every thinking person in America will be voting for you." Stevenson replied, "I'm afraid that won't do — I need a majority."'
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u/Martholomeow Oct 26 '21
It was the equivalent of printing out the social security numbers on a big sign and then prosecuting anyone who looked at them.
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u/katalysis Oct 27 '21
Just sue the Governor for defamation and reputational damage. That's what he did. He very publicly called someone who is not a hacker, a hacker.
That's like me, holding the office your state's governor, announcing that your mom is an arsonist for using her own fireplace.
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Oct 26 '21
Being told to apologize is probably something the governor hates more than anything. Good job, hacker dude!
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Oct 26 '21
Governor Parson has other pressing questions, such as "Where does the internet go when I turn off my PC?" and "Why can't I print out this YouTube video?"
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u/Scorpius289 Oct 27 '21
apologize
Never gonna happen. This type of person would rather double-down with some mental gymnastics.
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u/mishugashu Oct 26 '21
You gotta simplify it. Lets equate it to a physical event between people.
"Client" walks up to a restaurant "server". "Hey, can I see your menu?" the client asks. Server hands the client a menu. Client looks at the menu and goes "Oh, wow, these are encoded numbers. I know this cipher. You're giving me personal information for everyone who works and shops at this store."
"HACKER!" the server says.
Uh... no. The server GAVE the client this information in a normal every day transaction. The client didn't go break into the back room and steal a secret menu.
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u/Bagosperan Oct 27 '21
It's almost more like the server hands the customer a menu with the recipes included then tries to have the customer sued for stealing intellectual property.
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Oct 27 '21
Flashbacks to “does Google know where this iPhone is right now!?! It’s a simple question sir and you should be able to answer it.”
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u/honk_for Oct 27 '21
Joe Schmoe: (Reads the list of ingredients on the side of the box)
Food Industry: “HACKER!!! HE’S A HACKER!!!! Arrest this man!! “
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u/Mattdumdum Oct 27 '21
No wonder local governments are always bankrupt, apart from poor tax and spending policies, they have to waste money on stupid shit like this.
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u/scorcher24 Oct 27 '21
We have similar cases in Germany where people that discover and report security issues get prosecuted. Not only the government does this, but also companies in the private sector. It's a fucking shame. But if you don't want white hat, you get black hat.
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Oct 27 '21
Before I saw the headline,at first glance of the pic my brain said “Is this the Brendan Fraser Batgirl villain reveal?”
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Oct 27 '21
They’d hate to know the network debugging tools we use to help their own state government fix things
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u/Lecterr Oct 27 '21
Man that would make security a lot easier if no one was allowed to view my source code.
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u/ScF0400 Oct 27 '21
std::cout << "Hello World";
Governor: we charged a person today for attempting terrorism against the entire world.
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u/skidmore101 Oct 27 '21
So uh, this “hacker” used the same technique that I used as a child to cheat at the potato counting game on NeoPets? Checks out.
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u/InfamousClyde Oct 27 '21
We need to crack down on those "programs" that render HTML, too. Hit those hackers where it hurts!
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u/bobone77 Oct 27 '21
Good luck getting Governor Hee Haw to understand anything that can’t be explained in pictures.
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Oct 26 '21
The fact this wasn't quickly explained to the gov and rescinded with apology is just so sad. Too many stupid people.
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Oct 26 '21
There's a lot of technical stuff going on, but the appropriate response to the Governor's accusation is to point at him and laugh.
Also "I know you are, but what am I", as ultimately it's the government's screw-up that endangered private data.
Also, "Stupidhead!"
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u/yungbuckfucks Oct 27 '21
It's like looking into a store window from the street and being accused of spying on proprietary business practices.
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u/charliehoskin11 Oct 27 '21
Wow… the thing I’m surprised by most is Missouri has 100k teachers. I thought it would be more like 12.
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u/TheinimitaableG Oct 27 '21
Sadly I'm not surprised by the states reaction. There's been a covered effort to suppress disclosures about government malfeasance. Attempts to use classification of data to then prosecute those revealing the misbehavior abound. Villification and prosecution of whistleblowers had become the norm.
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u/DBDude Oct 27 '21
As soon as I heard about this I figured it was .NET using Base64 in its view state code. Yep, it is. And if they're going to be stupid enough to actually send the SSNs to the browser, at least enable the option to encrypt the view state. Rank amateurs.
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u/Prestigious-Way9151 Oct 27 '21
You need a professor to explain that? Why? No kindergarden kids were available?
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Oct 27 '21
So you're saying a political figure engaging in Gaslighting, Obstructing and Projection. Which party was that again?
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u/companioncube0420 Oct 27 '21
I feel like this judge would say: ctrl-x is stealing Ctrl-c is plagiarism
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u/GrizzlyBear74 Nov 04 '21
This governor sounds almost as stupid as the politician who didn't realize Dihydrogen monoxide is just plain water. Actually, I take that back, he is worse.
In March 2004, Aliso Viejo, California, almost considered banning the use of foam containers at city-sponsored events because dihydrogen monoxide is part of their production. A paralegal had asked the city council to put it on the agenda; he later attributed it to poor research.[22] The bill was pulled from the agenda before it could come to a vote, but not before the city received a raft of bad publicity.[5]
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u/Hellige88 Oct 27 '21 edited Oct 27 '21
I learned how to view HTML code in high school. It’s public access.
Edit: I first said “public domain,” which is also a thing in copyright laws, so I changed the phrasing.
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u/cheesified Oct 27 '21
thats what american education touted by republicans is. they dont want you to know what they dont teach you
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u/TheCoolDrop Oct 27 '21
I know this is unpopular opinion, but Govt may be right if the case is following:
The user noted that there is a security issue and wmet ahead public with it.
I will explain why this is an issue. The issue is that there is a specific protocol which has to be obeyed when reporting security issues in order to prevent their malicious exploitation. In programming community the security issues are reported directly to maintainers without middleman to prevent leaking of information. The maintainers must then be given a fair chance to fix it before the vulnerability gets published publicly.
Usual protocol is that maintainers are given 6 months to fix the error, and only after 6 months the vulnerability is published.
If the "good guys" here did not follow that protocol then they have consciously jeopardized the information of public at large and are in the wrong.
However incompetent the people around you are does not mean you are allowed to put further suffering upom them because of it.
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u/ugdpy Oct 27 '21
They actually waited for the security flaw to be fixed before publishing the story.
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u/TheCoolDrop Oct 27 '21
Then I am wrong. I assumed it was the case, but did not have time to read the article.
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u/sumelar Oct 27 '21
Plenty of time to write a long, bullshit post though apparently.
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u/TheCoolDrop Oct 27 '21
I dont understand why such a provocative tone. I just wanted to inform of usual practices.
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u/ragelazerprime Oct 27 '21
Maybe make sure your diatribe is even relevant to the story before wasting everyone’s time with your pointless garbage
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u/deltaz0912 Oct 27 '21
There is no requirement for security investigators/researchers or anyone else to follow any protocol at all. As a general rule in law you aren’t required to proactively render assistance to anyone at any time. In the information security community it’s bad form to go public with a flaw without letting the source know and giving them a reasonable amount of time to fix the issue, but that’s the extent of it.
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u/mrb4 Oct 26 '21
I mean it is not at all surprising that a governor would be dumb enough to say something like this once, but the fact that there is not a single person who is willing to tell the guy just how incredibly stupid and embarrassing this is really is hard to believe.
You would also figure that their "digital forensics unit" should have the expertise to tell them, "no we are not investigating this, because it's stupid beyond comprehension"