Re:Pwning eBay – How I Dumped eBay Japan's Website Source Code
by beaconstudios on Thursday November 29, 2018 @10:08AM
(#18560691)
Yes you're right, my description of the scenario wasn't quite accurate. Personally I don't think this scenario is unethical (beyond your responsibility to disclose potentially being to the company's users, not the company itself, meaning withholding the vulnerability might be ethically dubious) but as I understand (IANAL) it is illegal. But the law doesn't always map well onto ethics.
It's not theft either; and we could have immediately destroyed all our data except some excerpt as proof the hack is available so we would not be handling any infringing data (despite the initial act potentially being infringing, depending on jurisdiction).
This is akin to "I went past your property and saw the door open, stepped inside and took a picture as proof; do you want to see the picture?".