I won't claim that test is perfect, but it's a lot clearer than the current standards and when I go through past cases, I don't see it coming to any indefensible conclusions.
Yes, that would agree with the majority holding in this case. It's important to note that even if they didn't violate the CFAA, they likely broke plenty of other laws and can be punished for that.
So this conduct absolutely deserves to be punished, just not under the CFAA.
I think the majority opinion is also the more accurate plain reading of the law. So, from my perspective, no bailing out is necessary. The gut check and the plain reading both seem to align.
Did he exceed authorized access? He did, and therefore he broke the plain reading of the law. The law should be better, and separate violating access controls from violation of access policy, but it doesn't.
He did not. He was given a level of authorization that he did not exceed.
The problem, again, is in the ambiguity of the word “authorized” that allows multiple plain readings.
To me, it’s absolutely plain that “authorized access” refers to system authorization (that is, what the computer tells the user their permissions are), and “exceeds authorized access” refers to bypassing the system authorization limits. That’s absolutely the plain reading to me.
To you, you read “authorization” as “policy authorization” (that is, where another human tells you what your permission levels are).
The fact is, there are multiple kinds of “authorization” involved in this case, which means different people can have different plain readings of the statute. While your reading seems obvious to you, it seems strained to me. My reading might be strained to you, but it’s obvious to me.
No, that’s not quite right.
*To you* the plain reading is what you say. To *other* people the plain reading is different.
I, for example, don’t think the plain reading of something typically involves taking the union of definitions for each word in the sentence. To me, most plain readings involve selecting the single most appropriate definition for a word based on the surrounding context.
My point is that there isn’t an objectively correct “plain reading”. You are not the arbiter of what a plain reading is, nor am I.
Would you agree that different people can read the same sentence and in good faith have a different understanding of what “the plain reading” is?
I agree with you, it totally fails the gut check, but it is because the law is poorly written. The Supreme Court bailed out the lawmakers by winging it here. The minority opinion is the worse, but more accurate plain reading of the law.