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Re:Governor vows criminal prosecution of reporter who found ... by bawolff on Thursday October 14, 2021 @02:55PM (#28868412)
I think the analogy would be going up to the desk and saying: my id number is X (when its really Y), can i have my file.

If you convince them that you really are X and they give you the file, i think that would be considerd fraudulent. Whether or not an injury takes place to raise it to the level of fraud i guess depends on what was in the file, but in countries with strong privacy laws, someone would probably be in a heap of trouble.

Re:Governor vows criminal prosecution of reporter who found ... by strofcon on Thursday October 14, 2021 @03:32PM (#28868889)
Except that's not at all what they did - they simply accessed files that had been made public by the service provider.

To be able to login as BoBibbidyFooBar, and subsequently access ANY company's info in the system without changing their identity from BoBibbidyFooBar does not, in any way, constitute any sort of fraud. It literally cannot, by any sensible definition.

Re:Governor vows criminal prosecution of reporter who found ... by kelnos on Thursday October 14, 2021 @04:35PM (#28869696)
Intent matters. The service provider clearly did not intend that the files should be public. They screwed up, and they should take responsibility for that. But that doesn't make it ok to know about the security issue and download as many documents as you can in order to use them for your own purposes. Perhaps that wouldn't be "fraud" based on whatever definition you're using, but it's clearly unethical and immoral, and IMO hopefully illegal as well.
Re:Governor vows criminal prosecution of reporter who found ... by jjav on Thursday October 14, 2021 @03:46PM (#28869038)
> I think the analogy would be going up to the desk and saying: my id number is X (when its really Y), can i have my file.

Not at all because what you describe involves impersonating someone else.

In the OP case, they were authenticated in the session as themselves and always acted under the truthful identity and asked for a document and access was granted.

So the analogy would be going up to the desk and saying: I'm John Doe, my id number is X (truthful value), could I see file ABC? And the attendant checks that id==X does have access to document ABC, and thus hands it over.

Re:Governor vows criminal prosecution of reporter who found ... by jaywalk on Thursday October 14, 2021 @03:42PM (#28868996)
Nope, no way. Your analogy is wrong.

A better analogy would you asking for your files, and then the secretary taking you to a filing cabinet containing everyone's files right there with yours. You don't have to lie about who you are, you can just look at other files because they're right there in the place that you were just given access to.

Re:Governor vows criminal prosecution of reporter who found ... by celtain on Thursday October 14, 2021 @04:50PM (#28869899)
How is that analogy wrong? Both in terms of the technical implementation and the subjective user experience, you're making separate requests for a document each time.

Analogies are always going to be imperfect, but I can't see the argument that the "separate request" analogy is any worse than yours, let alone "wrong".

Re:Governor vows criminal prosecution of reporter who found ... by Spivak on Thursday October 14, 2021 @04:22PM (#28869527)
And even in that case you're still not allowed to look at other people's documents. Like it doesn't matter that they're right in front of you, you still haven't been given authorization.
Re:Governor vows criminal prosecution of reporter who found ... by tragictrash on Thursday October 14, 2021 @03:13PM (#28868660)
But they didn't do that. They just asked for a different file, not misrepresenting their identity.
Re:Governor vows criminal prosecution of reporter who found ... by Retric on Thursday October 14, 2021 @03:18PM (#28868725)
He had already given his correct details to be able to view plans. It’s like calling the cops to get your accident report then asking for the next higher numbers and they give it to you.