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Re:Using TypeScript to Obtain One of the Rarest License Plates by cyral on Thursday December 18, 2025 @11:52AM (#46315185)
Different scenario but it reminds me of when Missouri prosecuted a reporter who found that teacher's SSN numbers were exposed in the HTML of a webpage

> "Parson described the journalist as a “perpetrator” who “took the records of at least three educators, decoded the HTML source code, and viewed the Social Security number of those specific educators” in an “attempt to steal personal information and harm Missourians.”"

Re:Using TypeScript to Obtain One of the Rarest License Plates by consp on Thursday December 18, 2025 @12:51PM (#46316079)
Isn't html copyrightable and thus it is a publication? (And thus exposed by the author). Or am I in the wrong ballpark here?
Re:Using TypeScript to Obtain One of the Rarest License Plates by ryanmcbride on Thursday December 18, 2025 @01:42PM (#46316749)
It doesn't matter. The judges who pass these sentences don't know enough about the systems to understand whether or not a crime has been committed and they simply don't care.
Re:Using TypeScript to Obtain One of the Rarest License Plates by phyzome on Thursday December 18, 2025 @08:04PM (#46321068)
No. Imagine you wrote a personal diary entry in a text file on your computer, and only afterwards wrapped it in HTML tags. Did you just make it a document intended for broad publication?
Re:Using TypeScript to Obtain One of the Rarest License Plates by dhosek on Thursday December 18, 2025 @10:29PM (#46321991)
What makes something a publication is the act of publishing, not the format that it takes.¹ Copyright is implicitly granted at publication² although registration is required in order to sue for infringement.³

⸻

1. Within some limitations: certain types of creative works, most notably typefaces, are excluded from copyright law, although it was determined that digital font files that describe the outlines of the characters are programs and thus eligible for copyright. Bitmap font files on the other hand, as an expression of a typeface design are not eligible for copyright.

2. Although works created by federal employees as part of their job are explicitly excluded from copyright protection.

3. Note though, that the timing of the registration impacts what you can sue for. If registration takes place after the infringement you can only sue for actual damages, but if it takes place before the infringement you can sue for punitive damages.⁴

4. I should add the obligatory disclaimers that all of the above only describes US copyright law and also I’m not a lawyer (although I did used to watch Law and Order a lot) so everything in this comment could quite likely be completely wrong.

Re:Using TypeScript to Obtain One of the Rarest License Plates by wvenable on Friday December 19, 2025 @12:42AM (#46322578)
Raw data isn't copyrightable. You can't copyright the contents of phone book, for example.
Re:Using TypeScript to Obtain One of the Rarest License Plates by gpm on Thursday December 18, 2025 @02:40PM (#46317531)
That didn't actually happen. The governor threatened to prosecute, and ordered the police to produce a report on their investigation into the matter. The police complied producing a report saying the person the governor wanted to prosecute did nothing wrong.
Re:Using TypeScript to Obtain One of the Rarest License Plates by sunaookami on Friday December 19, 2025 @05:38AM (#46324315)
Reminds me of a German developer that got prosecuted because he opened an EXE file with notepad and found a hardcoded database password there: https://www.heise.de/en/news/Modern-Solution-Convicted-IT-ex...

>The password to this database was stored unencrypted in an executable file of the middleware product and was the same for all Modern Solution customers

>Modern Solution then reported the security researcher to the police, who searched his home and confiscated his work equipment

>The programmer has thus been sentenced to a fine of 3,000 euros and must bear the costs of the proceedings