He's one of the site's longest-standing users, but his arguments aren't making much sense. I'm sure he can do better, but he's too stubborn to let this go.
I wish this site were a little more relaxed.
"What isn’t mentioned in the analysis is that we ran a System 1 decision model on each dataset to determine whether it contained privacy-sensitive data. Using a confidence threshold of 85%, we found that nearly 4,000 websites leaked such information."
This to me is proof that you actually downloaded the data, you would not have been able to present the conclusions that you did.
Anyway, I wish you best of luck with this whole affair, you did a great job at identifying a vulnerability, and then you turned it into an actual data breach. I hope that lawyer is willing to sign off on you having destroyed the data because that might become a very important issue.
You seem to be confusing what feels intuitively wrong with what is actually unlawful. Law doesn't work on feelings. Where are the terms of use? Do they explicitly prohibit this kind of access? How do they define it?
If a website publishes data and provides a public key that automatically allows a browser to retrieve it, without credentials or bypassing authentication, good luck arguing that security was actually bypassed.
Also, OP mentions confidential information. That doesn't automatically make neathack liable. If I publish someone's medical records in a publicly accessible comment here, are you liable for reading them, or am I liable for publishing them on a website with essentially no access controls?
>an actual leak
Got a link? Or "just trust me, bro"?
>I would bet a sizeable amount of money
Unfortunately, my religion prohibits gambling, which we consider degenerate behavior. But by all means, keep the confidence. It would be even more impressive if it came with an actual legal argument.