• @[email protected]
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    469 months ago

    Back in undergrad, before Facebook went HTTPS only, I would setup “free wifi” and steal people’s cookies for shits and giggles. Use the cookies to authenticate with FB and send random messages to people.

    Looking back, I probably shouldn’t have been doing that. Definitely illegal.

    • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet
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      199 months ago

      They were just barely starting to get serious about legislating cyber security, so you were only maybe breaking some laws. I remember in the 90’s it was a lawless land. There were no laws against hacking, or at least none that anyone understood, and most sites had terrible security. I gained access to someone’s Hotmail once just by trying “anon/anon” as a user/pass combo. I also used to gain access to e-commerce customer databases just by googling certain SQL strings. I’d poke around and then send the webmaster an email letting them know their site was vulnerable.

      • @[email protected]
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        139 months ago

        There isn’t a law against hacking but I am sure there are other applicable laws when you do harm while hacking.

        • @[email protected]
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          99 months ago

          There is, it’s called CFAA and is absurdly broad. Pretty much any time you

          knowingly accessed a computer without authorization

          it’s technically illegal.

          • kase
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            59 months ago

            So you’re telling me every time I stole my sister’s phone and took goofy selfies with it?? Straight to jail???

              • kase
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                29 months ago

                (⁠ ⁠⚈̥̥̥̥̥́⁠⌢⁠⚈̥̥̥̥̥̀⁠)

            • @[email protected]
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              9 months ago

              Seems that way yeah. Naturally this sort of law is selectively enforced to nab whoever they have a problem with though so probably your sister doesn’t have the clout to bring you to justice.

    • @[email protected]
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      49 months ago

      Looking back, I probably shouldn’t have been doing that. Definitely illegal.

      You know that stuff you post on lemmy is probably on databases everywhere for like, forever, right?

      • @[email protected]
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        49 months ago

        Who’s gonna press charges for the “hey mom, today I ate my poo” message they sent 10 years ago ?

      • @[email protected]
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        29 months ago

        No one is going to press charges about me fucking around with their FB accounts 10 years ago.