Reuters Accused Of Hacking For Typing In URL 569
Aexia writes "Intentia International, a company in Sweden, is suing Reuters for publishing an earnings report posted on their website prior to its official release. The catch? The report couldn't be accessed through 'normal channels', you had to know, or guess, what address to type in order to retrieve it. The precedent this case sets will be interesting. If you don't use a hyperlink on a website, are you committing a crime? You can also read Intentia's take on the situation."
Related: what about referer logs (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's [slashdot.org] a related thread from yesterday.
Re:Related: what about referer logs (Score:5, Interesting)
This story sounds like someone got careless, and didn't lock down the folder the data lived in.
Sounds also like someone (their admin?) is trying to cover up the error by reporting to his (clueless?) bosses that obviously it was hacked, else how could they -ever- get that information, right? (yeah, right.)
Perhaps the admin should check out this handy url and order his copy soon.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1
I know I did, and it's invaluable.
Re:Related: what about referer logs (Score:4, Insightful)
While I'd normally agree, if its protected by some kind of protection (htaccess) - even if its really weak, accessing in would be cracking, same as if a door in a house is open, you still cant nick the TV.
Of course in this case google would have spidered the report before long and they cant prosecute an automatic robot can they?
Re:Related: what about referer logs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Related: what about referer logs (Score:5, Insightful)
But, wouldn't most search engines also at least try to grab index.html on directories in which they've found other files?
Of course, I doubt that's what happened here. From what I can tell on the "victim" website, Reuters just guessed what the URL for the report would be. Who hasn't done that before, in some way or another (e.g. guessing what a broken URL was supposed to be)?
There's clearly NO access control here, except a shining example of how security through obscurity is NOT security at all.
Xentax
Re:Related: what about referer logs (Score:5, Informative)
No, Googlebot needs a link.
No, it doesn't.
Google plays tricks with servers. With apache, for instance it tries the venerable www.site.com/?M=A and ?S=D, ?N=A etc. tricks. If Apache isn't locked down, it'll happily bypass index.html and give you directory listings, and then spider any subdirectories using the same method. I had several of my unpublished directories found by google this way.
Re:Related: what about referer logs (Score:5, Interesting)
I was running the Google Toolbar, and I had some un-linked content on our live web server. Then my boss just happened to be searching for some of that info on Google, and bam! The "secret" pages on our web server show up! Content that was indeed on the web but did not have any outside hyperlinks pointing to it was being cached by Google.
How did Google find it? The only thing I can think of is that the Google Toolbar noticed that I went to that unpublished URL and "phoned home." (By the way, the web server is running IIS 5.0/Windows 2000, so I doubt those Apache tricks would work, though there must be similar tricks for IIS.)
Re:Related: what about referer logs (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Related: what about referer logs (Score:5, Insightful)
> While I'd normally agree, if its protected by some kind of protection (htaccess) - even if its really weak, accessing in would be cracking, same as if a door in a house is open, you still cant nick the TV.
No, the correct analogy is "if you stand naked in your doorway you can't complain about everyone seeing your naughties".
Re:Related: what about referer logs (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Related: what about referer logs (Score:5, Interesting)
Furthermore, there are "Peeping Tom" laws for residences and businesses. So, even looking in, if I leave the blinds up, can be illegal.
Kierthos
Re:Related: what about referer logs (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that my house isn't a public place.
The report was put in a PUBLIC location. Therefore it's up to them to restrict access. Simply "not telling anyone" isn't restricting access.
Re:Related: what about referer logs (Score:5, Insightful)
Whine and moan all they want, they still stuck it in a public place. They should have stuck it behind a locked closed door. Then it's secure. If you bust open the door, that would be a crime. Finding something sitting in a public place that's not advertised is not a crime.
Re:Related: what about referer logs (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyone who has a web site probably has unlinked pages hanging around, or directories excluded from indexing with robots.txt. The difference is that most of us are smart enough to realize that those pages aren't private or secure, just out of the way and unlikely to be seen. Intentia apparently has trouble grasping this concept.
Re:Related: what about referer logs (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong. A Domino server out of the box includes full HTTP services. This is part of the generic install. No additional HTTP software is needed, although you *can* configure Domino to use an alternative HTTP stack if you prefer.
Why isn't there a moderation setting for "incorrect?"
Re:Related: what about referer logs (Score:3, Interesting)
and I would say that getting the password list is no sort of crime. Using the passwords, however, would be.
Re:Related: what about referer logs (Score:4, Interesting)
An employee of a company takes their earnings report to a trainstation and leaves it there. A random person who happends to be a journalist picks it up and reads it through. He realises that this is dynamite since his paper will be the first one printing it so he decides to print it.
Now will that journalist be guilty of espinage or will the employee at the company be the one to blame? I think none doubts it will be the employee making the mistake and I can't see the difference in puting it on their official website. Of course none knows what it is and it's hard to find just like a random paper in a train station. But the fact remains, someone at the company put the secret paper in a public forum in which someone happend to find it.
I wonder what will happend if they win the sue. Will everyone linking to a page be forced to check constatly that the site they are linking to still has an 'official' link to the document, or risk facing charges?
Stating the obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stating the obvious (Score:5, Interesting)
Yesterday, I, as an IT professional that makes purchasing decision for a large organisation, had never heard from this company. Now I know they make Collaborative Solutions. All it cost them was a bogus courtcase with Reuters.
This is clever marketing, nothing more, nothing less. Anyone can spot the lack of merits of this case from a mile away. Brand and name recognition of this company is soaring though. I wonder how their stock price is taking it?
Any publicity is good publicity? (Score:4, Interesting)
Frankly, this is a pretty bad way to get your name out - an IT company that doesn't understand the web any better than this? I wouldn't hire them to do anything, they sound totally incompetent. But they say any publicity is good publicity...
Re:Stating the obvious (Score:3, Informative)
Was recovering from a nose dive until the 21st, and since then has been plummeting again. See Intentia's investor relations site [intentia.com].
Also see Cowan Research LC [eventstudy.com], which makes a software package called Eventus to do event studies [eventstudy.com]
Re:Stating the obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
This company clearly messed up. A news agency got some information (and not by hacking!) and published it. The information wasn't fraudulant. If it was false, it wasn't with a disregard for the truth--after all, it was in a document on the company's website. But the company in question didn't like the fact that the information got out, so they sue the news company.
Forget terrorism and its effect on "free speech and free press" (right now a mostly US-centric concern) the real danger is big budget corporations who have the money and time to spend taking you to court because they didn't like what you had to say. It's scary, folks, and it's not getting any better.
Re:Stating the obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with your analogy is that they didn't even use a lock and key. Their doors were open for business and now they are getting mad that someone came in before they could put up the big neon "OPEN" sign.
Re:Stating the obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
People walking by in the street can not be charged with peeping if they see you walking naked in youre house. Not even if they have to turn their heads to do it. Simply claiming that since you are doing it in youre own house you are supposed to have privacy is not valid. You have to draw the curtains for the expectancy of privacy to be granted.
Now the question is, did they have the curtains drawn. I personally think not. It will be intressting to see what the law has to say about it.
Re:Stating the obvious (Score:4, Insightful)
He could not. If you put something on a
It has nothing to do with peeping either. There's no 'smaller hole' you have to go through technically in order to obtain the requested document from the server. http://www.company.com/secretreports.html is just as available as http://www.company.com/index.html. Site portals are just yellow pages that help you find those URLs. Am I forbidden to dial a phone number that I didn't find in the phone book?
If you want to protect a secret and assume that something will remain hidden, you need to take
Re:Stating the obvious (Score:4, Insightful)
The plaintiff did not have the metaphorical curtains drawn. There was no realistic way to know the report was supposed to be hidden. The lack of a hyperlink to that report could mean a million different things--they forgot to add the link, they were publishing the report's URL in meatspace media, the link was in a place the defendant didn't know about, the link was propagated via email (hence not visible on any website), or whatever.
But there's only one good way to tell people to stay away from a given web document--the 403 response code.
The simplest common-sense defense would be to remind the court that the plaintiff's server gave a 200 response code. Defendants asked for a document and plaintiff provided it, where is the tort?
Re:Stating the obvious (Score:3, Insightful)
A web site is not a store. A web site is like the window of a store.
If you go and look at the window and see something half hidden in a corner, something that was not supposed to be left seen to all, at least not yet, you shouldn't be blamed.
If the shop owner doesn't want you to see it, it lets it in the storage room.
'nuf said.
Re:Stating the obvious (Score:3, Interesting)
Online or not. (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh, great! (Score:2, Funny)
Ridiculous! (Score:2, Funny)
Besides, isn't 'regulating access to private information on a public website' what httaccess was for?
Re:Ridiculous! (Score:5, Interesting)
Similar Australian case (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems there was an Asutralian Government site for information about your tax status. You entered your tax file number (same as the US SSN), plus a little more information to verify your identity, and then were shown a page with some tax information of some sort.
One man noticed that the page he was eventually directed to was http://somethingsomething.gov.au/something.asp?tf
BLING! Someone else's tax information pops up! No security at all, someone had just dumped this simple database-access script on the web for all to see! He tells someone in the tax department (big mistake) about the security flaw and POW a piano falls on his head. Metaphorically speaking.
Are there any Aussies in the audience who remember any more details about this one? It was at least 3 years ago.. can't remember the final outcome.
Re:Ridiculous! (Score:3, Informative)
Stupidity (Score:5, Insightful)
"Reuters News Agency Broke into Intentia's IT Systems"
I would not call it breaking in to surf on someones homesite.
"there was an unauthorized entry via an IP-address belonging to Reuters"
What do they mean, do I have to call them and ask for permission before accessing files publically available on their homesite?
As Reuters didn't steal anything, but simply pointed at on open window (that they found) I would have to say that their act was not illegal. What they should investigate is their internal safety policies, because they need a revision or two (IMHO).
Re:Stupidity (Score:4, Insightful)
Once this information was in the puiblic domain then I think their best policy would have been to do nothing, perhaps just issue the information with the best spin they could.
Taking them to court seems like a REALLY BAD idea.
Silly (Score:2, Insightful)
Nothing to do with links. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not about the existence (or not) of the link, but the source of the URL. While I don't agree with it, I think what they are saying is that if a site doesn't publish a URL (usually through a link, but could be in print, etc) it is not public information and accessing it is unauthorised access. This is the same attitude (if not specific issue) that has a problem with deep-linking [slashdot.org] too.
Re:Nothing to do with links. (Score:3, Funny)
If your web server hands something out to the public, it is because you made it available. If I fat finger an entry into my browser, am I hacking, or just a bad typist? This all goes back to due diligence on the part of the company. If you are careless with your information, like not shredding it, and someone finds it in a dumpster, you are at fault. This is a key notion of trade secret law, and something similar should apply here. Security by obscurity doesn't work.
that's cold man. (Score:2, Insightful)
However, it depends upon what you do with this so-called unpublished material.
What Reuters did exposed the company to a situation before they were ready. Seems to me like the company should have taken more adequate security such as using htaccess passwords, etc.
I court I hope Reuters don't get busted for accessing the information, but for publishing details about it. After all I'm sure that the company in question had a copyright notice on all their pages, right?
Re:that's cold man. (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is precisely what you'd expect them to do, Reuters being a press agency and all.
I court I hope Reuters don't get busted for accessing the information, but for publishing details about it.
Damn straight. If it weren't for those goddamned financial journalists, I bet Enron would still be trading today. The freedom of the press has got no business interfering with our right to earn a dishonest dollar.
After all I'm sure that the company in question had a copyright notice on all their pages, right?
So what? Do you really believe Reuters breached their copyright in the report?
Get a jar of glue, man.
mandatory pr0n reference (Score:5, Funny)
it doens't take long to figure out where the other pics are.
Re:mandatory pr0n reference (Score:5, Funny)
Re:mandatory pr0n reference (Score:4, Funny)
There are technical solutions (Score:5, Insightful)
If the publishers of the resource wanted to limit access to the resource they could add authentication, referer checking, or a timestamp check - anything, really. Since they did not, I fail to see how they can have a case.
"Security through obscurity", like having a non-linked but available resource, is self delusion.
Re:There are technical solutions (Score:4, Insightful)
That's one of those mantras that get repeated until people believe they're true.
Fact is, all security is obscurity. Security rests on the notion of a shared secret. Some key that both you and the other guy know.
In my opinion, any HTTP GET request is exactly that, a request. "May I have that resource, Server Sir?".
So if I add a login header, is that just another GET request? It's the difference between http://root:12345@www.0wn3d.com/ and http://www.0wn3d.com/.
Or what if I add an obscure folder name to the URL like sf908h234ff98hs9f?
You might argue that the actual crime was in obtaining the password, and I agree that (for example) fraudulently claiming to be an employee (psychological hacking) is criminal, but it's a seperate offense.
That's why breaking into someone's house is "breaking & entry." Even if you don't have to break in, entering is still criminal.
The problem with "ah well, these guys were just poking around, the publishers should have used proper security" is that it raises the bar of what security is to what we experts think it ought to be. Many people don't have the capability to employ such measures, so we're denying them legal recourse.
It would cause the same kind of division in society as if we had a law that said burglary doesn't count unless you have an expensive security system.
Re:There are technical solutions (Score:5, Interesting)
1. These people are experts.
2. From a practical viewpoint, it should not have been on that server if it wasn't to be served. Anyone with sensitive data should at least be able to employ that measure.
3. Why should they have legal recourse against typing things in the address bar of a browser?
Re:There are technical solutions (Score:5, Insightful)
No. In that case, you're trying to circumvent (by having illegally obtained or by guessing the password) a security measure. (Also see below.)
No. There is a difference between trying to receive information (i.e. trying to have it delivered to me), and trying to actively enter someone else's property. The breaking-in analogy is fundamentally flawed, at least as long as we're not talking about trying to circumvent any security that is installed (e.g. trying to guess passwords -- that would be trying to actively enter).
Also note that houses (and physical locations in general) usually make it quite obvious whether they're supposed to be public or private. All private houses, even if they have no locks or security systems, have an implicit security mechanism: doors. Even if they're unlocked, closed doors tell most people not to enter unless invited by someone opening the door, or by a sign that tells them it's public. Why do you think most stores have doors that allow you to look into the store, that have obvious "open" signs, and that sometimes even open for you automatically? It's a way of telling people that the door is, unlike most other doors, not intended to keep them out.
URLs, however, are all designed the same way, there is no obvious difference between private and public resources. The only way to recognize them as private is to request them and see if a password request will show up. And experience suggests that most URLs are public.
Making it potentially illegal to try an URL will get you into the same legal problems as trying to make a difference between precise links ("deep links") and generic links (links to front pages).
Some of the questions you'd have to answer are:
I am a webmaster myself, and I do agree that there are some requests that are sent with obviously malicious intentions (e.g. requests for cmd.exe etc.). But I am also a web user, and I don't want browsing the web to become a legal risk simply because I know how URLs work and make use of that knowledge. Some web site operators seem to believe that simply because they intended their visitors to behave in a certain way, and didn't provide any means for the users to behave differently, that anything but what they expect you to do should be illegal.
There is a difference between an author telling you that it makes sense to read chapter four of his book before reading chapter five, and an author trying to put you in jail for reading chapter five first anyway.
Re:There are technical solutions (Score:3, Insightful)
- If you have requested, by following a link, the resource
/some/path/document, and get a 404 Page not Found error, is it legal for you to try accessing /some/path/ by changing the URL in your browser's URL field?
By all means it should be. The URL is just a location. Any use of the URL for "security" purposes isn't really much of a solution, as there are better/less revealing methods for implemeting security checks, such as HTTP Auth. and Cookies. If you wish for a directory to not be listed, add an index.html to it with a "denied listing" message, or better yes, switch auto-indexing off on your server, which will result in a 404 error every time if this is attempted.- Is it legal to type some domain name into your browser, even if it is not published anywhere? (E.g. you're looking for Foo Corporation's web site and try www.foo.com.)
Once again, it very well should be, unless that domain is restricted somehow. Any website that leaves access open and free to all is just that: open and free to all. It's like a big, open field anyone can walk into. If you want your site to be restricted, web browsers and servers provide the capability to "put a fence aroudn that field", i.e. authentication methods and sessions, again through HTTP Auth and Cookies.- If you're currently reading
/2001/some-report, and you think that the year 2002 record would be more interesting, would you not try to type /2002/some-report into your browser?
If the site owner woudl not liek to allow this (i.e. you must pay for each report, or maybe you must view them in some order so as not to get the wrong idea about something, who knows) once again sessions and auth methods are availible, and also check the HTTP_REFERER, make sure the page in question is being accessed only from an authorized source. This also prevents deep linking, and through the use of logging can even report "offenders" to the webmaster. Of course, if they can't access your site, there is no need to take legal action against them, a nice friendly e-mail explaining not to deep link will sufice for most.- If you're reading a structured document, e.g. an online book or a howto article, and you're currently reading
/3-1, and you realize you'd like to skip chapter three but the "Next" link points to /3-2, is it legal for you to type /4 into your browser?
As long as there is no reason for the site to be restricting you from chapter 4, again the responsibility of the webmaster. If you want to keep people out of a room, you should lock it. It doesn't matter if it's illegal for people to go there, at the very least someone will wander in on accident. We dont' depend on laws to tell people not to rob our houses, we lock the doors so people can't get in.- If you follow a link and get a 404, and the URL looks like the webmaster simply made a typo, is trying to correct the URL illegal without permission?
I would certianly hope not...- If any of the above is illegal, but someone did it anyway and then published the URL on his web site, without telling how he found it, is it illegal to click? To copy and paste?
It's illegal for him to tell you, and if the webmaster took any precautions to keep the URL save other than "obscurity" then your actions are illegal too. However, if the URL is simply open for the taking, there is nothing that can be done about your clicking or copy + pasting. This is where the web differs from real life. If someone trold you "Hey, go through this hidden door and take what you want!" it's illegal. By the very nature of the web, any door left open is an invitation to the public. Webmasters need to be less lazy and realize this is the way it is, and they need to take protective measures for sensitive data.Hope that all made sense, I am late for class so no time for revision! *runs*
Re:There are technical solutions (Score:3, Insightful)
Some might say that a server is like a house, a proper house has a security system and locks. People are free to stand around on the sidewalk, and have a look at your lawn flamingo's, but they may not try to enter the house unless they have been given specific permission to do so, which would be implied with the giving of the security code and a key to the front door.
I prefer to think of a server as more of candy at someone's desk. Some candy may be sitting in a bowl on the edge of the desk where all may freely partake of it. Other candy may be locked up in their drawer, or failing drawers, at least hidden from view. Unless you've been given specific permission to have candy locked up in someone's drawer, you may not have any. Someone wishing to protect their candy needs to do this. Simly placing a blank sheet of paper over the "protected" candy bowl is *not* sufficient to indicate that you don't want people to partake of that candy.
What that breaks down to is that having an easily guessed URL as the only obscurity to protect sensitive information (eg, http://server/2001-report/ with the sensitive one at http://server/2002-report/) is only a blank sheet of paper, it does not indicate that the information in 2002-report is sensitive. If they wished to protect their information, they should use whatever security means are at their disposal, which you're right, may not include technical know-how, but it *does* include the common sense know-how of at least making the URL http://server/randomstring/.
In my mind, the real issue here is that the "attacked" company failed to sufficiently indicate that the information was sensitive. It's very easy to imagine that Reuters was browsing for the report, couldn't find the link, so did what I myself have done countless times, assume that the information is intended to be public, but that some error has prevented it from being displayed that way (a sheet of paper fell off the shelf on top of the candy bowl), and so simply changed a 2001 to a 2002, and removed the sheet of paper.
Re:There are technical solutions (Score:3, Informative)
Wrong. The security guard at the bank who's holding a rather impressive weapon isn't the slightest bit obscure. The security he provides is based on not being obscure.
Re:There are technical solutions (Score:3, Informative)
Re:There are technical solutions (Score:3, Insightful)
There are a couple of points being argued in these threads. You make a good one: it is a request, but it has undesirable side effects.
I would say that, legally, this situation could be viewed as some sort of cold caller. You may be offered a free holiday, or you may be offered an investment. Here, "you" is the web server. You get asked for your name, some information about you (content pages), etc, which you're happy to give.
Now you get asked if you want a free holiday. That's okay. You get the holiday, subject to terms and conditions you don't like, but there was no criminal misrepresentation. But what if you get offered an investment, which happens to be a pyramid scheme? Its offered as a sound investment, but its not -- that is fraud.
I would liken your example to fraud: it is a deliberate and malicious attempt to use a request/offer in a damaging way.
The original example (Reuters), however, is a more difficult case. In some ways its like asking someone what they earn, or what their social security number is, or their credit card number. Asking is not illegal, and if they give you the information you have obtained it legally. However, the manner in which you USE that information may be illegal! Having been given information does NOT give you the right to (re)publish it.
As such I would argue that what Reuters did is not hacking. They did not bypass any protection mechanism, they just asked intelligent questions. On the other hand, using such information may have been illegal (I don't know how they made use of it).
if Intentia prevails, it would be very bad (Score:5, Insightful)
In some areas of law, it's unavoidable drawing fuzzy boundaries and considering intent. However, in this case, anybody who wants to protect their information on the web easily can, using standard web access control schemes; they don't need to rely on using obscure URLs. Let's not burden the courts with this.
This is part of a more general and disturbing trend, where lazy system admins don't spend the time set up their systems correctly, or management hires incompetent and cheap staff, and then try to use the court system and police (i.e., taxpayer money) to make up for their own shortcomings.
Confidence (Score:5, Funny)
Um, yeah. If you cant tell the difference between 'storing confidential data in an access controlled place on your internal network' and 'storing confidential data on an open-for-all external site' it sure will damage my confidence in Intentia as a company. Incompetent is a fairly fitting description.
Re:Confidence (Score:5, Funny)
From Intentia's homepage [intentia.com], as in -the- front page:
-
Our mission is to pursue the perfect partnership, providing security in our customers' transformation to collaborative business models.
Did anyone say -security-? This is really hilariuosThey screwed up and blaims Reuters. (Score:2)
I relly hope that the court handling this case will understand how a webserver functions. In that case its all clear whos to blame.
Mantra (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't want people to read something, don't put it on the Internet.
Raises some interesting ideas (Score:3, Interesting)
First, Reuters' position would probably be that the data was on a public network which was in plain view as long as the url is typed in. I myself do this all the time, why go to www.microsoft.com, click once on support, then click on download when I know the url I want is www.microsoft.com/download. It saves time and trouble. However their "accidental" stumbling upon of this data, which is far more important than anything I'd ever likely find on accident would most likely not fall into the same category. IANAL, but at the same time I would argue that anything they don't want leaked shouldn't be put online anyway, and espically without any security.
However, I can see Intentia International's point of view. What's to stop someone from simply hitting their webserver with every alpha-numeric combination possible. They'll eventually come across the correct one for some piece of information which had gone previously undiscovered because it was to be placed up at a time which was decided by Intentia or any other company for that matter. I could see a moldy old judge siding with them, saying that using "www.intentia.com/~a2eslcf/info/docs/hidden883/fin ancial reports.html" for example would constitute an attempt at placing some level of security on the data for the time being, almost a password. And, scarily enough if they showed a direct relationship between all pages not yet linked and their corresponding URL perhalps a big fat DMCA case might come about if Reuters or someone figured that "~a2eslcf" meant "third quarter" in some sorry 2 bit encryption.
Re:Raises some interesting ideas (Score:5, Insightful)
Dumbass:But your honor, that man has stolen a hundred dollars from me! I think I made a reasonable attempt to hide it by keeping it in an old shoe in a hedge at the local park. Who would think to look there?
Re:Raises some interesting ideas (Score:4, Insightful)
Except (to streach the anology to its limits), a public web server is like putting a sign on your garden gate saying "Open to the public".
url's are like phone numbers (Score:5, Insightful)
The company homepage, www.corp.com, is like the main switchboard number, say 555-1000.
URL's reachable through the home page (www.corp.com/foo/bar) are like internal extensions you can find through the voice menu system (555-1357).
The link with the earnings report is like an extension (555-2468) not on the voice menu, that came off somebody's business card or answering machine or some unknown channel.
That's it. Reuters is being sued over something very much like calling an unlisted direct phone number inside some company. How they got the phone number is, well, irrelevant. They're a news organization, they have reporters, whose job is digging up info like phone numbers.
Deep linking works the same way for anyone else too, of course. Like duh, if you don't want something to be reachable without going through the switchboard, don't give it a direct number exposed to the outside world.
Definition... and metaphorical example... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a bit /.'ed, here's the text (Score:3, Funny)
The investigation has shown that there was an unauthorized entry via an IP-address belonging to Reuters using an exploit in the web server. The entry took place at 11:51 pm on October 24th 2002, prior to the publication of the interim report for the fourth quarter of 2002. At approximately 12:57 pm, Reuters published the first news flash giving information on Intentia's third quarter result, without prior confirmation from the Company. Intentia issued its earnings report ahead of schedule at 1:22 pm that same day. "The incident has severely damaged confidence in us as individuals and in Intentia as a company, and has cost millions of dollars worth of damages" says Björn Flänsost, CEO of Intentia International AB.
"We question the methods used by Reuters, and our judgement is that we have been the target of illegal actions. As a consequence we will file criminal charges regarding the incident, and will seek the maximum penalties for all those involved" says Björn Flänsost.
On Thursday, Intentia contacted the Stockholm Stock Exchange regarding an internal investigation of the incident. "We will disclose to the Stockholm Stock Exchange all technical details on how the intrusion was made, which will allow them to share this information with other listed companies, so that actions preventing similar events in the future can be made," concludes Björn Flänsost.
Not everyone in the world is a /.'er (Score:4, Interesting)
While most everyone here will agree that Reuters at worst could have their actions describe as exploiting Intentia's utter stupidity, quotes like this show how little some people know about computers. This guy obviously thinks that just because they didn't provide an explicit hyperlink that the data on their server is "confidential." What I fear is that some non-technology savvy judge will actually follow this same train of thought and rule against Reuters. Is this ridiculous? Yes. Is it unfortunately all too real of a possibility? Yes as well.
PS - I checked Netcraft and they are running Windows 2000 [netcraft.com]. Is it any surprise that their security guys would believe that data freely available on their server is secure if they also think a server on Win2k is secure in the first place?
Doesn't seem very serious of Intentia (Score:4, Informative)
AFAIK: There hasn't been a case like this in Scandinavia, so it could be interesting to see the outcome. Having read quite a lot of Norwegian and Swedish judgements on the subject, I think Intentia don't have a case as long as Reuters did not break any protection to get the documents.
Look! A snake! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm going outside, right now, with copies of some of my own financial statements.
I'm going to throw them onto the Main Street sidewalk, and stand just near enough to the pile that I can serve hastily-drawn lawsuit papers to anyone who dares to look.
The documents are undeniably my property, after all. Nobody has the right to see them unless I erect a big fucking sign pointing them out, even if they are scattered about a public walkway.
[Moral for the sarcasm-impaired: If you don't want your information to be public knowledge, now or ever, don't let it be publicly available. At all.]
A decent writeup, and an interesting question... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, this does raise an interesting question. If a page is put on the web that cannot be spidered, and cannot be reached from any publicly available page, can we assume that anyone who accesses that page has some sort of unauthorized information? I have never heard of hackers systematically trying IP addresses for content. And it is in fact likely that Reuters got the info from an employee... in violation of the employment agreement.
This should be a fascinating case, and not nearly as easy as the writeup makes it seem.
Thalia
It is Lotus Domino... (Score:5, Informative)
Please note that they are using Lotus Domino [lotus.com] as their web server. This means that there are no physical directories that you can chmod or "look into".
The URL contains the Domino internal document ID (similar to a GUID) and I still can not understand how Reuters "guessed" that. Sounds to me like this is an internal leak...
Re:It is Lotus Domino... (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.intentia.com/w2000.nsf/(files)/Inten
The previous quarters reports are also available under
Re:It is Lotus Domino... (Score:5, Informative)
First, you can have *really awful* Domino URLs. this was not one of them - they took the time in their DB design to make it a nice, easy on the eyes address.
Second, and more importantly, Domino makes Access Control trivial. It would have been the work of moments to make that db private. They didn't do that.
Finally, Domino regularly indexes all public databases on a site. The search engine can also parse PDF files. This makes all public documents findable unless you take measures to prevent indexing. Given how these monkeys set up the rest of their site, I wouldn't be surprised if this PDF was findable via the websites' regular search feature.
It looks like this company has *no clue* what they were doing, and is trying to blame someone else for it.
unlisted numbers (Score:3, Insightful)
Krikey. I just don't know where they find people this stupid. Same goes for this deep linking crap. Maybe people should have to pass some sort of test before they get to use the Internet. Otherwise the have to use AOL until they at least understand that anything you post to the web could be publically accessible.
Here in France (Score:4, Informative)
Like when the ATO was "hacked" (Score:3, Funny)
Well.... (Score:3, Funny)
What a bunch of dumbasses.
"The incident has severely damaged confidence in us as individuals and in Intentia as a company," says Björn Algkvist, CEO of Intentia International AB.
Translation: Now the whole world know we are a bunch of dumbasses. We have to blame someone.
What the law says: (Score:5, Interesting)
If they were to prosecute in the UK - I note Reuters replied to the allegations from their London HQ - here's what the law says:
So, it's quite straightforward really - if they can prove Reuters knew they weren't supposed to be looking at that material, then if the access was from the UK, a crime was committed.If Reuters can argue they didn't know the material was private, there is no case to answer.
Going back to the points some others have made about the information being publicaly accessible with no .htaccess protection, clearly this doesn't matter. If, for example, you were to make a clcik through that had to be viewed before you could see any of the content that stated the information was confidential then someone not supposed to be viewing it would be committing a crime to do so.
Re:What the law says: (Score:4, Funny)
You are not authorized to follow this hyperlink without first obtained written permission from me. [mshiltonj.com]
Reality? (Score:3, Informative)
IANAL, but I think they're stepping on thin ice because report was already uploaded to public accessible server and thus it should be considered published. Even if there was no hyperlink pointing to it Intentia didn't take any protective measure to restrict the access to the report. Reuters didn't have to circumvent any security measures so they can be hardly accused of hacking. And since the report was on public server they can't be accused of unathorized access. Another possible scenario is that Reuters've got the information about the document location from an insider, but the report was already accessible by public so i can't see any wrongdoing.
Intentia's mission statement ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Which roughly translates to: 'we want to use the internet securely'.
They then put some confidential information on their public website, and sue the first people to read it
Company philosophy (Score:5, Funny)
Our vision is to become the leading global collaboration solutions vendor by supplying our customers with tomorrow's solutions today.
Well as I see it Reuters only kept in line with their philosophy. So why are they pissed?
The Web is not a magazine!! (Score:5, Insightful)
All these companies seem to think that the Web is like a magazine: their neat little layout is all anyone should be allowed to use. But they forget that the Web was intentially designed to facilitate deep linking and URL-typing for the purpose of transparent information exchange. They don't get to decide the layout and presentation of the data once they publish it so that it is accessible through an URL.
There is nothing about implicit permission to view here. I assert that they are EXPLICITLY granting permission to any and all to view the document when they publish it via a non-password protected URL.
That is the very foundation of the Web...without it we have interactive television.
Other possibilities? (Score:3, Insightful)
While it may not be illegal to actually view and read this information, its potentially creating a conflict of interest for investors. If this was an earnings report published before its intended publication date, people will trade off that information. This could create a situation similar to insider trading.
And regardless of this, if it is proved that Reuters did this intentionally, they are totally at fault. They know this information affects the markets, and that the information gives their clients a (potentially unfair) competitive advantage.
If Intentia had an obvious Earnings Report or financial press release procedure, Reuters should know they will potentially be held responsible for releasing false information.
What if this wasn't the final Earnings Report? Than Reuters would potentially affect the trading of Intentia stock based on false information...
The best quote from Intentia's website (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah - no shit Sven, IT blunders with sensitive information tend to do that.
But hey, just to make sure that everyone's confidence in your company is shattered, why don't you do the American thing and file a 'It can't possibly be my fault' lawsuit.
And in further news... (Score:5, Funny)
From here, the hacker sent emails to a number of associates which read: "| 4m teh 1337 |-|aX0R!!!!!1 j00 4LL ArE Cr4P!!!"
"Frankly, we're shocked," said one Hotmail employee. "Who would have thought that URL's would give access to sites on the interweb?" he continued before returning to his task of spamming Hotmail's users.
The FBI are investigating the hacker, rumoured to be in junior high, as well as the distributor of the hacking software, a small company known as MicroSoft, already known for flouting the law. Updates as they come to hand.
Public viewing (Score:3, Insightful)
Another deep link to Intentia (Score:3, Funny)
And the magic URL is... (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.intentia.com/w2000.nsf/files/kjafd_0210 _us.pdf/$FILE/kjafd_0210_us.pdf
Now will someone who reads the relevant language tell me what, if anything 'kjafd' means? Links to other reports were all in a very similar vein, although the 'kjafd' part changes in a nonobvious pattern.
Still wrong (Score:3)
-John
Re:Still wrong (Score:3)
They made it world readable - end of story (Score:3, Insightful)
Google Take on Secret Servers (Score:5, Informative)
It's probably too late for this to do any google, but here's google's take on Secret Websites and URL guessing (from their webmaster's FAQ [google.com])
IMHO, If you put something out there, and don't restrict anyonymous access, the information is freely accessible. Access is implicitly given - you can restrict access, not grant it.Guessing the results URL was easy (Score:5, Interesting)
If you do a Google search for intentia results [google.com], at least one early entry points to the Intentia 'press room' containing an earlier quarterly results announcement. The announcement page itself [intentia.com] does have a 24 bit hex ID number in the URL (BA45EE etc) that would be hard to guess for a new quarter. But on the announcement page is this link:
Now the URL (which no longer works, natch) of the PDF file being linked to: is extremely easy to extrapolate to subsequent quarters. I have no doubt that's what Reuters did , for this company and many others with similarly easy naming schemes and early uploading schedules. And I have no doubt that other journalists pull the same trick. In this case, a company with results they'd rather nobody noticed has jumped at the opportunity to change the subject.College grades have similar 'security' (Score:3, Interesting)
If You Don't Want To Get Run Over... (Score:3, Insightful)
...don't play on the interstate.
If you don't want people to see your internal company data, don't put it on the Internet.
Got it boys and girls? Yes? OK, now we can have milk, graham crackers, and naptime.
The obvious conclusion... (Score:3, Funny)
However Intentia isn't alone in its accusations. Three other Scandinavian companies Nordea, the region's biggest bank; Fortum, the Finnish energy group; and Sweco, a small Swedish consultancy also claim that their results were published by Reuters ahead of their official release, the FT reports.
The obvious conclusion from this... is that Reuters is in posession of a time machine.
Sue the dickens out of anything that moves. (Score:3, Funny)
What URLS did they use? (Score:3, Insightful)
www.my.com/report2000.pdf
www.my.com/report2001.pdf
and the world is waiting for 2002 report, would it really be a surprise when millions try to download www.my.com/report2002.pdf one day before the actual release? Come on, _everybody_ would do that. Perhaps one should sue Intentia for violating some stock exchange rules by not protecting the data.
Very Familiar with their servers... (Score:3, Informative)
Technically speaking, I'm very familiar with the server platform they use (Domino) and it's extremely secure (NSA, CIA, etc use it). For them to characterize this as a 'break in' is stretching it a bit. Domino provides security from server level down to individual user roles and fields. It's very simple to secure a file or page. Additionally, the standard procedure is to not replicate data you don't want made public to an external box, just in case you forget to secure a document.
For those of you interested in the technical/legal issues of 'publishing' the link, let's not forget that Domino has a few well-known powerful facilities to search and index content on a site... (ie: ?SearchView)
Domino Developers Site [notes.net]
Search URL Syntax [lotus.com]
Documentation on R5 Search [lotus.com]
Documentation Library [lotus.com]
Completely disagree - form is the key... (Score:4, Insightful)
I completely disagree.
From what I gather from the posts on here, it seems that these guys have a webserver with little to no security on it. If you use a basic webcrawling program, it likely jumps from link to link, which is what we expect AOL users to do online. However, a good web crawler will also check the directory by default as well, to see if there is an index (I've seen some of this in MY referrer logs).
Given that this was sensitive data, it should have been protected. Claiming that it was by not publishing the URL is like sticking it in a window of a building with thousands of windows. Eventually someone may see it.
Your analogy of the credit card numbers would be valid IF they had swiped a password to get to that point. But the server didn't ask for authorisation by any means. It was happy with a basic URL. There's nothing ultra-special about the URL to suggest that it's attempting to be hidden either. I doubt the location was intended to change, but to just be linked to.
Basically, Reuters has provided good reporting using the skills available to anyone with a decent wewbcrawler who has a set list of websites to follow. And if they didn't get it that way but got it through an anonymous tip, that's classic reporting.
Re:Compare to "Peeping Tom" (Score:3, Insightful)
Unproven assumption. Reuters knew the URL it would be posted at, and kept looking at that URL until it appeared. Pecause it appeared on a public web server, they assumed it was published. Wrong, but how were they to know that?