Reading between the lines, it looks like the story behind the story here is that this security researcher followed responsible disclosure policies and confirmed that the vulnerabilities were fixed before making this post, but never heard back anything from the company (and thus didn’t get paid, although that’s only a fair expectation if they’ve formally set expectations for paying out on stuff like this ahead of time).
I’m curious about the legal/reputational implications of this.
I personally found some embarrassing security vulnerabilities in a very high profile tech startup and followed responsible disclosure to their security team, but once I got invited to their HackerOne I saw they had only done a handful of payouts ever and they were all like $2k. I was able to do some pretty serious stuff with what I found and figured it was probably more like a $10k-$50k vuln, and I was pretty busy at the time so I just never did all the formal write up stuff they presumably wanted me to do (I had already sent them several highly detailed emails) because it wouldn’t be worth a measly $2k. Does that mean I can make a post like this?
The screenshot of the email lacks detail so I don't know what part of the DMCA the author breached here, but this feels a lot like your standard DMCA abuse.
First thing first. This is NOT DMCA abuse. The DMCA is the only way to communicate with web companies and take down content. As such, it has become the legitimate way to take down any content that needs to be taken down, in the absence of alternatives.
Second, the author is posting zero-days with very detailed explanations to get access to internal systems of global corporations, affecting hundreds of thousands of employees and hundreds of millions of customers. There is legitimate purpose to take down the content.
There are some nuances to appreciate. Even if a vulnerability has been "closed" the day before posting, it's quite possible that the company barely had time to change "admin" to "admin2025". It's not gonna take a genius to try and pivot and steal all customers/employees data and ransomware the whole company, all thanks to the author detailed posting! Then the author will be found partly responsible and get 10 years in prison. (This circles back to why the DMCA had legitimate purpose in the first place, quite ironically to save both the author and the company!)
The author had multiple posts like that just in the last month. If I were the author. I'd start by observing a very strict 90 days window before any disclosure, starting from the time the company has been notified. Repeat every week at the start and then monthly, through different communication channels, to ensure they had more than enough time to receive and act. This could very well become the difference between a life and a life in prison.
This Burger King seems to do their job well, which is a nice change from the previous posts. They cut access within a day and DMCAed the article within hours.
As the author is quickly escalating their journey (can't be long before it's military, finance, oil), they're soon gonna find that the other party is more than willing to fight back, including DMCA, legal action, or sending hitman to your doors (yes this is a thing when you play in the big leagues!). Now is good time to figure out what they want to do next. Fighting the DMCA request is probably not it. :)
itake · 17m ago
I still don’t get it. What does copyright have to do with the post?
user5994461 · 10m ago
Why do you think copyright has anything to do with the post?
The only way to take down content is to fill a "DMCA" form to the provider, so Burger King filled a DMCA form to take down the content. If they had to fill a "foobar" form, they'd have filled a "foobar" form instead. It's just following the procedure that is available.
avs733 · 3h ago
Someone should see if YC will fund an ai-first company to help individuals and companies fight back against DMCA abuse and seek compensation
jagged-chisel · 46m ago
Interested to hear the financial model for this one.
esseph · 9m ago
Flat fee, plus percentage of the winnings from damage claims?
akerl_ · 10h ago
As a nitpick, you’re describing coordinated disclosure.
Branding it as “responsible” puts the thumb on the scale that somehow not coordinating with the vendor is irresponsible.
billy99k · 6h ago
It is irresponsible. It brings attention to an issue that has not yet been resolved, which will likely lead to users getting data stolen/scammed.
Even the most security-aware companies have a process to fix vulnerabilities, which takes time.
I would never hire someone that doesn't reaponsibly coordinate with the vendor. In most cases it's either malicious or shows a complete lack of good judgement.
In the case of bobdajrhacker? Both.
siffin · 5h ago
It could never be anywhere near as irresponsible as the original bad security practices, though. At some point, if you wanna make money by handling people's sensitive data, you are the responsible party, not everyone else.
Retric · 4h ago
Some companies will keep systems vulnerable indefinitely. If a company hasn’t fixed the issue in a year, public disclosure is likely a better option than doing nothing.
kevincox · 2h ago
Yes, that is why responsible disclosure almost always comes with deadlines. You give the chance for the company to resolve the issue and mitigate user impact. But if they are taking so long that the user impact will be higher than you just disclose.
saagarjha · 5h ago
Are you in a position to hire security engineers?
93po · 5h ago
users at large have a right to know if their data is being handled recklessly by any person or group, and just because some entity has arbitrary rules and poor communication/practices on how they want to tell them disclosures, it doesn't in any way make it irresponsible to let the public know: hey, your shit is getting recorded and is available for anyone to download and listen to.
LadyCailin · 10h ago
I would say that it is responsible disclosure. Or anyways, not doing that is irresponsible disclosure. The corporation may be hurt by early disclosure, and that’s whatever, but very often, there are a ton of ordinary people that are collateral damage, and the only thing they did wrong was exist in a society where handing over hoards of personal data to a huge corporation is unavoidable.
So yes, anyone who discloses before the company has had a reasonable chance to fix things is indeed irresponsible.
bobmcnamara · 7h ago
This seems to presume the company is ready and willing to take feedback.
Maybe things are better now.
Years ago the only contact for many companies was through customer service. "What do you mean you're in our computer? You're obviously on the phone!"
immibis · 6h ago
Also "Oh, you hacked us? We'll call the police right away. You're going to jail." - followed by you actually going to jail for many years. Sometimes, anonymous, public, uncoordinated disclosure actually leads to the best security outcome in the long run, since security researchers in jail isn't that.
bobmcnamara · 4h ago
Yes. I live in a state where a journalist reported a Department of Education system leaking teacher SSNs and the governor sent state troopers after him.
Doing the right thing can be awfully unpleasant.
dns_snek · 9h ago
You're assuming that the choice is between immediate public disclosure and coordinated disclosure. Doing "the responsible thing" takes effort that is often disrespected (sometimes to the extreme).
I'm so sick and tired of some companies that any vulnerability I find in their products going forward is an immediate public disclosure. It's either that or no disclosure, and it would be irresponsible not to disclose it at all.
bobmcnamara · 7h ago
Agreed.
Cracked a thrift store IoT medical device. Contacted vendor. They sent me a one way NDA. Lol no.
akerl_ · 9h ago
What about users who are affected by the vulnerability in the time it takes between reporting to the vendor and remediation?
llbbdd · 45m ago
That's the tradeoff. If you disclose it broadly without a grace period, someone who didn't even know about the vulnerability before will exploit it faster than even the best postured companies can fix it.
parineum · 9h ago
What you're describing as branding is actually an opinion. Calling it branding (with it's negative connotations) is putting the thumb on the scale.
akerl_ · 9h ago
I’m saying out loud “I think rebranding coordinated disclosure as responsible disclosure has negative impacts and we shouldn’t do it”.
Thats not putting my thumb on the scale so much as shouting my opinion. The rebrand puts its thumb on the scale specifically because it avoids saying “we think non-coordinated disclose is irresponsible”; it sneaks it under the name change.
BrenBarn · 5h ago
It won't change until there is better regulation with muscular enforcement. Right now the choice is between paying an $X bug bounty and the vague possibility of some problem for not paying a bounty (e.g., someone sues you, or a PR fiasco causes you to lose customers). That basically means a choice between a 100% chance of losing $X right now (to pay the bounty) or an unknown but probably low chance of an unknown but probably high cost later on. Without any specific incentives, most people making decisions at companies will just choose to gamble on the future, hoping that they can somehow dodge the consequences.
To change that calculus, the chance of that future cost needs to go up and the amount of it also needs to go up. If the choice is between a $100k bug bounty now and a $10-million-dollar penalty for a security breach, people will bite the bullet and pay the bounty. If the CEO knows he will lose his house if its discovered that he dismissed the report and benefited financially from doing so, he will pay the bounty.
The consequences need to be shifted to the companies that play fast and loose with customer data.
newman8r · 10h ago
> I’m curious about the legal/reputational implications of this.
The comments and headlines will be a bit snarkier, more likely to go viral - more likely to go national on a light news day, along with the human interest portion of not getting paid which everyone can relate to.
Bad PR move
weitendorf · 10h ago
I guess I mean the legal risks to both sides. Security is only a portion of what I do and I only dabble in red teaming (this is the first time I ever tried it on a third party).
So I legitimately don’t know what the legalities of writing a “here’s how I hacked HypeCo” article are if you don’t have the express approval to write that article from HypeCo. Though in my case the company did have an established, public disclosure program that told people they wouldn’t prosecute people who follow responsible disclosure. TFA seems even murkier because Burger King never said they wouldn’t press charges under the CFAA…
juujian · 9h ago
I would argue that it is an ethical thing to do so if it sends a signal to pay whitehats appropriately.
akerl_ · 9h ago
Who is getting that signal?
Burger King is almost certainly going to experience no damage from this.
Their takeaway will likely be entirely non-existent. They’ll fix these bugs, they’ll probably implement zero changes to their internal practices, nor will they suddenly decide to spin up a bug bounty.
chimpanzee · 9h ago
The signal is for the hats. Black hats may be more likely to attack. White hats will find better things to do. Some might even swap hats.
akerl_ · 9h ago
You’ve described a totally different “signal” than the comment I replied to.
chimpanzee · 8h ago
I guess I should have made it clearer by making the implicit explicit:
“The signal isn’t to pay white hats more, instead…”
And perhaps an addendum such as:
“…which will then, indirectly and in the long run, create the signal you were replying to.”
akerl_ · 8h ago
Ah. I don’t have much optimism that companies like Burger King will ever get that 2nd signal (mostly because I don’t think the average consumer-facing business suffers much impact from this kind of incident), but I agree with your premise.
Appreciate your clarification despite the bluntness of my reply.
chimpanzee · 8h ago
And I appreciate your reply. It fixes the tone in our little thread and refocuses it on the topic. Thank you.
Also, you’re probably right, the signal will likely pass right over Burger King’s crown.
juujian · 6h ago
Yeah, the signal is not exclusively to Burger King.
risyachka · 9h ago
This is software.
There is basically zero consequences for whatever fuckups you do, thus no incentives for companies to pay for vulnerabilities.
hsbauauvhabzb · 4h ago
You should consult a lawyer. The first thing they’ll probably want to see is the terms you agreed to on hackerone.
jongjong · 2h ago
This sucks. As a developer who puts a lot of effort on security, I hate that companies can get away with such negligence.
I hope people invent AI bots which uncover vulnerabilities and make them available publicly for free, in real-time. This would create the right incentives for companies.
Modern software has become a giant house of cards, under the control of foreign powers who possess asymetric knowledge. This is because our overarching legal system protects mediocrity and this gives nefarious skilled people with a massive upper hand, while hurting well-intentioned skilled people who try to build software the right way.
The nefarious skilled people don't need to ask for permission and don't need to convince anyone to make money from their schemes... Well-intentioned skilled people build products which are impossible to sell or monetize because nobody cares enough about security... Companies mostly externalize the consequences of vulnerabilities to their users and leverage market monopolies to keep them.
PaulHoule · 6h ago
I was about to repost that blog post on another site and now it looks like it was taken down.
beefnugs · 4h ago
They want capitalism, give them capitalism. If you can make more money exploiting it and selling to mafias and gangs and nation states. Do it.
import · 4h ago
It seems the post is down because of a DMCA complaint made to Cloudflare. I’m curious about the different levels of DMCA complaints. I’m sure hosting companies receive them, but what happens if I’m self-hosting and not using Cloudflare? Will my ISP or domain provider get a DMCA? Especially curious for this case.
jimt1234 · 3h ago
How do we know this was because of a DMCA complaint?
Usually yes, it would go to your ISP. And depending on the ISP they’ll forward it to you or not. This was way more prevalent in the era where movie studios were hiring firms to send bulk DMCAs to people downloading torrents.
djfobbz · 4h ago
Back in 2008–2009, we had a lot of bare metal servers at SoftLayer's (Dallas, TX) facility. One of our customers ran a South American music forum, and anytime someone uploaded an MP3, the data center would honor the DMCA request and immediately stop routing traffic to the server until the issue was resolved. Now imagine what tools they might have in their arsenal in 2025.
techjamie · 10h ago
The voice recordings at the drive thru without disclaimers of recording seem like maybe a two party state lawyer's wet dream?
I guess they could argue shouting into a machine in public carries no expectation of privacy, but it seems like a liability to me.
nerdsniper · 8h ago
There’s no liability or exposure for recording non-consensually. It’s a public space. There’s not even an edge case. If a random member if the public could walk into the drive-thru (which they can) then anything can be recorded without notification or consent.
The laws prohibiting these recordings have neither been upheld nor overturned by the US Supreme Court.
exegete · 3h ago
A restaurant drive thru is private property open to the public. I think there may be a legal difference there.
nerdsniper · 2h ago
There's generally not been held to be any difference for the purposes of expectation of privacy. If it's open to the public, the expectation is that anyone could overhear you.
newhotelowner · 10h ago
Do you need 2 party consent for recording in a public space?
The laws prohibiting these recordings have neither been upheld nor overturned by the US Supreme Court.
techjamie · 10h ago
That's what I'm getting at with the expectation of privacy part. Talking into a drive thru speaker isn't really a private activity since everyone around can kinda hear it, but it'd probably be better to disclaim it anyway since someone attempting to file on you for it still costs money.
ssl-3 · 3h ago
Strolling down the sidewalk at a park with a friend and chatting with them isn't necessarily a private activity either: We're in a very public space. Anyone within earshot can hear whatever we're talking about. If the sounds of our conversation winds up being incidentally in the background of someone filming the squirrels the tree frogs or something, then there's probably nothing to be done about that.
But (in some states), it seems that it would be a very different can of worms if I were to elect to deliberately record the conversation I have with my friend without their consent. Even in a public space, that would appear to run directly afoul of the applicable laws.
thimkerbell · 8h ago
Is there an easy effective way to tell a company not to ask its customers' phone numbers if someone parked nearby can overhear them?
smcin · 5h ago
They steer you towards ordering on the mobile app instead, which typically gives you a 4-6 digit confirmation code which you then use combined with your name, when you pick up. And/or your receipt in the app.
unyttigfjelltol · 10h ago
You don’t get to secretly record voices in public spaces.
newhotelowner · 10h ago
Yes, You can in America. Video recording is permitted without consent in the public places. Example CCTVs.
The laws prohibiting these recordings have neither been upheld nor overturned by the US Supreme Court.
EvanAnderson · 8h ago
I wouldn't chance it. Stick an "audio may be recorded for performance evaluation purposes" on the drive thru kiosk and call it a day. Otherwise you're inviting litigation when something like this happens.
You can want things to be black and white but litigators are going to argue.
No comments yet
firesteelrain · 7h ago
No expectation of privacy in public and video can be taken. For example, security cameras that also happen to capture audio.
fragmede · 6h ago
in which jurisdiction? Just because there's a device that breaks the law doesn't make the law go away.
firesteelrain · 5h ago
Katz v. United States (1967)
Glik v. Cunniffe (1st Cir. 2011)
ssl-3 · 3h ago
I don't see how either of those cases apply to regular people making recordings of regular citizens (in public, or not) using a microphone.
firesteelrain · 3h ago
I was referring to video with a camera which has a microphone
ssl-3 · 3h ago
As was I.
But to extend the context: I don't see the relationship of either of those cases to anything being discussed here at all.
firesteelrain · 2h ago
Drive thru conversations are not private under the Katz test, so there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. That makes video or audio recording in that setting lawful.
Katz came about because the FBI recorded a gambler outside the booth with the doors closed. Hence we have the Katz test.
Heck, you can even record someone making a drive thru order yourself and no one can do anything about it
ssl-3 · 2h ago
If the question was about whether a warrant would be required to record a person at a Burger King drive-through, then sure: I'd bite.
But that kind of question does not appear to be related to anything in the context of the discussions here on HN.
You seem to have presented a red herring.
firesteelrain · 1h ago
Not a red herring. The Katz test defines when a conversation is private, and a drive thru order does not meet that standard, so recording there is lawful even when it is done by a private person and not by law enforcement.
LMYahooTFY · 8h ago
This is not related to public spaces.
nycpig · 9h ago
That is a farily broad statement.
How would you reconcile your statement against state laws that require all-party consent for audio recordings? e.g. CISA, or FSCA
nerdsniper · 9h ago
Those don’t apply to public spaces in the USA. This is super well-established law. If you needed consent to record in public there would be nearly zero YouTube videos recorded in public. And security cameras would generally not be allowed to record audio. And Tesla’s “Sentry mode” would be illegal.
In the USA, there is no right or legal expectation of privacy in public spaces, which includes fast food restaurants that are open to the public (indoors or outdoors)
The laws prohibiting these recordings have neither been upheld nor overturned by the US Supreme Court.
redserk · 8h ago
Sentry mode doesn’t record audio.
parineum · 9h ago
Audio cannot be recorded without consent in CA. Security cameras have an option to disable audio for this reason. People never do it but it's the case.
It's related to wiretapping laws that are very broad.
JKCalhoun · 9h ago
California or Canada?
natebc · 9h ago
<nerdsniped> and removed so that i don't get sued for gross misinterpretation, ignorance and misinformation spreading.
What was here was a link to a California statute that is apparently misinformation somehow. Who knows, I'm just some igorant redneck apparently.
macintux · 8h ago
> For the purposes of this section, “confidential communication” means any communication carried on in circumstances as may reasonably indicate that any party to the communication desires it to be confined to the parties thereto, but excludes a communication made in a public gathering or in any legislative, judicial, executive, or administrative proceeding open to the public, or in any other circumstance in which the parties to the communication may reasonably expect that the communication may be overheard or recorded.
This is not confidential communications.
nerdsniper · 8h ago
Did you read that law? It applies to “Confidential communication…carried on among the parties in the presence of one another or by means of a telegraph, telephone, or other device, except a radio”. Conversation in public is by nature not “confidential”. You are grossly misinterpreting this law and (unintentionally/ignorantly) spreading misinformation.
The laws prohibiting these recordings have neither been upheld nor overturned by the US Supreme Court.
natebc · 7h ago
Grossly misinterpreting and spreading misinformation? I clarified a location and linked to the relevant statute.
You may have a smudge on your optics, mr. sniper.
singleshot_ · 9h ago
I've had some challenges recording voices with video, but I salute your efforts.
unyttigfjelltol · 9h ago
Funny, whenever they show the CCTV footage it doesn't seem to have any sound....
Secretly recording voices is a felony is many places in 'merica.
nerdsniper · 8h ago
Please stop spreading misinformation . There are so many court cases about this. A quick google will give you dozens you can read.
Legally there is no “reasonable expectation of privacy” in public spaces and the only limit on that are extreme telephoto lenses looking from public spaces into private spaces.
The laws prohibiting these recordings have neither been upheld nor overturned by the US Supreme Court.
unyttigfjelltol · 8h ago
Unfortunately, you are not correct.[1] Recording police in a public place-- sure. Otherwise, eh, at best you're over-extrapolating (and ungenerously!) from your local circumstance.
Okay, wow -- I stand corrected. I will edit my comments. It will take me awhile to wrap my head around Massachusett's-style state-level restrictions. While I wouldn't personally expect this to survive a Supreme Court adjudication, apparently there exists no Supreme Court ruling either upholding or striking down the prohibition on secretly recording oral conversations in public.
LadyCailin · 10h ago
Apparently the system was global, and BK has locations in GDPR countries.
pessimizer · 8h ago
> You don’t get to secretly record voices in public spaces.
> Video recording is permitted without consent in the public places.
I have no idea why you would think that these two statements are related, or why people would continue this conversation. Fishing and skateboarding are two other things that are often allowed, but neither are related to recording audio.
And for anyone who thinks this is a nitpick, please look it up.
edit: also, saying that you can record people when you're obviously recording people is also not relevant. The problem is recording people without their knowledge or consent. I cannot put an audio recorder in my pocket in many places (such as Illinois) and record you, whether in a private space or in a public space. If I put my audio recorder on the table, and you can choose whether you want to speak or not, it's legally an entirely different scenario, whether we are in a public space or not.
jrockway · 11h ago
I'm most surprised that they have this whole system for how drive-thru interactions should go. Positive tone. Saying "you rule" like their exceedingly-irritating television commercials. Like... what if you don't? "If you don't follow the four Sales Best Practices, you're gonna be flippin' burgers for a living. Oh. Well. Oh." They're getting paid $6 an hour. The microphone/speaker system can't reproduce audio to an extent where a customer could ever be sure if you said "you rule" or that your tone is positive. They are thrilled if at least a few items they ordered are in the bag they collect. Why write software to micromanage minimum wage employees?
michaelt · 10h ago
> They're getting paid $6 an hour. [...] Why write software to micromanage minimum wage employees?
Ironically, the less a job pays, the harsher and more demanding the bosses tend to be.
Earning six figures as a software developer, working from home, and you have to take a week off sick? No problem, take as long as you like, hope you feel better soon.
Earning minimum wage at a call centre? Missing a shift without 48 hours advance notice is an automatic disciplinary. No, we don't pay sick leave for people on a disciplinary (which is all of them). Make sure you get a doctor's note, or you're fired.
parineum · 9h ago
That's a correlation to how easily replaced you are.
hluska · 10h ago
Two things:
1.) There’s nothing wrong with flipping burgers for a living.
2.) It’s their job. This is many underpaid people forcing even more underpaid people to do this.
Have some class.
thfuran · 10h ago
>There’s nothing wrong with flipping burgers for a living.
There is if it relegates you to shitty work environments and doesn’t afford a decent living as is generally the case in the US.
jrockway · 8h ago
I'm not making a value judgement. I'm saying, how are they going to punish you, as a burger flipper, for not saying their TV commercial tagline? Demote you to burger flipper? That's already your job. So why pay people to build a system to track their metrics, when they realistically have no way of making this happen.
Pay people $30/hour and I bet they'll say it every time without software yelling at them. (With the software in place, I have never heard the line "you rule" at Burger King, but I also only go like twice a year. So why write it? It doesn't work.)
stronglikedan · 10h ago
> There’s nothing wrong with flipping burgers for a living.
Sure there is. It's not a job that earns a livable wage. It's a job for teenagers to get experience, and eventually become managers or go elsewhere with experience (or just pay their way through school). If someone is doing it "for a living" then they are most certainly doing it wrong.
> It’s their job. This is many underpaid people forcing even more underpaid people to do this.
Do you have any data to show that they are underpaid in these positions? It seems like there are plenty of these positions, and folks at a company where they are underpaid can go to a different company that pays fair market value. Or are you implying that there is some conspiracy among big-fast-food to pay everyone less than fair market value? Because that would be quite the stretch.
> Have some class.
That seemed ironically unnecessary.
PsylentKnight · 2h ago
> It's a job for teenagers to get experience
It all makes sense now! So that's why all fast food chains are closed from 9-3 on school days
ssl-3 · 1h ago
No, no.
Quite clearly, they're open every day from 9-3 during school days. During those times, they're just staffed by "people" who are old, who lack a more-marketable competence, who might be mentally and/or physically disadvantaged, and/or who are otherwise implicitly undeserving of a living wage instead of teenagers.
I could be more-lengthy with my description, but you already know the kind of which I speak. They are not people in the same way as you are, or as I am.
Some even say that this kind of inherent classification goes all the way back to the God of Abraham, who once commanded "You shall not fail to punch down; especially when buying a cheeseburger."
b1c837696ba28b · 3h ago
40-some years ago in L.A. some guys discovered that a Burger King drive-up kiosk was tied to the restaurant with an RF link. It was a simple matter to determine the frequency and modulation mode and program a hand-held transceiver to use the same link. They set up in an adjacent parking lot with a video camera and set about pranking the customers that drove up. The resulting video, titled "Attack on a Burger King" (these guys were video engineers,) was copied all around town by the same studio rats that shared session outtakes, Red's Tube Bar, etc. It ends with an employee coming out, jogging toward the kiosk, while the hackers convince the customer to flee the angry man approaching them. Dunno if it ever made it to streaming.
kotaKat · 1h ago
Ah, yes, A lot of old fast food drive-thru headsets were in VHF business band (and similar). The Phone Losers of America were well known for their exploits to that regard.
This [post] is Claude generated, isn't it? Makes it a bit painful to read, to be frank, but nice work. I can't believe people get paid to write this junk (software). It's just...so bad.
mrbluecoat · 10h ago
> They emailed us the password in plain text. In 2025. We're not even mad, just impressed by the commitment to terrible security practices.
The hilarious sarcasm throughout was the cherry on top for me.
some_random · 5h ago
Not to nitpick but being emailed a temporary password in cleartext doesn't seem like an issue to me, assuming you're required to change it as soon as you log in.
While pretty egregious, this is sadly common. I'm certain there's a dozen other massive companies making similar mistakes.
rafram · 11h ago
You need to stop targeting companies without established bug bounties that allow penetration testing, or you’re going to go to jail.
010101010101 · 11h ago
I get the sentiment and it’s a wise warning that at some point most people in grey hat spaces end up adhering to, but “do exactly as you’re allowed to do by large corporations” isn’t exactly a hacker ethos.
weitendorf · 10h ago
I don’t think that argument really works in situations like this because hacking Burger King requires a pretty high level of intent + ability and isn’t something that just naturally happens. Like you have to sit down and say “Today I want to try to hack Burger King” and then spend several hours doing just that.
To me it seems like quite a stretch for “don’t hack me” to get framed as “Burger King is leveraging their corporate power to tell me what to do against my will”.
And to be clear I actually do think that it would be better for Burger King to invite and reward responsible disclosure, in the same way that you’d want your bank to have a hotline for people to report problems like doors that won’t lock. But if the bank didn’t have that hotline it wouldn’t excuse breaking in.
immibis · 2h ago
Those people don't announce what they did traceably to their real name and address, because they know if they do, they'll go to jail.
The police and the judge and the jury don't care what colour fabric you put on your head this morning. They (in theory) care if you committed a crime and they can prove it. Which you did and they can, since you confessed. So you go to jail for a long time.
the_arun · 10h ago
But why? Is it because we don’t have consent from companies to try /check whether they are secure? If so who protects customers from weak doors? or shareholders?
Ekaros · 6h ago
Weak doors is fun comparison. Imagine if someone regular found homes locked by Masterlock locks. And then riffled through everything just to see if they are sufficiently secured. Then reported to owners asking for security bounty...
I doubt that would go down very well, neither would it if you did that with businesses instead private home.
No comments yet
drtgh · 9h ago
They sound like it should be avoided to analyse the river waters next to factories.
rafram · 9h ago
Yes. Talk to your congresspeople.
AndreBaltazar · 11h ago
No bug bounties for this level of sloppiness is the crime itself.
nickthegreek · 10h ago
genuinely interested in the last known story of someone going to prison for this type of pen testing without an established bug bounty.
aspenmayer · 9h ago
This story is a pen test gone wrong, so somewhat different, but illustrates some of the same failure modes.
Oh, this is a rabbit hole. As far as I can tell the pentesters' suit against the sheriff is still ongoing, but back in Iowa courts. It got bounced out of the federal court with the following findings [1]:
1) The court found that the county sheriff had the pentesters arrested and encouraged their prosecution _not_ because he believed there was any crime, but instead that was angry at some state official. (Which, y'know, sounds like a pretty serious civil rights violation.)
2) the civil rights / 4th amendment claims were dismissed by the federal court via the wonderful doctrine of "qualified immunity" - where, in any sufficiently "unique" or "specific" situation, the police have no liability whatsoever for their actions.
Agreed, though at the same time, RBI should be rewarding them for reporting this.
doublerabbit · 10h ago
Why and what gives you the right to tell them off?
Hacking is hacking. If they wish to risk it, what's your problem?
They know the risks. Everyone knows hacking is illegal. Same with selling drugs; illegal yet folk do. Same premise.
Get caught; no sympathy given.
"People may get hurt"? $country throw folk in to war; it's a harsh world we live in.
Bug bounty's are only the new norm because the younger audience want validation and compensation for their skills or that companies are being cheap to ensure security.
During my era of internet bug bounties were non-existent. You either got hired or you went to jail.
In my case I got fired from a bank accidentally boasting that I could replace printer status messages with "Out of Ink - please insert more blood". Granted I was 17.
Being banned from using any computer at school for discovering a DCOM exploit using Windows 98 Help resulting in being denied from doing my IT GCSE and from two colleges.
Or being doxxed by another hacker group for submitting their botnet to an AntiVirus firm. Good times, a living nightmare for my parents.
rafram · 9h ago
It’s a free country, etc. Obviously I have the “right” to comment a warning on the internet.
The point of bug bounties isn’t “validation” (as if old-school hackers didn’t want validation!), it’s that companies with responsible disclosure programs explicitly allow you to pentest them as long as you follow their guidelines. That removes the CFAA indictment risk. The guidelines generally aren’t much stricter than common sense (don’t publish user data, don’t hurt people, give them time to patch before publishing).
Unfortunately, the existence of bug bounties has made some people forget that hacking a company without an agreement in place is still a crime, and publishing evidence of crimes to a wide audience on the internet is a bad idea.
Most of what you’re saying just seems like nostalgia talking. Isn’t it better that hackers today have a way to find real vulnerabilities without going to jail?
doublerabbit · 7h ago
> It’s a free country, etc.
But it didn't come across a warning. "You need to stop" is a demand not a warning. And I would like to believe they would know this when post online. if not /shrug.
Maybe they're working on behalf of an organization, a country that doesn't follow CFAA; Russia, China? Maybe they're state sponsored or under protection. They're obviously not stupid if they can infiltrate Fast-Food chains and social engineer others but I've been wrong before.
> is a bad idea
I would be surprised if they didn't. If not, okay well if shit hits the fan; no sympathy for me. Unlucky. They're doing it at their own risk.
> Isn’t it better that hackers today have a way to find real vulnerabilities without going to jail?
A doubled edged sword, I personally wouldn't count them as hackers. They're not hacking, they're penetrating based on T&C of an agreement. Yes, it could be called "ethical hacking" but I still wouldn't call it hacking.
A hacker is one who gains unauthorized access to computer. Hacking isn't such when your granted restricted access on a basis of T&C.
> Isn’t it better that hackers today have a way to find real vulnerabilities without going to jail?
I don't disagree, if that's your skill then go for it. It's the safest route allowing you to harness your skills, and which may provide future prospects. A dispensary selling drugs is better than the dealer on the corner of the street.
"To hack a bank" is different then to "hack a bank based on some agreement". One carries more weight then the other. Your penetrating a bank on an agreement. Your not hacking.
Bug bounty hunters to have faced jail, lawsuits, or threats — even when acting in good faith, it doesn't make you invulnerable.
I admire the persona of who this is, their acts highlights concern to us who use such conveniences. It exposes truth and tackles the issue at hand where others may exploit you because of. It shows negative light to corporations that many folk who daily.
Their title as on their blog "Ethical Hacker" I would say suitable to describe them as that. It's not like they're siphoning money off folk from ransomware.
> Most of what you’re saying just seems like nostalgia talking.
What I was demonstrating as someone who's been in trouble due to misunderstanding computer mishaps as a teen back when, also to establish my point that I know what I am talking about.
Yeah, it turned in to a nostalgia trip. I'd call myself more of a script kiddie and one who I'd see myself as white-hat.
Black-hat can be interesting however my moral compass has caught up with me and that my life has more worth that it would be jeopardous to do such besides I don't have the time and among other things.
syntaxing · 10h ago
Stop targeting anything and just use anything as is! Especially, don't you even dare hit "view source" on a website. Believe it or not, straight to jail. /s
> Rating bathroom experiences: because everything needs a digital feedback loop
At least here in Argentina, clean bathrooms was a huge selling point in the 1990' for Burger King and McDonald's.
For example you can go to study to one of them with a few friends, and be there for hours because they have clean bathrooms, and from time to time one of the employees may come to offer coffee refill and ask if you want to buy something to eat with the coffee. [The free coffee refill changes from time to time. I'm not sure it's working now.]
alanfalcon · 7h ago
Now my local Burger King (in Las Vegas, NV, USA) has a sign at each table telling you that you have 30 minutes to eat your food and get out before you get thrown out for loitering.
immibis · 2h ago
Capitalism is the best system.
pvtmert · 8h ago
99.9% of the CTFs have much more difficult questions!
> The password protection? Client-side only. The password? Hardcoded in HTML.
cobbzilla · 7h ago
Honestly wondering if this is a legit use of DMCA. Like, what exact provision of the DMCA is being implicated here?
One should have some reasonable means for challenging this kind of thing. But what do I know.
It’s a scary world when you know a C&D or other legal nastygram is 100% bullshit and want to ignore it, but you’re chained to a vendor that can’t respond with any level of subtlety, just the ban-hammer for everyone
So the C&Ds and nastygrams become increasingly ridiculous, but whatevs, they’re all rubber-stamped so hey corporate just push that red “lawyer” button and make my embarrassment go away real fast, before any Streisand effect can kick in!
kevincox · 2h ago
IANAL but it absolutely isn't.
DMCA is for copyright violations. They aren't providing any copyright protected information in the post. The nearest thing would probably be screenshots of their internal applications which seems to be to be obviously fair use.
rsingel · 3h ago
The blog post got taken down in response to a bullshit DMCA claim filed by a YC-funded company called Cyble
Great write-up! I was sorry to see there wasn’t a reward for you reporting this to them.
At least you didn’t find that the bathroom rating tablets had audio as well!
foofoo12 · 10h ago
> wasn’t a reward
I'm pretty sure someone was willing to pay for this, but at least the researches acted responsibly.
StrauXX · 3h ago
Unlikely. If a company does not have a formal BBP, they won't pay 99.99% of the time. Brokers are also not interested in vulnerabilities in companies. They usually only buy vulnerabilities for standard software (components).
akerl_ · 11h ago
This person seems to be fishing for a CFAA indictment?
Remind me to stick to my hyperlocal fast food restaurant that only has one location and probably doesn't record every conversation you have with them or use any of the other gross surveillance technology that was recorded here.
The story is really about two things. Their poor information security is pathetic, but their actual surveillance tech is genuinely kind of politically concerning. Even if it is technically legal, it's unethical to record conversations without consent.
deltarholamda · 9h ago
>hyperlocal fast food restaurant that only has one location and probably doesn't record every conversation you have
Good news! With AI programming assistance, this invasive technology--with the concomitant terrible security--will be available to even the smallest business so long as nephews "who are good with computers and stuff" exist!
thimkerbell · 8h ago
Blog post not found
Fairburn · 2h ago
Since way back has it, repost that shit. Burger King, get bent.
djoldman · 10h ago
Assuming:
1. Jane, a security researcher, discovers a vulnerability in a Acme Corporation's public-internet-facing website in a legal manner
2. Jane is a US resident and citizen
3. Acme Corporation is a US company
... is it legal for Jane to post publicly about the vulnerability with a proof of concept exploit?
Relatedly:
Why do security researchers privately inform companies of vulnerabilities and wait for them to patch before public disclosure? Are they afraid of liability?
weitendorf · 10h ago
> Why do security researchers privately inform companies of vulnerabilities and wait for them to patch before public disclosure?
Because if they don’t inform the company and wait for the fix, their disclosure would make it easier for less ethical hackers to abuse the vulnerability and do real material harm to the company’s users/customers/employees. And no company would ever want to collaborate with someone who thinks it’s ok to do that.
It’s not even really a matter of liability IMO, it’s just the right thing to do.
(main exception: if the company refuses to fix the issue or completely ignores it, sometimes researchers will disclose it after a certain period of time because at that point it’s in the public’s best interest to put pressure on the company to fix it even if it becomes easier for it to be exploited)
nycpig · 10h ago
IANAL, but to answer your question, maybe? The CFAA has a fairly broad scope. "intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access and thereby obtains, information from any protected computer; " 1030(a)(2)(C)
Sandvig v. Barr tempers that a bit, with the DoJ now offering some guidance around good faith endeavors around security research.
I'd suggest Jane have a good lawyer on retainer, and a few years to spend in the tied up the legal system.
immibis · 2h ago
I suspect the post itself is legal but it's also a confession of highly illegal hacking.
igtztorrero · 6h ago
It's incredible that a chain that produces terrible food has such a large surveillance system for underpaid employees.
Surely the IT workers are also underpaid, which is why they left the doors wide open.
That only confirms the subpar quality of the executives, the food, and everything at Burger King.
lysace · 11h ago
The only way this shit show will ever stop is if behavior like this is ultimately rewarded with a corporate death penalty.
E.g. their trademarks being put in the public domain and assets confiscated to compensate their victims.
The watch in amazement at how actual security suddenly becomes a priority.
hluska · 10h ago
> the slightly-too-cheerful burger king employee asking if you want to make it a combo.
I don’t understand the need to insult people who make minimum wage. They had absolutely nothing to do with this breach and this is in incredibly poor taste. Maybe they enjoy their lives, or enjoy their jobs? Or hell, maybe they’re not the typical HN reader and really badly need that job? This elitist shit ruined an otherwise decent article.
jmkni · 10h ago
I don't think it was a swipe at minimum wage employees at all, more massive corporations like Burger King making their minumum wage employees be "cheerful"
redwall_hp · 7h ago
One of many reasons I despise Trash-Fil-A. They go hard on forcing their employees to sound a certain way, and it's just creepy as well as being abuse of their workers.
Paying someone a pittance, or anything at all, doesn't entitle you to control over their perceived mood or how they speak. You'll have to negotiate with SAG-AFTRA if you want to hire actors.
MBCook · 10h ago
But elsewhere in the article they show that Burger King is using AI to analyze how well the drive-through employees are doing and if they’re being cheerful enough and such.
So I think it’s more a jab at corporate mandated performative forced happiness for customers then the employees themselves.
JKCalhoun · 9h ago
Sure, could have written "hapless Burger King employee…". I suspect they did not realize it might come across the way it did to some.
BobDaHacker · 11h ago
Burger King
grg0 · 4h ago
Why is your blog post down?
catsma21 · 8h ago
mmph..furger
iqasimov · 2h ago
i swear god nothing can be cringer and funnier than when wannabe kiddo hackers write writeups. i can assure that they did dirty things for couple months before they actually report that but i can not prove it LMAO. I love this god level smart aleckness and the level of confidence is always ultimate LOL. idk man it is very sweet hahah. 50 grades of gray ahahahahahah
https://web.archive.org/web/20250906150322/https://bobdahack...
I’m curious about the legal/reputational implications of this.
I personally found some embarrassing security vulnerabilities in a very high profile tech startup and followed responsible disclosure to their security team, but once I got invited to their HackerOne I saw they had only done a handful of payouts ever and they were all like $2k. I was able to do some pretty serious stuff with what I found and figured it was probably more like a $10k-$50k vuln, and I was pretty busy at the time so I just never did all the formal write up stuff they presumably wanted me to do (I had already sent them several highly detailed emails) because it wouldn’t be worth a measly $2k. Does that mean I can make a post like this?
The screenshot of the email lacks detail so I don't know what part of the DMCA the author breached here, but this feels a lot like your standard DMCA abuse.
This AI generated takedown was funded in part by a Y-Combinator: https://cyble.com/press/cyble-recognized-among-ai-startups-f...
First thing first. This is NOT DMCA abuse. The DMCA is the only way to communicate with web companies and take down content. As such, it has become the legitimate way to take down any content that needs to be taken down, in the absence of alternatives.
Second, the author is posting zero-days with very detailed explanations to get access to internal systems of global corporations, affecting hundreds of thousands of employees and hundreds of millions of customers. There is legitimate purpose to take down the content.
There are some nuances to appreciate. Even if a vulnerability has been "closed" the day before posting, it's quite possible that the company barely had time to change "admin" to "admin2025". It's not gonna take a genius to try and pivot and steal all customers/employees data and ransomware the whole company, all thanks to the author detailed posting! Then the author will be found partly responsible and get 10 years in prison. (This circles back to why the DMCA had legitimate purpose in the first place, quite ironically to save both the author and the company!)
The author had multiple posts like that just in the last month. If I were the author. I'd start by observing a very strict 90 days window before any disclosure, starting from the time the company has been notified. Repeat every week at the start and then monthly, through different communication channels, to ensure they had more than enough time to receive and act. This could very well become the difference between a life and a life in prison.
This Burger King seems to do their job well, which is a nice change from the previous posts. They cut access within a day and DMCAed the article within hours.
As the author is quickly escalating their journey (can't be long before it's military, finance, oil), they're soon gonna find that the other party is more than willing to fight back, including DMCA, legal action, or sending hitman to your doors (yes this is a thing when you play in the big leagues!). Now is good time to figure out what they want to do next. Fighting the DMCA request is probably not it. :)
The only way to take down content is to fill a "DMCA" form to the provider, so Burger King filled a DMCA form to take down the content. If they had to fill a "foobar" form, they'd have filled a "foobar" form instead. It's just following the procedure that is available.
Branding it as “responsible” puts the thumb on the scale that somehow not coordinating with the vendor is irresponsible.
Even the most security-aware companies have a process to fix vulnerabilities, which takes time.
I would never hire someone that doesn't reaponsibly coordinate with the vendor. In most cases it's either malicious or shows a complete lack of good judgement.
In the case of bobdajrhacker? Both.
So yes, anyone who discloses before the company has had a reasonable chance to fix things is indeed irresponsible.
Maybe things are better now.
Years ago the only contact for many companies was through customer service. "What do you mean you're in our computer? You're obviously on the phone!"
Doing the right thing can be awfully unpleasant.
I'm so sick and tired of some companies that any vulnerability I find in their products going forward is an immediate public disclosure. It's either that or no disclosure, and it would be irresponsible not to disclose it at all.
Cracked a thrift store IoT medical device. Contacted vendor. They sent me a one way NDA. Lol no.
Thats not putting my thumb on the scale so much as shouting my opinion. The rebrand puts its thumb on the scale specifically because it avoids saying “we think non-coordinated disclose is irresponsible”; it sneaks it under the name change.
To change that calculus, the chance of that future cost needs to go up and the amount of it also needs to go up. If the choice is between a $100k bug bounty now and a $10-million-dollar penalty for a security breach, people will bite the bullet and pay the bounty. If the CEO knows he will lose his house if its discovered that he dismissed the report and benefited financially from doing so, he will pay the bounty.
The consequences need to be shifted to the companies that play fast and loose with customer data.
The comments and headlines will be a bit snarkier, more likely to go viral - more likely to go national on a light news day, along with the human interest portion of not getting paid which everyone can relate to.
Bad PR move
So I legitimately don’t know what the legalities of writing a “here’s how I hacked HypeCo” article are if you don’t have the express approval to write that article from HypeCo. Though in my case the company did have an established, public disclosure program that told people they wouldn’t prosecute people who follow responsible disclosure. TFA seems even murkier because Burger King never said they wouldn’t press charges under the CFAA…
Burger King is almost certainly going to experience no damage from this.
Their takeaway will likely be entirely non-existent. They’ll fix these bugs, they’ll probably implement zero changes to their internal practices, nor will they suddenly decide to spin up a bug bounty.
“The signal isn’t to pay white hats more, instead…”
And perhaps an addendum such as:
“…which will then, indirectly and in the long run, create the signal you were replying to.”
Appreciate your clarification despite the bluntness of my reply.
Also, you’re probably right, the signal will likely pass right over Burger King’s crown.
There is basically zero consequences for whatever fuckups you do, thus no incentives for companies to pay for vulnerabilities.
I hope people invent AI bots which uncover vulnerabilities and make them available publicly for free, in real-time. This would create the right incentives for companies.
Modern software has become a giant house of cards, under the control of foreign powers who possess asymetric knowledge. This is because our overarching legal system protects mediocrity and this gives nefarious skilled people with a massive upper hand, while hurting well-intentioned skilled people who try to build software the right way.
The nefarious skilled people don't need to ask for permission and don't need to convince anyone to make money from their schemes... Well-intentioned skilled people build products which are impossible to sell or monetize because nobody cares enough about security... Companies mostly externalize the consequences of vulnerabilities to their users and leverage market monopolies to keep them.
Edit: Never mind -- > https://infosec.exchange/@bobdahacker/115158347003096276
I guess they could argue shouting into a machine in public carries no expectation of privacy, but it seems like a liability to me.
Edit: Another commenter has made me aware that some states do ban non-consensual audio recordings in public: https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/massachusetts-recording-law
The laws prohibiting these recordings have neither been upheld nor overturned by the US Supreme Court.
The laws prohibiting these recordings have neither been upheld nor overturned by the US Supreme Court.
But (in some states), it seems that it would be a very different can of worms if I were to elect to deliberately record the conversation I have with my friend without their consent. Even in a public space, that would appear to run directly afoul of the applicable laws.
Edit: Another commenter has made me aware that some states do ban non-consensual audio recordings in public: https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/massachusetts-recording-law
The laws prohibiting these recordings have neither been upheld nor overturned by the US Supreme Court.
The laws prohibiting these recordings have neither been upheld nor overturned by the US Supreme Court.
You can want things to be black and white but litigators are going to argue.
No comments yet
Glik v. Cunniffe (1st Cir. 2011)
But to extend the context: I don't see the relationship of either of those cases to anything being discussed here at all.
Katz came about because the FBI recorded a gambler outside the booth with the doors closed. Hence we have the Katz test.
Heck, you can even record someone making a drive thru order yourself and no one can do anything about it
But that kind of question does not appear to be related to anything in the context of the discussions here on HN.
You seem to have presented a red herring.
How would you reconcile your statement against state laws that require all-party consent for audio recordings? e.g. CISA, or FSCA
In the USA, there is no right or legal expectation of privacy in public spaces, which includes fast food restaurants that are open to the public (indoors or outdoors)
Edit: Another commenter has made me aware that some states do ban non-consensual audio recordings in public: https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/massachusetts-recording-law
The laws prohibiting these recordings have neither been upheld nor overturned by the US Supreme Court.
It's related to wiretapping laws that are very broad.
What was here was a link to a California statute that is apparently misinformation somehow. Who knows, I'm just some igorant redneck apparently.
This is not confidential communications.
Edit: Another commenter has made me aware that some states do ban non-consensual audio recordings in public: https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/massachusetts-recording-law
The laws prohibiting these recordings have neither been upheld nor overturned by the US Supreme Court.
You may have a smudge on your optics, mr. sniper.
Secretly recording voices is a felony is many places in 'merica.
Legally there is no “reasonable expectation of privacy” in public spaces and the only limit on that are extreme telephoto lenses looking from public spaces into private spaces.
Edit: Another commenter has made me aware that some states do ban non-consensual audio recordings in public: https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/massachusetts-recording-law
The laws prohibiting these recordings have neither been upheld nor overturned by the US Supreme Court.
[1] https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/massachusetts-recording-law
> Video recording is permitted without consent in the public places.
I have no idea why you would think that these two statements are related, or why people would continue this conversation. Fishing and skateboarding are two other things that are often allowed, but neither are related to recording audio.
And for anyone who thinks this is a nitpick, please look it up.
edit: also, saying that you can record people when you're obviously recording people is also not relevant. The problem is recording people without their knowledge or consent. I cannot put an audio recorder in my pocket in many places (such as Illinois) and record you, whether in a private space or in a public space. If I put my audio recorder on the table, and you can choose whether you want to speak or not, it's legally an entirely different scenario, whether we are in a public space or not.
Ironically, the less a job pays, the harsher and more demanding the bosses tend to be.
Earning six figures as a software developer, working from home, and you have to take a week off sick? No problem, take as long as you like, hope you feel better soon.
Earning minimum wage at a call centre? Missing a shift without 48 hours advance notice is an automatic disciplinary. No, we don't pay sick leave for people on a disciplinary (which is all of them). Make sure you get a doctor's note, or you're fired.
1.) There’s nothing wrong with flipping burgers for a living.
2.) It’s their job. This is many underpaid people forcing even more underpaid people to do this.
Have some class.
There is if it relegates you to shitty work environments and doesn’t afford a decent living as is generally the case in the US.
Pay people $30/hour and I bet they'll say it every time without software yelling at them. (With the software in place, I have never heard the line "you rule" at Burger King, but I also only go like twice a year. So why write it? It doesn't work.)
Sure there is. It's not a job that earns a livable wage. It's a job for teenagers to get experience, and eventually become managers or go elsewhere with experience (or just pay their way through school). If someone is doing it "for a living" then they are most certainly doing it wrong.
> It’s their job. This is many underpaid people forcing even more underpaid people to do this.
Do you have any data to show that they are underpaid in these positions? It seems like there are plenty of these positions, and folks at a company where they are underpaid can go to a different company that pays fair market value. Or are you implying that there is some conspiracy among big-fast-food to pay everyone less than fair market value? Because that would be quite the stretch.
> Have some class.
That seemed ironically unnecessary.
It all makes sense now! So that's why all fast food chains are closed from 9-3 on school days
Quite clearly, they're open every day from 9-3 during school days. During those times, they're just staffed by "people" who are old, who lack a more-marketable competence, who might be mentally and/or physically disadvantaged, and/or who are otherwise implicitly undeserving of a living wage instead of teenagers.
I could be more-lengthy with my description, but you already know the kind of which I speak. They are not people in the same way as you are, or as I am.
Some even say that this kind of inherent classification goes all the way back to the God of Abraham, who once commanded "You shall not fail to punch down; especially when buying a cheeseburger."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyLrus1yKvI
"I'm in the freezer at QuikTrip!"
The hilarious sarcasm throughout was the cherry on top for me.
The DCMA report was actually sent from response@cycle.com, and Cyble [1] appears to be a DCMA-takedown-as-a-service 'solution'.
[1]: https://cyble.com/
While pretty egregious, this is sadly common. I'm certain there's a dozen other massive companies making similar mistakes.
To me it seems like quite a stretch for “don’t hack me” to get framed as “Burger King is leveraging their corporate power to tell me what to do against my will”.
And to be clear I actually do think that it would be better for Burger King to invite and reward responsible disclosure, in the same way that you’d want your bank to have a hotline for people to report problems like doors that won’t lock. But if the bank didn’t have that hotline it wouldn’t excuse breaking in.
The police and the judge and the jury don't care what colour fabric you put on your head this morning. They (in theory) care if you committed a crime and they can prove it. Which you did and they can, since you confessed. So you go to jail for a long time.
I doubt that would go down very well, neither would it if you did that with businesses instead private home.
No comments yet
https://www.darkreading.com/vulnerabilities-threats/dark-rea...
https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2023/06/23/lawsuit-over-auth...
1) The court found that the county sheriff had the pentesters arrested and encouraged their prosecution _not_ because he believed there was any crime, but instead that was angry at some state official. (Which, y'know, sounds like a pretty serious civil rights violation.)
2) the civil rights / 4th amendment claims were dismissed by the federal court via the wonderful doctrine of "qualified immunity" - where, in any sufficiently "unique" or "specific" situation, the police have no liability whatsoever for their actions.
[1] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.iasd.84...
Hacking is hacking. If they wish to risk it, what's your problem?
They know the risks. Everyone knows hacking is illegal. Same with selling drugs; illegal yet folk do. Same premise. Get caught; no sympathy given.
"People may get hurt"? $country throw folk in to war; it's a harsh world we live in.
Bug bounty's are only the new norm because the younger audience want validation and compensation for their skills or that companies are being cheap to ensure security.
During my era of internet bug bounties were non-existent. You either got hired or you went to jail.
In my case I got fired from a bank accidentally boasting that I could replace printer status messages with "Out of Ink - please insert more blood". Granted I was 17.
Being banned from using any computer at school for discovering a DCOM exploit using Windows 98 Help resulting in being denied from doing my IT GCSE and from two colleges.
Or being doxxed by another hacker group for submitting their botnet to an AntiVirus firm. Good times, a living nightmare for my parents.
The point of bug bounties isn’t “validation” (as if old-school hackers didn’t want validation!), it’s that companies with responsible disclosure programs explicitly allow you to pentest them as long as you follow their guidelines. That removes the CFAA indictment risk. The guidelines generally aren’t much stricter than common sense (don’t publish user data, don’t hurt people, give them time to patch before publishing).
Unfortunately, the existence of bug bounties has made some people forget that hacking a company without an agreement in place is still a crime, and publishing evidence of crimes to a wide audience on the internet is a bad idea.
Most of what you’re saying just seems like nostalgia talking. Isn’t it better that hackers today have a way to find real vulnerabilities without going to jail?
But it didn't come across a warning. "You need to stop" is a demand not a warning. And I would like to believe they would know this when post online. if not /shrug.
Maybe they're working on behalf of an organization, a country that doesn't follow CFAA; Russia, China? Maybe they're state sponsored or under protection. They're obviously not stupid if they can infiltrate Fast-Food chains and social engineer others but I've been wrong before.
> is a bad idea
I would be surprised if they didn't. If not, okay well if shit hits the fan; no sympathy for me. Unlucky. They're doing it at their own risk.
> Isn’t it better that hackers today have a way to find real vulnerabilities without going to jail?
A doubled edged sword, I personally wouldn't count them as hackers. They're not hacking, they're penetrating based on T&C of an agreement. Yes, it could be called "ethical hacking" but I still wouldn't call it hacking.
A hacker is one who gains unauthorized access to computer. Hacking isn't such when your granted restricted access on a basis of T&C.
> Isn’t it better that hackers today have a way to find real vulnerabilities without going to jail?
I don't disagree, if that's your skill then go for it. It's the safest route allowing you to harness your skills, and which may provide future prospects. A dispensary selling drugs is better than the dealer on the corner of the street.
"To hack a bank" is different then to "hack a bank based on some agreement". One carries more weight then the other. Your penetrating a bank on an agreement. Your not hacking.
Bug bounty hunters to have faced jail, lawsuits, or threats — even when acting in good faith, it doesn't make you invulnerable.
I admire the persona of who this is, their acts highlights concern to us who use such conveniences. It exposes truth and tackles the issue at hand where others may exploit you because of. It shows negative light to corporations that many folk who daily.
Their title as on their blog "Ethical Hacker" I would say suitable to describe them as that. It's not like they're siphoning money off folk from ransomware.
> Most of what you’re saying just seems like nostalgia talking.
What I was demonstrating as someone who's been in trouble due to misunderstanding computer mishaps as a teen back when, also to establish my point that I know what I am talking about.
Yeah, it turned in to a nostalgia trip. I'd call myself more of a script kiddie and one who I'd see myself as white-hat.
Black-hat can be interesting however my moral compass has caught up with me and that my life has more worth that it would be jeopardous to do such besides I don't have the time and among other things.
[1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/this-is-the-hacking-investig...
At least here in Argentina, clean bathrooms was a huge selling point in the 1990' for Burger King and McDonald's.
For example you can go to study to one of them with a few friends, and be there for hours because they have clean bathrooms, and from time to time one of the employees may come to offer coffee refill and ask if you want to buy something to eat with the coffee. [The free coffee refill changes from time to time. I'm not sure it's working now.]
> The password protection? Client-side only. The password? Hardcoded in HTML.
One should have some reasonable means for challenging this kind of thing. But what do I know.
It’s a scary world when you know a C&D or other legal nastygram is 100% bullshit and want to ignore it, but you’re chained to a vendor that can’t respond with any level of subtlety, just the ban-hammer for everyone
So the C&Ds and nastygrams become increasingly ridiculous, but whatevs, they’re all rubber-stamped so hey corporate just push that red “lawyer” button and make my embarrassment go away real fast, before any Streisand effect can kick in!
DMCA is for copyright violations. They aren't providing any copyright protected information in the post. The nearest thing would probably be screenshots of their internal applications which seems to be to be obviously fair use.
DMCA screenshot https://infosec.exchange/@bobdahacker/115158347003096276
Cyble announcement of YC funding in 2025 https://cyble.com/press/cyble-recognized-among-ai-startups-f...
At least you didn’t find that the bathroom rating tablets had audio as well!
I'm pretty sure someone was willing to pay for this, but at least the researches acted responsibly.
The story is really about two things. Their poor information security is pathetic, but their actual surveillance tech is genuinely kind of politically concerning. Even if it is technically legal, it's unethical to record conversations without consent.
Good news! With AI programming assistance, this invasive technology--with the concomitant terrible security--will be available to even the smallest business so long as nephews "who are good with computers and stuff" exist!
1. Jane, a security researcher, discovers a vulnerability in a Acme Corporation's public-internet-facing website in a legal manner
2. Jane is a US resident and citizen
3. Acme Corporation is a US company
... is it legal for Jane to post publicly about the vulnerability with a proof of concept exploit?
Relatedly:
Why do security researchers privately inform companies of vulnerabilities and wait for them to patch before public disclosure? Are they afraid of liability?
Because if they don’t inform the company and wait for the fix, their disclosure would make it easier for less ethical hackers to abuse the vulnerability and do real material harm to the company’s users/customers/employees. And no company would ever want to collaborate with someone who thinks it’s ok to do that.
It’s not even really a matter of liability IMO, it’s just the right thing to do.
(main exception: if the company refuses to fix the issue or completely ignores it, sometimes researchers will disclose it after a certain period of time because at that point it’s in the public’s best interest to put pressure on the company to fix it even if it becomes easier for it to be exploited)
Sandvig v. Barr tempers that a bit, with the DoJ now offering some guidance around good faith endeavors around security research.
I'd suggest Jane have a good lawyer on retainer, and a few years to spend in the tied up the legal system.
Surely the IT workers are also underpaid, which is why they left the doors wide open.
That only confirms the subpar quality of the executives, the food, and everything at Burger King.
E.g. their trademarks being put in the public domain and assets confiscated to compensate their victims.
The watch in amazement at how actual security suddenly becomes a priority.
I don’t understand the need to insult people who make minimum wage. They had absolutely nothing to do with this breach and this is in incredibly poor taste. Maybe they enjoy their lives, or enjoy their jobs? Or hell, maybe they’re not the typical HN reader and really badly need that job? This elitist shit ruined an otherwise decent article.
Paying someone a pittance, or anything at all, doesn't entitle you to control over their perceived mood or how they speak. You'll have to negotiate with SAG-AFTRA if you want to hire actors.
So I think it’s more a jab at corporate mandated performative forced happiness for customers then the employees themselves.