Blog seems to be down.<p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20250906150322/https://bobdahacker.com/blog/rbi-hacked-drive-thrus/" rel="nofollow">https://web.archive.org/web/20250906150322/https://bobdahack...</a>
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).<p>I’m curious about the legal/reputational implications of this.<p>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?
They heard back from the company alright, they DMCA'd the post: <a href="https://infosec.exchange/@bobdahacker/115158347003096276" rel="nofollow">https://infosec.exchange/@bobdahacker/115158347003096276</a><p>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.<p>This AI generated takedown was funded in part by a Y-Combinator: <a href="https://cyble.com/press/cyble-recognized-among-ai-startups-funded-by-y-combinator-2025/">https://cyble.com/press/cyble-recognized-among-ai-startups-f...</a>
I did not know Cloudflare treats fake DMCAs the same way as Youtube. Since when!?
Can we start discussing 'you can run your own website/cloudflare/isp/backbone' conversation all over again instead of addressing some basic level of fair play?
cloudflare is a crappy company
Someone should see if YC will fund an ai-first company to help individuals and companies fight back against DMCA abuse and seek compensation
This fits with the complete lack of care for ethics and societal awareness from Gary and Paul on down. They just want companies that can succeed by the usual amoral metrics of Silicon Valley (money). Which is entirely their right, but here is one of the social cost in a form most “hacker” founders can maybe appreciate. (As opposed to a low income resident getting evicted to make way for an illegal Airbnb)
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As a nitpick, you’re describing coordinated disclosure.<p>Branding it as “responsible” puts the thumb on the scale that somehow not coordinating with the vendor is irresponsible.
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.<p>Even the most security-aware companies have a process to fix vulnerabilities, which takes time.<p>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.<p>In the case of bobdajrhacker? Both.
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.
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.
Why do you think this? It clearly says that RBI fixed the issue on the day they it was found and disclosed.<p>It seems pretty reasonable to publish, given that?
Are you in a position to hire security engineers?
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 <i>want</i> 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.
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.<p>So yes, anyone who discloses before the company has had a reasonable chance to fix things is indeed irresponsible.
This seems to presume the company is ready and willing to take feedback.<p>Maybe things are better now.<p>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!"
> This seems to presume the company is ready and willing to take feedback.<p>Near the bottom of the blog post it says:<p>> When | What Happened<p>> Day 1, same day | RBI fixes everything faster than you can say "code red"<p>> Credit where it's due – RBI's response time was impressive.
Also "Oh, you hacked us? We'll call the police right away. You're going to jail." - followed by you <i>actually</i> 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.
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).<p>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.
What about users who are affected by the vulnerability in the time it takes between reporting to the vendor and remediation?
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.
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.<p>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.<p>The consequences need to be shifted to the companies that play fast and loose with customer data.
> I’m curious about the legal/reputational implications of this.<p>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.<p>Bad PR move
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).<p>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…
I would argue that it is an ethical thing to do so if it sends a signal to pay whitehats appropriately.
Who is getting that signal?<p>Burger King is almost certainly going to experience no damage from this.<p>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 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.
Yeah, the signal is not exclusively to Burger King.
This is software.<p>There is basically zero consequences for whatever fuckups you do, thus no incentives for companies to pay for vulnerabilities.
>Does that mean I can make a post like this?<p>No. Just because there's a blog post about a fixed vulnerability doesn't imply that it's ok to write a blog post about an unfixed vulnerability.<p>I'm not saying it's wrong to post a blog post about an unfixed vulnerability. I'm just saying that the existence of a blog post about a fixed vulnerability has no impact on whether it's ok or not to post a blog post about an unfixed vulnerability.
You should consult a lawyer. The first thing they’ll probably want to see is the terms you agreed to on hackerone.
I was about to repost that blog post on another site and now it looks like it was taken down.
This sucks. As a developer who puts a lot of effort on security, I hate that companies can get away with such negligence.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.
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.
<< DMCA copyright infringement complaint from Cyble Inc., acting on behalf of Burger King<p>I am mildly amused, but it only now makes me want to dig through internnet archive ( I believe another poster already helpfully provided ). GL BK. It sounds like Streisand will strike again.<p>edit: Good read btw. I am curious as to why employees are in that database though.
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?
<i>> They're getting paid $6 an hour. [...] Why write software to micromanage minimum wage employees?</i><p>Ironically, the less a job pays, the harsher and more demanding the bosses tend to be.<p>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.<p>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.
I think there's a U shaped curve here. Make it all the way to Principal software engineer and you might be expected to work longer hours and bend your personal sense of ethics in service of the company's mission.
That's a correlation to how easily replaced you are.
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>There’s nothing wrong with flipping burgers for a living.<p>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.
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.<p>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.)
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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.
How do we know this was because of a DMCA complaint?<p>Edit: Never mind -- > <a href="https://infosec.exchange/@bobdahacker/115158347003096276" rel="nofollow">https://infosec.exchange/@bobdahacker/115158347003096276</a>
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.
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.
The voice recordings at the drive thru without disclaimers of recording seem like maybe a two party state lawyer's wet dream?<p>I guess they could argue shouting into a machine in public carries no expectation of privacy, but it seems like a liability to me.
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.<p>Edit: Another commenter has made me aware that some states do ban non-consensual audio recordings in public: <a href="https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/massachusetts-recording-law" rel="nofollow">https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/massachusetts-recording-law</a><p>The laws prohibiting these recordings have neither been upheld nor overturned by the US Supreme Court.
A restaurant drive thru is private property open to the public. I think there may be a legal difference there.
Creating a database of recordings without user being able to know/influence is clearly violation of GDPR IF there is PII. That's going to be costly for BK.
>There’s no liability or exposure for recording non-consensually. It’s a public space.<p>That is not how wiretapping laws work in every state.
Do you need 2 party consent for recording in a public space?
Edit: Another commenter has made me aware that some states do ban non-consensual audio recordings in public: <a href="https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/massachusetts-recording-law" rel="nofollow">https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/massachusetts-recording-law</a><p>The laws prohibiting these recordings have neither been upheld nor overturned by the US Supreme Court.
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.
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.<p>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.
Is there an easy effective way to tell a company not to ask its customers' phone numbers if someone parked nearby can overhear them?
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.
Depends on the country. In Finland, it's ok to record your own discussions. Whether the recorder is BK (a third party) or the cashier is an interesting question, though.
You don’t get to secretly record voices in public spaces.
> They emailed us the password in plain text. In 2025. We're not even mad, just impressed by the commitment to terrible security practices.<p>The hilarious sarcasm throughout was the cherry on top for me.
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.
Especially since that email address presumably is used for the forgot password authentication anyway.<p>But it is at least the equivalent of a code smell. perhaps a "UX smell"?<p>A couple of obvious ways it can go bad: An attacker could potentially have access your email (perhaps from a data breach elsewhere or a password stuffing attach) and use the temp password before you do. If the temp password is the one entered by the user during signup, a naive user could sign up using their commonly-reused-password which then sits in cleartext foreven in their email archive.
The way I read it, the password might not have been different for each new user...<p>But that's negated completely by the next part about there being a sign up without any email verification
The fun one for me is when they email you your <i>original</i> password in email. I’ve had that happen twice, and was always an amazing <i>wtf</i> moment.
And.. its down “Blog post not found” archive link here: <a href="https://archive.is/zIteR" rel="nofollow">https://archive.is/zIteR</a>
<a href="https://infosec.exchange/@bobdahacker/115158347003096276" rel="nofollow">https://infosec.exchange/@bobdahacker/115158347003096276</a>
> We decided to take the post down after recieving a DMCA from burger king.<p>The DCMA report was actually sent from response@cycle.com, and Cyble [1] appears to be a DCMA-takedown-as-a-service 'solution'.<p>[1]: <a href="https://cyble.com/">https://cyble.com/</a>
maybe more longterm: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20250906150322/https://bobdahacker.com/blog/rbi-hacked-drive-thrus/" rel="nofollow">https://web.archive.org/web/20250906150322/https://bobdahack...</a>
I think the real issue in this case is if they are marrying your voice data (personal preferences) to you. They get your name when you pay with credit card. And they get your license plate. And now with AI are they selling this married information? Not to mention the ability for AI to clone your voice and selling that.
Wow. That's... impressively bad.<p>While pretty egregious, this is sadly common. I'm certain there's a dozen other massive companies making similar mistakes.
The blog post got taken down in response to a bullshit DMCA claim filed by a YC-funded company called Cyble<p>DMCA screenshot
<a href="https://infosec.exchange/@bobdahacker/115158347003096276" rel="nofollow">https://infosec.exchange/@bobdahacker/115158347003096276</a><p>Cyble announcement of YC funding in 2025
<a href="https://cyble.com/press/cyble-recognized-among-ai-startups-funded-by-y-combinator-2025/">https://cyble.com/press/cyble-recognized-among-ai-startups-f...</a>
Wtf! I’m certain this entire stack was reviewed by low level outsourced contractors.<p>To the person below whining that BK should’ve had more time…absolutely not! Users have a right to know. No effort was made to protect the data. None.<p>Action needs to be taken. The company contracted to build this stack should be replaced asap! Including the CISO.
Honestly wondering if this is a legit use of DMCA. Like, what exact provision of the DMCA is being implicated here?<p>One should have some reasonable means for challenging this kind of thing. But what do I know.<p>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<p>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 <i>real fast</i>, before any Streisand effect can kick in!
IANAL but it absolutely isn't.<p>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.
The article did show images of the internal website including a one showing a photograph. It infringes their copyright, but it would be up to the author to prove that the usage was fair use.
> <i>Rating bathroom experiences: because everything needs a digital feedback loop</i><p>At least here in Argentina, clean bathrooms was a huge selling point in the 1990' for Burger King and McDonald's.<p>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.]
So they did do the work on sentiment analysis and all that, but didn't do any of the security stuff???<p>So when you're making minimum wage, you can expect every word you say to be analysed and your PII to be unprotected.<p>I guess security wasn't a feature.
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.
Ah, yes, A lot of old fast food drive-thru headsets were in VHF business band (and similar). The <i>Phone Losers of America</i> were well known for their exploits to that regard.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyLrus1yKvI" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyLrus1yKvI</a><p>"I'm in the freezer at QuikTrip!"
99.9% of the CTFs have much more difficult questions!<p>> The password protection? Client-side only. The password? Hardcoded in HTML.
Just googling "rbictg bk gb" yields some weird domains, including dev-bk-gb-moonshot (dot) rbictg (dot) com
Great write-up! I was sorry to see there wasn’t a reward for you reporting this to them.<p>At least you didn’t find that the bathroom rating tablets had audio as well!
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.<p>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.
>hyperlocal fast food restaurant that only has one location and probably doesn't record every conversation you have<p>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!
This person seems to be fishing for a CFAA indictment?
Before writing and publishing this did you tell them about the vulnerabilities?
This is written like an LLM trying to be witty and it's nearly unbearable.
You need to stop targeting companies without established bug bounties that allow penetration testing, or you’re going to go to jail.
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.
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.<p>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”.<p>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.
This is a red herring. They're obviously being silenced because they just obtained evidence that Burger King is recording and algorithmically analyzing every customer interaction to ensure that their wage-slave employees say "You rule!" the correct number of times per order. This is horrifying and dystopic, and it's certainly the bigger story here.
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.<p>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.
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?
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...<p>I doubt that would go down very well, neither would it if you did that with businesses instead private home.
CEO was once annoyed with me while I worked IT (we handled facilities/security, too; was <100 employees) for testing how the camera worked for detecting human presence inside dev & design's room to unlock the double glass doors (for fire safety reasons, you must allow unrestricted exit). It acted like it was based on size of object in motion; if so many pixels were in motion from last frame, it triggers unlock without any other testing on if that object is a human.<p>It wasn't enough to just shove a folder through the gap of the doors; you had to ensure the folder opened up as it was falling, changing more of the pixels to get to the trigger threshold. It took me around 5 minutes to get it to consistently trigger. CEO was displeased dev & design team now knew how to bypass the door lock from the outside; he wasn't going to pay to fix it.<p>Maybe best to internalize Have It Your Way like BK's teams did.
They sound like it should be avoided to analyse the river waters next to factories.
Yes. Talk to your congresspeople.
No bug bounties for this level of sloppiness is the crime itself.
genuinely interested in the last known story of someone going to prison for this type of pen testing without an established bug bounty.
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weev#AT&T_data_breach" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weev#AT&T_data_breach</a>
This story is a pen test gone wrong, so somewhat different, but illustrates some of the same failure modes.<p><a href="https://www.darkreading.com/vulnerabilities-threats/dark-reading-confidential-pen-test-arrests-five-years-later" rel="nofollow">https://www.darkreading.com/vulnerabilities-threats/dark-rea...</a>
Agreed, though at the same time, RBI should be rewarding them for reporting this.
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<p>[1] <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/this-is-the-hacking-investigation-into-journalist-who-clicked-view-source-on-government-website/" rel="nofollow">https://www.vice.com/en/article/this-is-the-hacking-investig...</a>
Why and what gives you the right to tell them off?<p>Hacking is hacking. If they wish to risk it, what's your problem?<p>They know the risks. Everyone knows hacking is illegal. Same with selling drugs; illegal yet folk do. Same premise.
Get caught; no sympathy given.<p>"People may get hurt"? $country throw folk in to war; it's a harsh world we live in.<p>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.<p>During my era of internet bug bounties were non-existent. You either got hired or you went to jail.<p>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.<p>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.<p>Or being doxxed by another hacker group for submitting their botnet to an AntiVirus firm. Good times, a living nightmare for my parents.
It’s a free country, etc. Obviously I have the “right” to comment a warning on the internet.<p>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).<p>Unfortunately, the existence of bug bounties has made some people forget that hacking a company without an agreement in place is <i>still a crime</i>, and publishing evidence of crimes to a wide audience on the internet is a bad idea.<p>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 <i>without</i> going to jail?
> It’s a free country, etc.<p>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.<p>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.<p>> is a bad idea<p>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.<p>> Isn’t it better that hackers today have a way to find real vulnerabilities without going to jail?<p>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.<p>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.<p>> Isn’t it better that hackers today have a way to find real vulnerabilities without going to jail?<p>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.<p>"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.<p>Bug bounty hunters to have faced jail, lawsuits, or threats — even when acting in good faith, it doesn't make you invulnerable.<p>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.<p>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.<p>> Most of what you’re saying just seems like nostalgia talking.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.
>what gives you the right to tell them off?<p>The US Constitution? (lot of assumptions of locations here, insert your charter of freedoms/other guarantor of rights here if parent comment OP is not in the US)
Assuming:<p>1. Jane, a security researcher, discovers a vulnerability in a Acme Corporation's public-internet-facing website in a legal manner<p>2. Jane is a US resident and citizen<p>3. Acme Corporation is a US company<p>... is it legal for Jane to post publicly about the vulnerability with a proof of concept exploit?<p>Relatedly:<p>Why do security researchers privately inform companies of vulnerabilities and wait for them to patch before public disclosure? Are they afraid of liability?
> Why do security researchers privately inform companies of vulnerabilities and wait for them to patch before public disclosure?<p>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.<p>It’s not even really a matter of liability IMO, it’s just the right thing to do.<p>(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)
> Why do security researchers privately inform companies of vulnerabilities and wait for them to patch before public disclosure? Are they afraid of liability?<p>You don't publish because you don't want to cause harm and you don't want to be liable for it.<p>You need to realize that vulnerabilities don't exist in a vacuum. They grant access to computer systems that control the life of people (millions of people) including their personal information, passwords, passport photos, card numbers, jobs, paychecks, transportation, food, etc... which is very likely to cover yourself, your mom, your family, your friends as you deal with larger companies.<p>When you publish a vulnerability, it will immediately be used by bad actors that intend to cause harm to all these people, including employees and customers.
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)<p>Sandvig v. Barr tempers that a bit, with the DoJ now offering some guidance around good faith endeavors around security research.<p>I'd suggest Jane have a good lawyer on retainer, and a few years to spend in the tied up the legal system.
I suspect the post itself is legal but it's also a confession of highly illegal hacking.
Yes. The underlying problem is that <i>knowing</i> about the vulnerability is not an issue. Getting to the point you know about and are sure it’s a vulnerability almost certainly will implicate whoever discovered it in a CFAA crime (and those punishments are ridiculously severe for what counts as committing them in most cases).<p>Most of these things are best done across non-cooperative international borders, just to reduce the incentive for ‘throw them in jail’ as a easy ass covering measure.
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It's incredible that a chain that produces terrible food has such a large surveillance system for underpaid employees.<p>Surely the IT workers are also underpaid, which is why they left the doors wide open.<p>That only confirms the subpar quality of the executives, the food, and everything at Burger King.
Since way back has it, repost that shit. Burger King, get bent.
The only way this shit show will ever stop is if behavior like this is ultimately rewarded with a corporate death penalty.<p>E.g. their trademarks being put in the public domain and assets confiscated to compensate their victims.<p>The watch in amazement at how actual security suddenly becomes a priority.
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.
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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"
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.<p>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.
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.<p>So I think it’s more a jab at corporate mandated performative forced happiness for customers then the employees themselves.
Sure, could have written "hapless Burger King employee…". I suspect they did not realize it might come across the way it did to some.
Burger King
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