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USPS text scammers duped his wife, so he hacked their operation

(blog.smithsecurity.biz)
460 points wglb | 1 comments | 08 Aug 24 23:00 UTC | HN request time: 0.208s | source
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0xEF ◴[09 Aug 24 08:27 UTC] No.41199904[source]▶
I hate that it kicks off with "DISCLAIMER: This is not my work. I would never and don't condone illegal hacking of scammers"

You know what? I do. We all should. These scammers are awful people and deserve to be attacked. I am tired of toothless authorities like CISA and the alphabet agencies in the US doing next to nothing about it unless some YouTube scam baiter does the work for them. Scammers destroy people, not just financially, but emotionally as well, even driving some victims to suicide. As far as I am concerned, any wannabe hacker out there should be using these scammers for target practice.

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peepee1982 ◴[09 Aug 24 08:48 UTC] No.41200015[source]▶
Disclaimers exist for legal reasons, not for moral ones or a personal opinion.

I think we all agree that hacking scammers is a net positive for society.

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prepend ◴[09 Aug 24 11:26 UTC] No.41200777[source]▶
I don’t think disclaimers really work. I think it’s just urban legend that they do.

I find it hard to believe if some scammer is hacked and the evidence shows the hacker learned everything from solely this video then this disclaimer won’t mean anything legally.

I think disclaimers are just a bit of noise that people put in out of an abundance of caution.

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1. bluGill ◴[09 Aug 24 13:09 UTC] No.41201490[source]▶
Disclaimers can be shown in court if it comes that far. If you seem to be an expert on something but make a mistake you can get into trouble for practicing [law/medicine/...] without a license. By putting in a disclaimer you make it clear that while you seem to know something you are not claiming to be an expert which can protect you. If you actually are an expert it is even more important because someone might take your generic advice as specific even though there is some complex detail about their situation that makes it not apply.

Most of the time this won't matter. People and courts generally know advice isn't to be trusted, if this goes to court it will probably be laughed out before they even see your disclaimer. However since there is trusted advice on the internet and courts/the law hasn't figured out where there is always risk and a disclaimer helps protect you against the court deciding you were playing an expert.

Of course I'm not a lawyer, I'm only guessing as to what will happen. I'm reasonably sure no lawyer will comment on this for reasons above.