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Comment by badfrog | Hacker News Reader

> elaborate months-long scheme involving stealing and using university logins to break into the student records system, view answers, and alter her own and other students’ grades.

Is this actually considered hacking? My mental model of hacking has always involved discovering and exploiting security vulnerabilities in a software system, not just finding and using somebody's password.

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You or your business are much more likely to have your information stolen because of credential theft than someone discovering and exploiting vulnerabilities. This is regardless of whether your attacker is a nation state or a cheating student. Whether you decide to call it "hacking" is irrelevant when they're in your network.

I never meant to suggest it shouldn't be taken seriously.

I wouldn't consider it hacking. This is not using the system in a way it wasn't intended to be used. This is in fact the correct way to get into the system.

Depends on how the passwords were obtained, I guess.

We settled this debate in Slashdot in 1998. Your definition is too narrow.

This HN/hacker mindset that because the school/company/software was vulnerable or flat out incompetent, it’s ok to do something they know to be immoral. Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean it’s morally acceptable. The justification of look how stupid the school/company/software was is weak and lacking personal responsibility.

They are making a pointless argument about the definition of "hacking", there's nothing in the comment dismissing the wrongdoing.

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