Comment by lostphilosopher | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lostphilosopher | Hacker News Reader

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lostphilosopher

HN "post" - Because that's the HN guideline.

> "Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Register "post" - The Register is not a Chinese publication. The nation/legal system involved can't be assumed from the source, and is a vital part of the story since it's about a legal matter.

> "the Shenzhen Municipal People's Procuratorate – the local version of the Crown Prosecution Service – successfully prosecuted the developer in early April, before the Shenzhen District Court."

Had The Register _not_ included "Chinese" it could have been accused of "click baiting" since the Register's predominantly non Chinese[1] readership might have thought this was about laws that applied to them and clicked through.

Had the source been a Chinese publication writing about a American developer jailed, I'd imagine they would use "American dev jailed..." for exactly the same reasons.

1. "The Register is a leading global online tech publication, with more than nine million monthly unique browsers worldwide. The core audiences are the UK and US, accounting for more than six million. The bulk of the remaining readership are located in Canada, Australia and northern Europe." - https://www.theregister.co.uk/Profile/about_the_register/

> HN "post" - Because that's the HN guideline.

I understand HN guideline here. I am talking about the Guardian's post.

Leaking private information to the public even unintentionally , that compromise the security of software and may cause public harm is illegal no matter which country you go. So the nationality of the one who leaked it is irrelevant as far as I am concerned.

This is a news story about a specific event. This specific event happened in China, to a Chinese citizen. The whole story is full of specifics - dates, amounts of money, company names, individual names, repository names, direct quotes, etc. These details are the story, the story does not exist with out them. Robbed of those details the article would convey nothing that people want to know. These details also help us relate to the story.

Human elected leader of country.

Weather occurring in geographic region.

Team lost game. Team won game. There will be more games.

Human incarcerated after conviction of crime.

Generally it isn't illegal under any system based on common law. A necessary component a crime is mens rea, which is the intention or knowledge of the wrongful act. The act alone, even if it is illegal doesn't constitute a crime.

By this principle it's not a crime for a delvery man to be in posession of contraband that he has no knowledge of. This isn't to be confused with not knowing something is illegal. That's no defense. It's about knowing or not knowing the consequences of your action.

That said there are lesser offences, misdemenors or summary offences, where mens rea is not required. They usually have fines but also can have limited jail time. For example, you can be punished for speeding and whether you knew you were doing it or not is irrelevent.

What's unclear in this case is whether the developer knew or ought to have known there were secrets in the code, or that his push was to a public place. It's also unclear, at least to me, whether Chinese law requires mens rea.

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