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Comment by tracebit | Hacker News Reader

For those interested, we put the code online here: https://github.com/tracebit-com/find-s3-account

I am not sure this would be in agreement with these policies, or at least the spirit of them: https://aws.amazon.com/security/penetration-testing/

OP's article said they consulted with Amazon's security team before publishing, so I imagine they know what's allowed in this case.

It says he consulted but does not say what was their answer. I can't imagine it was a thumbs up, probably an embarrassed silence?

Yes, for the avoidance of doubt - we got the OK from AWS to publish this research

Reminds me of the old slogan for Kix cereal.

"Kid Tested. Mother Approved."

Kids tested it but we don't know if they approved it. We don't know if mothers tested it; we only know they approved it.

Why all the doubt? "not sure" "can't imagine"

When the source says they already did their due diligence...

The initial text was ambiguous but the author has now clarified their answer in this thread. Do you really think they were happy with this? I actually think this might open other attack vectors.

I agree that the account number just by itself is not a secret, but there is a reason why all AWS demo videos mask the account number.

They can fix the bug if they don't like it.

This is my attitude towards security disclosures. In this case, Amazon approved the disclosure. But even if they hadn't, it's better for the good guys and bad guys to know about problems when the alternative is only the bad guys knowing (or the bad guys and a few good guys at the affected company).

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