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boyter boyter
 
M$2 May 14, 2009 02:26 AM

Legal Question - If I write and publish an article on breaking CAPTCHA's with code am I breaking any laws?

I was just polishing off an article I have written about breaking CAPTCHA's and was going to publish it. However I am unsure about my legal position. This blog http://kitschchaos.com/blog/?p=243 mentions that if you write CAPTCHA breaking code you are breaking the DMCA. Now since I am based in Australia I am not so much worried about that, but I am curious if it is indeed illegal?
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tinycomb tinycomb
 
 May 14, 2009 03:00 AM
It is not illegal to post content about how to hack. If you look at places like EthicalHacker, they consistently post content about things like this. More importantly, your article is not targeting a specific website/individual, therefore no one has a reason to come after you.
Source(s):
my legal books.



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dimitrykap... dimitrykap...
 
May 14, 2009 03:49 AM
So long as you state that your article is based on general principles and not on a specific target, you should be fine. Preface it with a disclaimer that states that you posting this article solely for informational and educational purposes, and not for the purpose of anyone actually trying out your techniques.

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mritty mritty
 
May 14, 2009 01:12 PM
Probably not illegal, but certainly immoral. CAPTCHAs exist to prevent spammers from spamming and people from using automated methods of using someone's website against their Terms and Conditions. Why would you want to help either of these people? You seriously can't find something better to do with your computer skills?

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pazaq pazaq
 
May 14, 2009 03:32 PM - Fact Refuted
I totally disagree. If he has broken it and doesn't publish it the writers of the original code won't know there is a problem until a bad guy figures it out and does harm. Odds are they already have by the way. There are many times more people looking for ways to break this kind of stuff than there are writers.

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mritty mritty
 
May 14, 2009 04:30 PM
Bull. If he was being a white knight, just doing it for the betterment of the CAPCHA author, he would just tell the author, directly. Publishing it serves no purpose other than to tell the world "HEY HERE'S HOW YOU CAN BREAK THIS CAPCHA, HAVE AT IT!!".

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boyter boyter
 
May 15, 2009 01:27 AM
Actually I have already informed the website owner (they sit next to me) and have their permission to publish. I also do not mention the website in any form or link to it in any way.

The reason for publishing this is that when I was writing my thesis on how to break CAPTCHA's and perform OCR there were no decent guides on the web with code which you could tweak and run yourself. It is exactly the guide I was looking for when I started doing this. So I am not approaching this from a here is how to be evil standpoint, but how to help others in the same situation.

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darknessfa... darknessfa...
 
May 17, 2009 08:21 PM
Think of it this way, it is legal to publish books on how to kill someone and get away with it, as long as you don't incite anyone to actually commit the crime, then you're an accessory.

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