Comment by tptacek
2 months ago
Lots of things are "of value". That's not the bar the statute sets. To the extent something isn't per se exempted by the statute (as the outcome of the case established schemas are), the burden is on the public body to demonstrate that disclosure Would jeopardize the security of the system.
It still seems like a massively gray area: despite the distinction between "would jeopardize" and "could jeopardize" as explained by TFA, the definition of "jeopardize" includes "danger" which means "could lead to harm" not "would lead to harm" at which point it hardly matters whether a thing "could endanger" or "would endanger" the security of the system.
"Would" versus "could" has nothing to do with why your analysis doesn't hold. If something doesn't enable people to attack a system, but is merely one of the valuable things you could get from that system, it does not jeopardize that system under Illinois law. The standard of proof for the jeopardy doesn't enter into it, because no claim of jeopardy has been made.
Again: this part of the case is settled. We didn't lose at the State Supreme Court because the court was worried there was jeopardy, but because they re-read the statute as per se exempting schemas as "file layouts".
How is it that this wording stuff isn't already decided globally? I mean, the concept of dangling modifier has existing for centuries, do the courts really decide this kind of thing on a case-by-case basis by random dice roll?
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> If something doesn't enable people to attack a system, but is merely one of the valuable things you could get from that system, it does not jeopardize that system under Illinois law.
The problem I have with this is that the schema isn't something an attacker recovers for its own sake. It's something the attacker recovers in order to further their attack. This necessarily means that it does enable people to attack the system. That's the only value an attacker sees in it.
> Again: this part of the case is settled. We didn't lose at the State Supreme Court because the court was worried there was jeopardy
Doesn't matter to the discussion; the court, Supreme or trial, can be wrong as easily as it can be right.
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> this part of the case is settled.
Maybe for this case, but it sounds like enough hinges on the details of the system that in another database, a court could uphold that there "would" be jeopardy instead of there "could" be. So you won on the more fragile part of the ruling.
On the other hand, interpreting the law as exempting database schemas is something that can be applied to any computer system, and it presumably sets a binding precedent (I'm not familiar with Illinois jurisprudence, but that's how I'd expect something called the State Supreme Court to work) so losing on that point is worse for future cases.
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