30 outubro 2002

VITAMEDIAS
Rooting Around Site With Intent? Both Intentia and Reuters agree the Reuters reporter obtained Intentia's financial statement directly from Intentia's website. [...]
Sources employed by Reuters who requested anonymity speculated the reporter was able to guess the URL from prior knowledge of how Intentia URLs are constructed. Internet-savvy users will often tinker with URLs to quickly get to where they want to be on a website.
At first glance, the URL linking to Intentia's 2002 third-quarter report doesn't appear to be easily guessable, but an Intentia spokesman told reporters the same "protection" was used on previous financial releases. So it is possible that a reporter familiar with Intentia could have made an educated guess.
"I don't see how people are supposed to know what are 'public URLs' vs. 'private URLs' at a website," said security and privacy consultant Richard Smith. "People can't be mind readers."
"It's pretty simple. If Intentia didn't want outsiders to see their quarterly results before a certain time, then they shouldn't post them on their public website or they need a security system in place to protect their private documents." [ver Group accuses Reuters of IT break-in]