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▲ john_strinlai 3 hours ago

>Microsoft had editorial control over this post, cutting sections and figures and reshaping how the impact is described before publication.

that is... not great. shame on microsoft.

its actions like that which shed light on why we get the nighmare eclipses of the world. pressuring a kid into handing over full editorial control of a disclosure is gross.

▲rkagerer 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Love to hear more on the motivation for agreeing to this.

e.g. The $5000? Amnesty from being sued?

▲menomatter 4 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Speaking of being sue, I once found a hole in a healthcare system. I solicited legal advice and the response was overwhelmingly against reporting. The company didn’t not have a bounty program. So I shut up knowing my info is sitting there exposed. I wonder what’s the consensus on this? Do people normally report it or not?

On some forms I was advised to report hippa complaint. I can’t remember if I did. This was 10 or more years ago.

▲srdjanr 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Also he's 16. I'd definitely be less willing to push back (especially on something like this) at his age

▲0x1ch 16 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

At that age in the mid 2000s, I would be foaming at the mouth to tell a FANG company to eat dirt over something like a disclosure + unpaid bounty. But if he got the money and didn't negotiate... You live and you learn.

▲p-e-w an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Of course not. You don’t push back on something like that. You hire a lawyer and let them do the pushing for you. If you contact the right NGO, they might even give you one for free.

There’s no way I’d sign any agreement with a company like Microsoft regarding an issue like that without a lawyer. I’d rather not disclose at all if those were the only options.

▲saghm an hour ago | parent [-]

I don't know about you, but when I was 16, I never hired a lawyer, and none of the other 16 year olds I knew had either

▲snapplebobapple an hour ago | parent [-]

I've seen hackers. Even if you do it right you're still going to get banned from the internet till you are 18 and dating Angelina Jolie is not the draw it was 20 years ago....

▲icantevenhold 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Not getting your life ruined by getting sued by a trillion dollar company sounds like a pretty good motivation

▲john_strinlai an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

i think the answer is simple: they're a kid, and microsoft bullied them.

▲igleria 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

reminds me of a former job in which my goodbye letter was heavily editorialized...

▲the__alchemist an hour ago | parent [-]

Would love to hear more.

▲ceroxylon an hour ago | parent [-]

I will tell my story: I found a huge accounting error that allowed for several employees to embezzle funds. I disclosed it to the main stakeholders and some people went to jail. The accounting team still refused to acknowledge that the mistake was theirs, so I left on principle.

A few weeks later, I was talking to an old colleague and they revealed that the story that came from stakeholders was that the accounting team found the error, and I left in disgrace (despite that not being my department?).

So if you find an embarrassing mistake and you do not control the narrative, you have to proceed very carefully.

▲sdcfgy 10 minutes ago | parent [-]

Had one like that. I quit and they blamed me for a project failure after the fact. That pissed off a couple of colleagues who thought it might happen to them. They also quit leaving them entirely without a software team. Set them back ten years because they didn’t make the market in time.

Write everything down and make sure everyone knows you’re writing it down. Saves a lot of hassle like that.