In a legal sense any unwanted intrusion can be considered hacking - i.e. a 'hack' is not contingent on penetrating authorization. In practice most APIs are secured by obscurity rather than any high quality rigorous authorization. The only thing it would make absolutely clear at a legal level is that you do not want the API to be publicly used, but for a jury/judge accessing an unadvertised API via browser tools is hacking.
I think this is the solution to a lot of AI 'alignment' issues.
We have laws, and LLMs should NEVER break them unless the user states its fine with some qualifying condition. Yes, every country has a different legal system, but I think there's a decent idea of what constitutes intrusion thats agreed on in most parts of the world.
In grey area scenarios, the user should be able to override this, with a warning of clear consequences of, and should they accept, users should be held criminally liable.
If the LLM does so unprompted, the responsibility should be the providers'.
LLMs should be considered tools, legally speaking.
I do think one day that LLMs may be so 'aligned' that hacking culture will have a resurgence in some way. In the sense that the only way to do anything a bit below board will be manually.
Yes, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is widely criticised for making almost any act a violation (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030) including many things that many people do on a routine basis, such as accessing a non-public API. If it was not intended to be accessed and is accessed, then the perpetrator of the crime has met the "exceeds authorized access" clause.
> (a) Whoever
> (2) intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains—
> (C) information from any protected computer;
> (6) the term “exceeds authorized access” means to access a computer with authorization and to use such access to obtain or alter information in the computer that the accesser is not entitled so to obtain or alter;
A "protected computer" is:
> (B) which is used in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce or communication, including a computer located outside the United States that is used in a manner that affects interstate or foreign commerce or communication of the United States
So this is a Pilates computer, which probably is used by a business which probably conducts interstate commerce, which probably makes it a protected computer, and the API gave "information".
where do you live? Most places I've lived if you walk into a private residence where you don't know anyone but the door is open that is unlawful entry or trespassing. Same if someone forgets to lock the door of their business when they close at 9 p.m and you go in at midnight.
My gym class operates on 'write on a piece of paper, cross off your name if you want to cancel'. I could cross someone else's name off and write mine in. They would have trouble figuring out it was me who did the malicious cross-off.
That wouldn't make it remotely acceptable of course.
It's not straightforward: the conviction was eventually vacated (without really addressing the substantive point), and it is possible that the US authorities went particularly heavy in this case for other reasons.
But yes, attacking an unauthenticated API has previously met the threshold for conviction.
But say that the underlying api exposes some endpoint discoverability capabilities (eg. Exposing an openAPI spec), then arguably the action was invited: the actions was documented along with the auth model.
I guess it falls in the same category of burglars that enter from the unlocked main door.
It is still illegal even if there were no security measures to overcome by the attacker.
That being said using an API does require a minimum of computer knowledge
Any person who, with the intention of securing an unlawful gain for themselves or another obtains for themselves or another data that are stored or transmitted electronically or in some similar manner and which are not intended for them and have been specially secured to prevent their access shall be liable to a custodial sentence not exceeding five years or to a monetary penalty.
So this wording is really interesting in the bug bounty sense and I’m curious if you know how it would be handled.
If someone hits an unsecured API, receives information, and notifies the company of this while also requesting a bounty, would that satisfy all of the requirements of prosecution?
The unlawful gain is the sticking point in my mind.
I'm a software developer. This is clearly bad, and we can decide what it should be called. It might not be 'hacking', but you are clearly abusing the computer to steal a space in a class you shouldn't have.
Lately, anytime I want to do anything, AI from Anthropic and OpenAI gets in the way; even simply putting a logo where watermarks from free services exist is now impossible.
Guess this will become common now. I used Claude to write a small application to monitor free appointments for driving license renewal at my DMV. Instead of waiting 6 months I was able to get an appointment within a few days.
Old news framed as something fresh. That "happened in April" may as well read "happened 2 years ago" and is like saying someone was caught jay walking.
Surely surely there are apps that use AI to watch you while you do at-home pilates and tell you if you are doing it wrong, need to suck in that bit or straighten that bit?
But someone could get offended! So no. But with LLMs, it's becoming easy to make such app for your own use, tuned to the encouragement style and threshold that works best for you.
> And with a fully grown adult requesting it to do so with zero care or due diligence.
I'm unclear what you consider reasonable due diligence in this case. Should the protagonist have assumed that the gym API was unauthenticated, and that the agent would discover this?
The original deleted blog post on the 'ai agent hacks gym' story was back from April 2026: https://web.archive.org/web/20260516025532/https://www.affin...
Is it even possible to "hack" an API that has no authorisation for any of its methods?
In a legal sense any unwanted intrusion can be considered hacking - i.e. a 'hack' is not contingent on penetrating authorization. In practice most APIs are secured by obscurity rather than any high quality rigorous authorization. The only thing it would make absolutely clear at a legal level is that you do not want the API to be publicly used, but for a jury/judge accessing an unadvertised API via browser tools is hacking.
I think this is the solution to a lot of AI 'alignment' issues.
We have laws, and LLMs should NEVER break them unless the user states its fine with some qualifying condition. Yes, every country has a different legal system, but I think there's a decent idea of what constitutes intrusion thats agreed on in most parts of the world.
In grey area scenarios, the user should be able to override this, with a warning of clear consequences of, and should they accept, users should be held criminally liable.
If the LLM does so unprompted, the responsibility should be the providers'.
LLMs should be considered tools, legally speaking.
I do think one day that LLMs may be so 'aligned' that hacking culture will have a resurgence in some way. In the sense that the only way to do anything a bit below board will be manually.
I'm pretty sure that's not universally true. IANAL but I believe the legality depends on location and context.
Yes, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is widely criticised for making almost any act a violation (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030) including many things that many people do on a routine basis, such as accessing a non-public API. If it was not intended to be accessed and is accessed, then the perpetrator of the crime has met the "exceeds authorized access" clause.
> (a) Whoever
> (2) intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains—
> (C) information from any protected computer;
> (6) the term “exceeds authorized access” means to access a computer with authorization and to use such access to obtain or alter information in the computer that the accesser is not entitled so to obtain or alter;
A "protected computer" is:
> (B) which is used in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce or communication, including a computer located outside the United States that is used in a manner that affects interstate or foreign commerce or communication of the United States
So this is a Pilates computer, which probably is used by a business which probably conducts interstate commerce, which probably makes it a protected computer, and the API gave "information".
So, yes.
If you leave your front door open I don’t think you’d classifying someone walking in and taking your laptop as ‘not stealing’.
However walking through the door would not be a crime in itself, where I live anyway.
where do you live? Most places I've lived if you walk into a private residence where you don't know anyone but the door is open that is unlawful entry or trespassing. Same if someone forgets to lock the door of their business when they close at 9 p.m and you go in at midnight.
You can legally walk into someones home in your country if the door is not locked? Where is that?
It's funny how the two of our comments are polar opposites
Someone walking in is an illegal entry to begin with.
PS: in some countries
My gym class operates on 'write on a piece of paper, cross off your name if you want to cancel'. I could cross someone else's name off and write mine in. They would have trouble figuring out it was me who did the malicious cross-off.
That wouldn't make it remotely acceptable of course.
At least one person has received significant jail time for doing exactly that: https://www.justice.gov/usao-nj/pr/new-york-man-sentenced-41...
It's not straightforward: the conviction was eventually vacated (without really addressing the substantive point), and it is possible that the US authorities went particularly heavy in this case for other reasons.
But yes, attacking an unauthenticated API has previously met the threshold for conviction.
The more interesting question is rather: who is responsible? The user who set-up Claw, the LLM provider?
It's being used unintentionally to do things it wasn't designed to do... isn't that hacking by definition? Missing Auth is a typical finding.
Practically speaking, discovering that fact and taking advantage of it, is already "hacking".
We are used the interfaces being web interfaces.
But say that the underlying api exposes some endpoint discoverability capabilities (eg. Exposing an openAPI spec), then arguably the action was invited: the actions was documented along with the auth model.
Unfortunately normies tend to treat APIs like "staff only" stickers on doors.
If you ask a software developer: no
If you ask a judge: probably yes
I guess it falls in the same category of burglars that enter from the unlocked main door. It is still illegal even if there were no security measures to overcome by the attacker.
That being said using an API does require a minimum of computer knowledge
In switzerland it depends 143bis StGB:
Any person who, with the intention of securing an unlawful gain for themselves or another obtains for themselves or another data that are stored or transmitted electronically or in some similar manner and which are not intended for them and have been specially secured to prevent their access shall be liable to a custodial sentence not exceeding five years or to a monetary penalty.
So this wording is really interesting in the bug bounty sense and I’m curious if you know how it would be handled.
If someone hits an unsecured API, receives information, and notifies the company of this while also requesting a bounty, would that satisfy all of the requirements of prosecution?
The unlawful gain is the sticking point in my mind.
I'm a software developer. This is clearly bad, and we can decide what it should be called. It might not be 'hacking', but you are clearly abusing the computer to steal a space in a class you shouldn't have.
not really, it needs criminal intent.
Nope
https://www.heise.de/en/news/Modern-Solution-Court-of-Appeal...
Posted two days ago.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49236439
Lately, anytime I want to do anything, AI from Anthropic and OpenAI gets in the way; even simply putting a logo where watermarks from free services exist is now impossible.
I am off to DeepSeek Flash now.
What do you mean by this?
I use a combination of big American AI and self hosted but I don’t understand your point.
Guess this will become common now. I used Claude to write a small application to monitor free appointments for driving license renewal at my DMV. Instead of waiting 6 months I was able to get an appointment within a few days.
Old news framed as something fresh. That "happened in April" may as well read "happened 2 years ago" and is like saying someone was caught jay walking.
Surely surely there are apps that use AI to watch you while you do at-home pilates and tell you if you are doing it wrong, need to suck in that bit or straighten that bit?
But someone could get offended! So no. But with LLMs, it's becoming easy to make such app for your own use, tuned to the encouragement style and threshold that works best for you.
Those that have, more will be given. Those that do not, more will be taken.
AI just doing what 17yo hackers with skills but lack of fully developed morals would've done.
Just without the skin in the game.
...And with a fully grown adult requesting it to do so with zero care or due diligence. Just a whoopsie after the fact.
Why would they let media take photos of them?? I suppose as a "look this could've happened to anyone"? But it actually can't.
I guess they also must've realized that, given that the bbc interview was declined. So good on them I guess.
> And with a fully grown adult requesting it to do so with zero care or due diligence.
I'm unclear what you consider reasonable due diligence in this case. Should the protagonist have assumed that the gym API was unauthenticated, and that the agent would discover this?
"Asked for a car, they got me a Claude subscription. How's that for being born under a bad sign?"
I can't help but think that this is a submarine[1] paid for by OpenAI or Anthropic as a way of garnering public sentiment for AI regulation.
[1] https://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html