Member-only story
Nowadays, Inspecting HTML Is Considered Hacking
Browser DevTools = Hacking?
Yeah, the title is ridiculous and so is this story that really deserves more coverage. Inspecting website HTML is an extremely common feature most normal people are aware of, having learned in school to modify their grades in online gradebooks for their parents to see or by watching Indian scammer payback videos on YouTube.
The Story
Keep Sensitive Information On The Server
Imagine one day you wake up to check a local school’s website and see a simple-looking table with educators’ and teachers’ information. You decide to dabble a bit with the website and discover a major via the Inspect Element tool which you immediately report and be classified as a hacker and threatened to take charges by the governor of the state.
That actually happened in Missouri last October when a journalist was going through the state’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education application and found out it was leaking teachers’ private information.
