Thread

Early rogue AI agent activity and attempts to hack found on urlquery.net

267 points · 313 comments · snikolaev

alex-moon · 1790232383 · focus · HN ↗
It's said on every one of these but it bears repeating: existing cybercrime legislation already covers this - "rogue agent AI associated with OpenAI attempted to hack xyz" = OpenAI attempted to hack xyz.
1. colinhb · 1790233487 · focus · HN ↗
  I want to agree but have heard from several lawyers that at least in US, CFAA[1] in unlikely to be sufficient because it requires intent. No person intended to gain unauthorised access.
  Now I think the correct response is both trying in court to stretch CFAA and state statutes to cover, which will be highly fact specific, and update the law.
  But in either case won’t be a slam dunk.
  PSA to folks in the thread: If you’re American call or write to your state and Federal reps about this, and if not investigate whether there are gaps in your country’s laws.
  [1]: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act
  EDIT: See for example...
  The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), the primary federal statute governing unauthorized computer access, was written decades ago with human intruders in mind. Its key provisions require intentional or knowing unauthorized access (a mental state that maps neatly onto a person who decides to break into a system), but what happens when the hacker is an AI model that selected its own target? On the current facts, CFAA liability for OpenAI is unlikely.
  Source: <a href="https://law.vanderbilt.edu/when-ai-hacks-back-how-the-openai-hugging-face-incident-exposed-the-cfaa/" rel="nofollow">https://law.vanderbilt.edu/when-ai-hacks-back-how-the-openai...
  1. lelanthran · 1790239526 · focus · HN ↗
    > I want to agree but have heard from several lawyers that at least in US, CFAA[1] in unlikely to be sufficient because it requires intent. No person intended to gain unauthorised access.
    Only in terms of CFAA, not in terms of damages. Culpability does not require intent.
    You may not have intended to attack $CORP, but you can still made to pay the cleanup costs of that attack.
    So, yeah, you won't be convicted, but current laws still allow for you to be billed.
    gpt5 · 1790241448 · focus · HN ↗
    Which is the correct way to handle this.
    With that said, there is also criminal negligence. Now that OpenAI is made aware of the risks, it's also expected to take additional precautions in the future, otherwise there could be criminal liability as well.
    Leynos · 1790242687 · focus · HN ↗
    I'd suggest that exposing an attack surface as porous as artifactory (the same instance of artifactory) to thousands of agents who have had their criminality safeguards disabled and without chain of thought monitoring or endpoint security seems like something one shoulda already known not to do. I do not think "you'll know better next time" applies here.
    gpt5 · 1790243763 · focus · HN ↗
    It's still really important to test what the agents can do. We should accept that this is a risky test, and should take precautions. But not to the point of prohibiting in practice evaluating it. OpenAI is trying to improve alignment and control of these models in these evaluations after all.
    rkuodys · 1790245336 · focus · HN ↗
    Can you explain to me - why is it important? Would you say that about the viruses that can kill people: "We need to test the limits on how fast people can be infected and killed. It's just the risk we need to take". It somehow does not make alot of sense to me. Why can you test Agents in laboratory?

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