> Nothing neathack did was illegal, taking it at face value, of course.

Law varies significantly between jurisdictions. You're just blankly claiming it's not illegal. People have been convicted for way less than this, in different countries.

Plus, you could be creating more damages to the company by downloading more data like this, and you're not wearing a white hat when you're creating damage. A white-hat is in and out, without creating damage, with a clean report about the issue so the software provider can patch it.