alt Hacker News> download data in bulk
This phrase is doing a lot of lifting here. Op clearly downloaded far less than is possible.
> Do you realize that at that point in time there is a breach?
As others have said elsewhere, this is a legal opinion and IANAL. Morally: downloading data, not reading it, then deleting it, then reporting it does not strike me as unethical.
Far less than possible but far more than needed to prove there is a vulnerability.
> Morally: downloading data, not reading it, then deleting it, then reporting it does not strike me as unethical.
How will you prove you didn't read it?
How will you prove you deleted it and that you did not make a copy?
The company has no option: it is now documented that there is a breach. They will have to report that breach (which if I were them I'd be doing immediately, they have 48 hours to do so). And then they are going to have to make a tough decision: thank you for your time and effort and hope that you really didn't read it and that you didn't copy it or play it safe and file a case against you.
Lots of companies are going to play it safe, if only because their compliance department is not going to want to take the risk of you popping up a few months later with another interesting analysis of data that you shouldn't have had in the first place. That's what makes this so risky, it turns a clear 'good deed' into something that could well end up in court. Morality rarely factors into such situations.