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Ask HN: Why does the US Visa application website do a port-scan of my network?

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Re: Ask HN: Why does the US Visa application website do a port-scan of my network?

#101

Post by Thorrez »

ChrisRR wrote: post #86
edarchis wrote: post #10

Visa application is riddled with scams. From the simple website that charges you twice the price to websites that will tell you that you were rejected and then fake your documents to get in with your name. So they're probably trying to see that you're not one of those web servers, a proxy for them or detect some known C2 channels.

I'm not too familiar with network side stuff. What would a port scan be able to detect that would indicate that you're a scammer?

Just a guess, but maybe a typical bot has a webserver, ssh server, some other servers running on the same machine, whereas a typical Visa applicant doesn't.

Re: Ask HN: Why does the US Visa application website do a port-scan of my network?

#102

Post by cyanydeez »

p3rls wrote: post #89
sumedh wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scam websites are probably owned by someone who works in the Indian govt.

Almost certainly, entire industries have been given over to indian scammers and their government allies.

Modhi, for one

Re: Ask HN: Why does the US Visa application website do a port-scan of my network?

#103

Post by cogogo »

jimz wrote: post #92
cromka wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You use the same system for Business visas. Hard to imagine US wouldn’t want those as easy as possible.

[flagged]

My wife, a green card holder, applied for citizenship in April and was naturalized yesterday (from an EU country). Not that I don’t believe it could be true but where are you getting the 3-4yr timeline? If that’s accurate she/we may have dodged a massive bullet.

Re: Ask HN: Why does the US Visa application website do a port-scan of my network?

#104

Post by giantg2 »

jimz wrote: post #92
cromka wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You use the same system for Business visas. Hard to imagine US wouldn’t want those as easy as possible.

[flagged]

I don't see how blaming the pre-existing website on the current administration makes sense.

Re: Ask HN: Why does the US Visa application website do a port-scan of my network?

#105

Post by causal »

palmfacehn wrote: post #47
asimovDev wrote: post #5

Embarrassed to say that I wasn't aware of this practice. Are there malicious uses for this beyond fingerprinting?

Routers with vulnerable URLs. You can search for: "router" "authentication bypass".

Isn't CORS supposed to prevent this?

Re: Ask HN: Why does the US Visa application website do a port-scan of my network?

#106

Post by 1oooqooq »

edarchis wrote: post #10

Visa application is riddled with scams. From the simple website that charges you twice the price to websites that will tell you that you were rejected and then fake your documents to get in with your name. So they're probably trying to see that you're not one of those web servers, a proxy for them or detect some known C2 channels.

it's riddled with scams, and thinking any of this will detect any of the things you mention is very foolish, native and show a total lack of understanding of the scams. of you think using a proxy is essential for visa scam, i would even know where to begin to correct you.

it's one hundred per cent clueless privacy invasion. they are probably also opening ports via other means and using that for side channel ID like Facebook does.

just like any other documentation scam, the only weak point is on the "last mile" that's why you will always have a human interviewer.

the visa process is abusive and unpractical because people will work around any hurdle and their kpi will never be affected no matter how crappy they manage to make to whole process. or how many doge kids implement useless privacy invasion tech just because.

Re: Ask HN: Why does the US Visa application website do a port-scan of my network?

#107

Post by daveidol »

dd_xplore wrote: post #96
b3lvedere wrote: post #91

"Since looking into it, I noticed that uBlock Origin already has the default list "Block Outsider Intrusion into LAN" but it wasn't enabled." Never knew that this existed. Thank you!

Is that available in lite version too? Now that the origin js being phased out

It’s only being phased out on Chrome, by Google.

Re: Ask HN: Why does the US Visa application website do a port-scan of my network?

#108

Post by darkwater »

tifkap wrote: post #56
dns_snek wrote: post #40

The "port scan" just seems to be a local connection to 127.0.0.1:8888. I don't know what purpose it serves on this page, but our government websites often use this technique to communicate with native software for digitally signing documents. Are you seeing connection attempts to other IPs?

This is most likely an attempt to connect to a webserver on your own device to collect data and/or do tracking. Remember back in June when Facebook/meta got caught tracking users trough a webserver on Android phone thought Messenger and Instagram? Same thing. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44169115 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44175940

How are you so sure?

Re: Ask HN: Why does the US Visa application website do a port-scan of my network?

#109

Post by bluGill »

cogogo wrote: post #103
jimz wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

My wife, a green card holder, applied for citizenship in April and was naturalized yesterday (from an EU country). Not that I don’t believe it could be true but where are you getting the 3-4yr timeline? If that’s accurate she/we may have dodged a massive bullet.

Spouses always get better treatment as there is a voter who would be mad otherwise. They check for scam marriages but otherwise hurry the process through - if they don't a voter contacts their congressman to push the process. That voter will also likely know a lot of other voters and thus influence the next election while someone not married is unlikely to have that local network to use.
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