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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?

#111

Post by reaperducer »

giantg2 wrote: post #104
jimz wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

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

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

Many federal web sites were very quickly altered or replaced by the new administration.

This is common. Work begins on some web sites immediately after the election. For example, when a new president is sworn in, the White House web site flips immediately.

More to the parent poster's point, it has been widely reported in the legitimate media repeatedly that many federal web sites have been replaced or significantly altered by the current administration. There's an entire pseudo-department for it that also makes headlines for its greater transgressions.

Add to that severe and sudden budget and staffing cuts, and like all government functions -- you get what you pay for.

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

#112

Post by bluGill »

testdelacc1 wrote: post #30
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.

Another data point - 5he Indian visa system is similar. The official website ending in .gov.in, which is hard to find, offers a visa for $10 and minimal hassle. The scam websites, with better SEO sell the same shit for $80. They’re just proxying your application to the real website and pocketing the difference. It would be good if the Indian government could block the scammers but I guess it’s a lower priority for th…

I found the real website, but the application never went through, always some issue. My boss told me which service to use and everything just worked. (I could expense that service so cost didn't bother me)

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

#113

Post by lazide »

mrtksn wrote: post #72
paganel wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hard truth of it all is that both the US and (partially) the EU don’t want to make this easier because seeing as wanting “outside” people is now a political liability. You may want to adjust your expectations around that.

Turkish tourist are desired, Turks love spending money on restaurants and activities especially since the prices in Turkey have become more expensive than most of the EU. Greeks even introduced special non-Schengen on-arrival visa valid on the Greek islands especially for the Turks. Besides that, EU has "green passport" exception for the Turkish nationals, where they can travel visa-free on this kind of passport that…

The US gov’t has been actively targeting CANADA, one of the countries historically closest trading partners and allies.

Maybe in the EU it’s all good, but expect a lot of turbulence in the US.

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

#114

Post by codedokode »

tmdetect wrote: post #69
tmdetect wrote: post #49

Very interesting. Having looked at NoScript it seems like you can disable LAN as a default value under the allow tab.

Looking further * uBlock Origin and Lite have it as an option under Filter List > Privacy > Block Outsider Intrusion into LAN * Brave prevents it, tested with Aggressively block Trackers and Ads.

Why do you need a heavyweight extension to block sites from scanning your local network? Ridiculous.

Also I wonder if this protection is available only with old extension manifest version or new network request hooks API also supports it.

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

#115

Post by zzzeek »

giantg2 wrote: post #104
jimz wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

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

Elon Musk set out hundreds of very young and arrogant programmers to modify code throughout the federal government including to change decades old code used by Treasury, Social Security, etc. While this went on he would tweet idiotic statements like "Dead people are getting social security!" (because he didn't understand the deceased have beneficiaries) and "we're giving social security to people who are 150 years old!" (because he and we presume some subset of his young programmers didn't understand date fields being set to the epoch indicated the date of birth/death had not been recorded).

All this is to say we probably shouldn't assume any current US government website, especially ones that have to do with immigration, hasn't been completely modified by this team.

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

#116

Post by cjrp »

gethly wrote: post #38

Just a little side note - in this context, it makes sense if the website tries to connect to a local port because you might be running a card reader(ie. terminal). This is how it works with some(all?) EU countries that have a chip in their ID cards, or even vehicle registration cards, which you can use to access sensitive information or perform certain administrative tasks on government websites. Although, from perso…

I've had it before where it asked me to use an iPhone/Android app which can read the passport's NFC chip. I guess that's the modern replacement for IE/Java.

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

#117

Post by somenameforme »

testdelacc1 wrote: post #30
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.

Another data point - 5he Indian visa system is similar. The official website ending in .gov.in, which is hard to find, offers a visa for $10 and minimal hassle. The scam websites, with better SEO sell the same shit for $80. They’re just proxying your application to the real website and pocketing the difference. It would be good if the Indian government could block the scammers but I guess it’s a lower priority for th…

Not sure if this is the case for India, but I've experienced similar situations for other countries, but the 'scam websites' actually provided a real service - if you needed some ultra-urgent processing (like you only realized you needed a visa to this country before boarding a flight, once you were already at the airport check-in...) they were able to provide 30 minute approval, whereas the official site's accelerated processing was 24 hours.

So obviously the only way they could to this is with government contacts meaning the government themselves could already do it, but a lot of immigration stuff everywhere is full of people taking kickbacks.

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

#119

Post by IT4MD »

rwmj wrote: post #68
mrtksn wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be quite clever for an incredibly horrible website. The other day my SO, who is a Turkish citizen, was filling up her visa application and after half an hour of meticulous form filling the system just kick her out. I think the session times out or something. If you haven't created an account or you haven't write down the current application ID everything is lost. In the process she was also directed to a n…

You might be making the assumption that the US wants to make the process easier.

That would be an abysmally poor assumption currently.

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

#120

Post by conductr »

cromka wrote: post #84
rwmj wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be making the assumption that the US wants to make the process easier.

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

As a US citizen, I feel it’s opposite. Hard to imagine they’d want anything related to visas to be easy.
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