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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?

#201

Post by xenadu02 »

throw10920 wrote: post #152
rwmj wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not to defend the US immigration system, but my experience is that this user-hostile behavior (modulo the port scanning lol) is endemic across US government websites - including those that nominally want to serve you, those that are at the state level instead of the federal level (such as the DMV sites), and those that are even internal for use by government employees only. It's bad enough that in some cases I believ…

Gaming of the procurement system. The websites are all written by big consulting outfits. Not to mention the disaster that is big corporate IT projects combined with government rules.

Obama had the Digital Service (that Trump shut down) which paid higher salaries. Those folks were sharp and everything they touched was actually decent.

As I noted this is not unique to government. Large corporate projects at the Fortune 500 are often the same sort of consultant-driven crap.

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

#202

Post by ahdanggit »

ayewo wrote: post #190
ahdanggit wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company I work for has a legitimate service that runs on the loopback (it provides our web apps APIs for some device integration) hopefully its just as simple as the user accepting the prompt else we'll be drowning in support. We had to go the path of the local service because they killed NPAPI. I've been thinking about using web serial as an alternative but Firefox doesn't support it. That being said, I think th…

How is your company's service started on the loopback interface? You bundle a web server that is installed alongside a native app?

Roughly, yes. Customers (or more often, their IT department) runs our installer which installs the server as a windows service.

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

#203

Post by Ntrails »

Bnjoroge wrote: post #185
maleldil wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Soon, you won't be able to install it locally because the API it relies on will no longer be available. Use Firefox.

Or Microsoft Edge

I thought Edge also did not support true ad blocking?

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

#204

Post by testdelacc1 »

somenameforme wrote: post #117
testdelacc1 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 accelerat…

No the scammers were slower than the official Indian website.

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

#205

Post by smithkl42 »

PaulHoule wrote: post #196
throw10920 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to defend the US immigration system, but my experience is that this user-hostile behavior (modulo the port scanning lol) is endemic across US government websites - including those that nominally want to serve you, those that are at the state level instead of the federal level (such as the DMV sites), and those that are even internal for use by government employees only. It's bad enough that in some cases I believ…

That e-filing web site for taxes has never worked for my son because he can’t complete the id.me process, it might be as simple as you are an unperson if you use an android phone or maybe because he’s just started in the workforce he does not have a long history of tax filing and credit history to match up with. Two years in a row we’ve been able to fill out a 1040 and the NY state equivalent and make a paper submiss…

The id.me process is absolutely horrific.

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

#206

Post by smithkl42 »

supportengineer wrote: post #168
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…

>> the system just kick her out The "waterfall model" is a toxic way of thinking that pervades corporate management. Simplistic minds can't fathom any states other than "done" or "not done". Corporations are determined to crush the human soul. That is why it's not a progressive series of forms, saving your progress all along.

More-or-less agreed about the waterfall model, but you can't blame horrific US government website performance on "corporations" or "corporate management". This is precisely the sort of thing that would get you fired in any real-world corporation that wants to survive, and it's precisely the fact that you can't get fired by the federal government that allows this sort of thing to continue.

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

#207

Post by freedomben »

account42 wrote: post #54
user070223 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uMatrix is archived and I think uBlockOrigin is now advised to use(which incorporate uMatrix by enabling advanced settings) For those who want to try blocking more stuff you can enable hard mode and bind relax blocking mode keyboard shortcut I'd recommend also enabling filter lists(I advice yokoffing/filterlists and your region/language) https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode:-hard-m...

Until uBO has an even remotely usable interface for this use case people (including myself) will continue to use uMaxtrix or forks of it instead.

Amen. I would (and did!) switch browsers to continue using uMatrix rather than go without (and uBO is not a replacement)

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

#208

Post by aianus »

ryandrake wrote: post #170
Our_Benefactors wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. The website for buying treasury products is straight out of the year 2002. The login is so bad I would never consider buying them there - the service fee charged by brokerages is absolutely worth it in this case.

Which brokerages charge fees for purchasing US Treasuries? Schwab definitely doesn't. Really the only reason you need TreasuryDirect is for buying Series I bonds (and maybe a few other niche Treasury products), which are not available through brokerages.

Schwab folds their fees into their bid/ask spread, they're not doing it for free.

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

#209

Post by qingcharles »

gmueckl wrote: post #191
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…

I had to deal with the DS-160 multiple times over the year. I don't think you give justice to how bad this website really is. I have started to notice that these "timeouts" are very random. At the worst times, the session "times out" immediately after login. These random logouts happens more frequently during certain times of the day and seems to follow a semi-predictable pattern. It is almost certainly tied to syste…

One thing a developer sat in DC or SV with a 5G iPhone 16 doesn't realize too, is that if you are visiting these web sites with a phone plan that has a tiny monthly data allowance then this bloat can blow out an entire month in one sitting.

I worked with people on parole that were given free phones to use for job applications, finding their way around etc, and they would only get 3GB data a month. Some of the sites they visited were dropping 250MB of payload on the home page. You'd get some plans that would drop down to 2G, but try using that for Google Maps when you're trying to find a bus to get you across the city.

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

#210

Post by qingcharles »

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.

The web front ends are awful, but the back ends are even worse. The backlogs for some of these applications is insane. I was at a US embassy one time and got talking to a girl who had just had her application approved after an 18 year wait.
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