Have you double-checked whether the IP isn't shared among multiple website domains? That's quite a classic with IP based filtering with hosters like GCP...
Ask HN: Why does the US Visa application website do a port-scan of my network?
211–220 of 269 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why does the US Visa application website do a port-scan of my network?
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
Checking out the initial request on github for this feature I wonder why is this necessary? What access to the local network does the browser provide, or need to provide, and why isn't this something developers are more concerned about? I had a feeling this was possible as I see lots of mdns requests when I connect to certain things running sockets. https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/issues/4318
It's being looked at. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1481298
7 year old ticket updated and prioritized because of https://localmess.github.io/
Re: Ask HN: Why does the US Visa application website do a port-scan of my network?
#213Earlier 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?
This how many of them work for transporting vs traditional old way of registering url scheme and requiring user interacts --- Discord, Blizzard net, Riot Client ... all localhost listener's that can interact
Re: Ask HN: Why does the US Visa application website do a port-scan of my network?
#214If would be interesting to see what happens on OpenBSD. With pledge(2) and unveil(2) in Firefox, I wonder what it would see. I expect it would see nothing. I will give it a try and see what happens and if I see anything I will add it here.
I saw nothing of note on OpenBSD. I added the plugin and it prompted me an attempt was made to scan the network, it said it blocked the scan SO, I guess that is going to be used on all my firefox runs.
Pushing the burden of network permissions management outside the browser, to the OS? Heresy!
To be serious, this has introduced me to sandboxing on BSD via pledge [0] and comparisons against Linux seccomp [1] - thank you!
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17289654
[1] https://kristaps.bsd.lv/devsecflops/ (submission by same poster at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44264021)
Re: Ask HN: Why does the US Visa application website do a port-scan of my network?
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is patently false for one reason - once someone has a U.S. green card and has met the residency requirement to apply for citizenship, the application form and process are the same for everyone, regardless of how they got their green card (through work, marriage, asylum, investment, etc.). Once you are eligible to apply, the whole process is basically form N400->biometrics->interview (just doublechecking your nam…
Not exactly, if you're married to a citizen the residence requirement is 3 years not 5, and the form clearly distinguishes the 3 and 5 year options (3 years requires extra evidence of marriage and spouse's US citizenship)
Yes, I am aware, which is why my grandparent comment said “[…] once someone […] has met the residency requirement to apply for citizenship.”
The amount of time one has to wait before meeting the residency requirement (aka before they can apply for the US citizenship) depends on other circumstances. With the default being 5 years (technically 4 years and 9 months, because by the time process finishes and you get your citizenship, you will hit the required 5y mark, so they officially let people apply at 4y9mo mark; there is even a first-party "early filing calculator" tool[0]), and the number going down depending on whether it was through marriage, whether you served in the US military and applied for the expedited process, etc.
However, my post explicitly mentioned that I was talking about the time one has to wait after they apply for the US citizenship, to which this has zero relevance.
0. https://www.uscis.gov/archive/uscis-early-filing-calculator
Re: Ask HN: Why does the US Visa application website do a port-scan of my network?
#216Visa 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.
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…
Hey, this is actually something I have a keen interest in as I'm fighting my government (as an MP) to drop those scammers where possible. Do you have any media links to send me about them selling the "good hours" on the black market?
Even if the US has a horrible visa system – as I can attest, despite only having to do it every 5 years – the EU countries could benefit from attracting talent by being more welcoming. So that is part of my mission as an MP and tech-entrepreneur. Any help and pointers is welcome.
Re: Ask HN: Why does the US Visa application website do a port-scan of my network?
#217Earlier 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…
>These identity verification services look like a scam to me.
Even if their intent is to run an 'honest' business, the method of bouncing a user around to god knows how many domains during the process becomes effectively indistinguishable from a compromised service, and the alternative of having each site host their own id verification system screams, HACK US. I can see users becoming increasingly accustomed to getting out their cards several times during a sign-up and not having the foggiest idea of where their information went to.
Re: Ask HN: Why does the US Visa application website do a port-scan of my network?
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
… or you can instead phase out those browsers who try to force blocker restrictions i.e. spyware on you (e.g. chrome and such), and use one of the browsers where you can use the full-featured (not "lite") uBlock Origin instead, e.g. Firefox.
Firefox might be an okay browser, but that would imply supporting Mozilla. I've been meaning to switch to Vivaldi. Just as soon as the onboarding dialog stops crashing.
I wonder how bad does Mozilla have to be that you have to continue using Chrome without ublock?
Re: Ask HN: Why does the US Visa application website do a port-scan of my network?
#219Earlier 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
Microsoft will eventually (TBD) remove Manifest v2 support from Edge, too[1].
> Manifest V2 extensions will no longer function in Microsoft Edge, even with the use of enterprise policies.
[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/extensions/...
Re: Ask HN: Why does the US Visa application website do a port-scan of my network?
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 ol…
Is your claim that they found zero people fraudulently collecting social security through a dead relative?
no, this is an entirely bad faith representation of my words as written
he most certainly did not understand that the vast majority of what he perceived as "dead people getting benefits" were completely legitimate cases where beneficiaries were receiving those benefits and/or the data was encoded without a real birth/death date
since you appear to be of the opinion that Musk was somehow indicating a useful fact of some kind, here's mainstream media reporting of the claims made by Trump and Musk (we can assume Trump was advised by Musk) and their extreme inaccuracy:
https://apnews.com/article/social-security-payments-deceased...