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Tell HN: MailChimp blacklists your IP if you open the browser's dev tools

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Re: Tell HN: MailChimp blacklists your IP if you open the browser's dev tools

#21

Post by cpmsmith »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #12

Well that is poopy. Is there a way I can “stealth” open dev tools on all sites? I like to see network requests in a lot of places, but don’t like to think the server will change their responses based on my local actions.

There are a couple of ways they can try to detect devtools being opened. As the sibling comment implies, the most popular way is to detect a sudden viewport resize, and you can avoid that by ensuring your devtools are set to open in a new window before opening them.

The only other ways I'm aware of are:

- Detecting the keyboard shortcut, ⌘⌥i or equivalent, which you can avoid by using the browser menu, and

- More riskily, evaluating a `debugger` statement and detecting whether evaluation paused. I'm not sure you could do anything about this one, but it would certainly be obvious to you whether it was happening.

Re: Tell HN: MailChimp blacklists your IP if you open the browser's dev tools

#22

Post by klabb3 »

Couple thoughts:

1. Correctly designed dev tools shouldn’t be detectable from the app itself, especially not if the tools are passively used for observing. This can be abused by malicious actors who can make it harder to detect and warn others. It can also cause heisenbugs.

2. One if those malicious actors is apparently Mailchimp. I don’t use it so I’m not affected. But from a meta-perspective it’s concerning when direct user-hostile actions are normalized by what most people consider “legit companies”. The same could be said about fingerprinting and many other tricks.

3. Meta-meta point: if you’re running a business that does this, the open web is not for you. You don’t belong, and you should try building your own proprietary stack instead. I don’t mind wolves, but please stop dressing in sheep clothing. There’s a paradox of tolerance at play here.

Re: Tell HN: MailChimp blacklists your IP if you open the browser's dev tools

#24

Post by schappim »

I used ChatGPT to get a refund from Mailchimp when their CKText editor failed to load on International Women's Day, preventing us from sending an email promotion that day.

I opened the web inspector to show the library erroring when Mailchimp tried out a to load it, and also provided a screencast.

I wasn't blocked, but I did receive a refund.

So this must be a relatively new thing!

If I were the OP, I would complain and request a refund.

Re: Tell HN: MailChimp blacklists your IP if you open the browser's dev tools

#25

Post by nadaviv »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #20
supriyo-biswas wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the description. I assume they're using a bot management script which is set to block requests if devtools is open. For such websites, opening devtools in a separate window should work. Some websites will try to throw you into a loop of debugger statements if they detect devtools being opened, which is harder to work around, but it doesn't seem to be the case here.

Is there an extension or workaround that prevents sites from knowing you opened devtools (without breaking everything else on the site)?

It might be harder to detect if you open it as a separate window instead of docking it to the bottom/side of the window.

Re: Tell HN: MailChimp blacklists your IP if you open the browser's dev tools

#26

Post by mh- »

ars wrote: post #14
acuozzo wrote: post #4

This SO post is a bit old now, so I'd verify before proceeding, but it looks like having devtools open in a separate window will enable you to circumvent the check. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/40153206/detect-if-conso...

Or have it open before you visit the page. Assuming they are detecting a resize. But if they really detect a resize, anyone who actually does resize their page will be blocked as well. Doing that seems a bit insane to me.

it's been some years, but I think it's still possible to detect the viewport resize without a corresponding window resize, so the 'docked' DevTools can be inferred distinct from a resizing of the window.

Re: Tell HN: MailChimp blacklists your IP if you open the browser's dev tools

#27

Post by tobr »

1123581321 wrote: post #8

That's an anticompetitive move. If you need to switch senders for some reason, the inspector is the only clean way to get an email's HTML into another ESP.

Makes no sense. If you’re considering switching to a different provider, getting blocked makes it impossible to continue to use the service?

Re: Tell HN: MailChimp blacklists your IP if you open the browser's dev tools

#29

Post by 535188B17C93743 »

supriyo-biswas wrote: post #3

Are you seeing any network requests or data transmitted over open websockets to confirm this is actually the case? I get it that people like to complain about stuff on HN (I recently had a thread too) but there needs to be evidence for people to go off of.

Yeah, I'm not seeing any evidence to support this...

Re: Tell HN: MailChimp blacklists your IP if you open the browser's dev tools

#30

Post by skinnymuch »

schappim wrote: post #24

I used ChatGPT to get a refund from Mailchimp when their CKText editor failed to load on International Women's Day, preventing us from sending an email promotion that day. I opened the web inspector to show the library erroring when Mailchimp tried out a to load it, and also provided a screencast. I wasn't blocked, but I did receive a refund. So this must be a relatively new thing! If I were the OP, I would complain…

What do you ask chatgpt to get the necessary text to send
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