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Why Is This Website Port Scanning Me?

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Re: Why Is This Website Port Scanning Me?

#171

Post by giantrobot »

fxtentacle wrote: post #127
bjt2n3904 wrote: post #75

Every time I hear about some shiny new feature being added to a browser, I think... 1) Will I ever actually use this 2) How is this gonna screw me over WebSockets, WebBluetooth, WebAssembly, Web-You-Can-Access-my-Accelerometer-and-Battery, haven't ever wanted to use those. Ever. For anything. For any reason. (Edit 3: Oh yeah, I forgot! WebRTC!) Edit: Fantastic. You can't disable it in Firefox. So what, does Firefox n…

Web browsers really are the new operating systems. Chrome OS was far ahead of its time, both in its general user hostility and in its excessive resource consumption for seemingly mundane tasks. Like when your roommate's YouTube streaming makes your Excel-like app horribly slow, because your new spreadsheet app needs high-speed internet for no obvious reason. BTW, WebRTC and WebAssembly were great for crypto mining tr…

Hey, refID af64e30y, get back to looking at ads while your browser mines cryptocoins! We'll be watching!

Re: Why Is This Website Port Scanning Me?

#172

Post by rpastuszak »

microtonal wrote: post #162
Spivak wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that’s even worse! Native apps have even less (i.e. zero most of the time) sandboxing than the browser. This wouldn’t be a meaningful security improvement for anyone.

You use a much smaller set of applications than web sites. Moreover, you usually vet your applications and do not run random stuff. Application developers build up trust over time. Even if I want to use the web as hypertext + some Javascript for interactivity, every stupid web site can pull these shenanigans.

A flashlight app asking for your contact list disagrees (don't forget about the FB SDK sitting quietly in the corner)

Re: Why Is This Website Port Scanning Me?

#173

Post by [deleted] »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #42
jerf wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't try to understand this with metaphors. It's a trap. Port scanning isn't enough like anything in the real world for the analogies to apply. I'd strengthen pfundstein's claim; port scanning intrinsically works by trying to open connections. That isn't enough "like" any particular physical thing to make it a correct analogy; it isn't knocking, or walking in, or opening, or anything else. But one thing we can say,…

I think your final objection fails by bad analogy too: one has to _actively_ direct ones gaze, in general, if one is to notice a type of lock or other security arrangements.

[deleted]

Re: Why Is This Website Port Scanning Me?

#174

Post by Cactus2018 »

jimmaswell wrote: post #138
jackewiehose wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is media.peerconnection.enabled in about:config. When set to false, WebRTC doesn't work but I'm not sure if there isn't anything left active. Also uBlock has an option "Prevent WebRTC from leaking IP adresses". WebRTC should be disabled by default or firefox should ask explicitly like with webcam-access. There have already been reports where sites use your browser as a peer in a P2P-network (without your consen…

> Prevent WebRTC from leaking IP adresses A local IP?

FYI about these two websites that demonstrate the various data your browser shares:

https://browserleaks.com/

https://webkay.robinlinus.com/

Re: Why Is This Website Port Scanning Me?

#175

Post by rpastuszak »

LunaSea wrote: post #140
SmallPeePeeMan wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Native applications.

Native applications have orders of magnitude more access to your system than a website has.

This isn't a loaded question, but how come people (especially the people here) don't know that?

Re: Why Is This Website Port Scanning Me?

#176

Post by pdonis »

u801e wrote: post #146
bjt2n3904 wrote: post #75

Every time I hear about some shiny new feature being added to a browser, I think... 1) Will I ever actually use this 2) How is this gonna screw me over WebSockets, WebBluetooth, WebAssembly, Web-You-Can-Access-my-Accelerometer-and-Battery, haven't ever wanted to use those. Ever. For anything. For any reason. (Edit 3: Oh yeah, I forgot! WebRTC!) Edit: Fantastic. You can't disable it in Firefox. So what, does Firefox n…

> Firefox also seemingly blocks access to 192.168/24 and 10/8. What about 172.16.0.0/12?

It blocks that too on my machine.

Re: Why Is This Website Port Scanning Me?

#177

Post by pdonis »

bjt2n3904 wrote: post #75

Every time I hear about some shiny new feature being added to a browser, I think... 1) Will I ever actually use this 2) How is this gonna screw me over WebSockets, WebBluetooth, WebAssembly, Web-You-Can-Access-my-Accelerometer-and-Battery, haven't ever wanted to use those. Ever. For anything. For any reason. (Edit 3: Oh yeah, I forgot! WebRTC!) Edit: Fantastic. You can't disable it in Firefox. So what, does Firefox n…

> Firefox also seemingly blocks access to 192.168/24 and 10/8

Chrome, OTOH, will happily open a websocket to these IP ranges. Another good reason not to use Chrome.

Re: Why Is This Website Port Scanning Me?

#178

Post by 90minuteAPI »

habyte wrote: post #88
bjt2n3904 wrote: post #75

Every time I hear about some shiny new feature being added to a browser, I think... 1) Will I ever actually use this 2) How is this gonna screw me over WebSockets, WebBluetooth, WebAssembly, Web-You-Can-Access-my-Accelerometer-and-Battery, haven't ever wanted to use those. Ever. For anything. For any reason. (Edit 3: Oh yeah, I forgot! WebRTC!) Edit: Fantastic. You can't disable it in Firefox. So what, does Firefox n…

I'm sorry, what's the alternative for (soft-)real-time applications on frontend if not WebSocket? You probably do want to use it.

Server Sent Events and HTTP? With a modern setup it’s going to be sharing an HTTP/2 pipe anyway. Even handles disconnections gracefully/transparently if you’re clever about it.

Can anyone expand on why this technique isn’t more common? I’m so sick of seeing folks reinvent HTTP (poorly) on top of WebSockets. I get if extreme low latency is (allegedly) a requirement.

Re: Why Is This Website Port Scanning Me?

#179

Post by typ »

fxtentacle wrote: post #127
bjt2n3904 wrote: post #75

Every time I hear about some shiny new feature being added to a browser, I think... 1) Will I ever actually use this 2) How is this gonna screw me over WebSockets, WebBluetooth, WebAssembly, Web-You-Can-Access-my-Accelerometer-and-Battery, haven't ever wanted to use those. Ever. For anything. For any reason. (Edit 3: Oh yeah, I forgot! WebRTC!) Edit: Fantastic. You can't disable it in Firefox. So what, does Firefox n…

Web browsers really are the new operating systems. Chrome OS was far ahead of its time, both in its general user hostility and in its excessive resource consumption for seemingly mundane tasks. Like when your roommate's YouTube streaming makes your Excel-like app horribly slow, because your new spreadsheet app needs high-speed internet for no obvious reason. BTW, WebRTC and WebAssembly were great for crypto mining tr…

Strictly speaking, it is more like the shell of the distributed operating system.
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