Plaid Deletes GitHub Issue Exposing Imitation of Bank Login UIs

#1

Post by sammnaser » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 5:41 PM UTC

Plaid imitates major bank account UIs in their login forms to make users more comfortable submitting their bank credentials to Plaid. This issue was addressed in this Github issue (archived from WaybackMachine): http://web.archive.org/web/20190415103059/https://github.com/plaid/link/issues/68

The Github issue has since been deleted, as shown here: https://github.com/plaid/link/issues/68. I'm hoping this isn't a repost, but this behavior seems ridiculous to me, and I'm hoping to bring it to wider attention (if it isn't already).

Edit: post flagged for some reason. Oh well.

Re: Plaid Deletes GitHub Issue Exposing Imitation of Bank Login UIs

#2

Post by rishirishi » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 5:47 PM UTC

Hard delete of an issue over closing it or closing comments... for such a security sensitive issue... under the rug sweeping.

Re: Plaid Deletes GitHub Issue Exposing Imitation of Bank Login UIs

#3

Post by temp129038 » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 5:50 PM UTC

Plaid needs to be exposed as one of the most unethical companies in SV. If people are worried about online privacy then they should really be worried about a company that is so deceiving and makes it basically impossible to revoke permissions on something as sensitive as access to your bank account and transaction history once granted.

Re: Plaid Deletes GitHub Issue Exposing Imitation of Bank Login UIs

#4

Post by homero » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 5:50 PM UTC

The scariest thing is whether they keep downloading transactions or just verify i own the account like they make you think they're doing.

Re: Plaid Deletes GitHub Issue Exposing Imitation of Bank Login UIs

#5

Post by diggan » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 5:55 PM UTC

Seems to have happened not because they deleted that specific issue but because they have disabled issues in general for that specific repository. Take a look at https://github.com/plaid/link and see there is no "Issues" tab. When doing that, it removes all existing issues.

Re: Plaid Deletes GitHub Issue Exposing Imitation of Bank Login UIs

#6

Post by sschueller » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 5:55 PM UTC

rishirishi wrote: post #2

Hard delete of an issue over closing it or closing comments... for such a security sensitive issue... under the rug sweeping.

Well, thanks to the fact that you can't delete anything off the internet it will still be presented as evidence in court some day.

This confirms to me that staying as far away as possible from plaid is the right move.

Re: Plaid Deletes GitHub Issue Exposing Imitation of Bank Login UIs

#7

Post by samcday » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 5:55 PM UTC

This is depressing. It feels to me like the number of tech unicorns that have been caught red handed doing something immoral/unethical/illegal is starting to outweigh the ones that haven't.

Re: Plaid Deletes GitHub Issue Exposing Imitation of Bank Login UIs

#8

Post by robot » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 5:56 PM UTC

temp129038 wrote: post #3

Plaid needs to be exposed as one of the most unethical companies in SV. If people are worried about online privacy then they should really be worried about a company that is so deceiving and makes it basically impossible to revoke permissions on something as sensitive as access to your bank account and transaction history once granted.

can you revoke by changing your password?

Re: Plaid Deletes GitHub Issue Exposing Imitation of Bank Login UIs

#9

Post by RyJones » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 5:56 PM UTC

diggan wrote: post #5

Seems to have happened not because they deleted that specific issue but because they have disabled issues in general for that specific repository. Take a look at https://github.com/plaid/link and see there is no "Issues" tab. When doing that, it removes all existing issues.

as an owner of multiple orgs, I dislike that I can't disable new issues while retaining history.

Re: Plaid Deletes GitHub Issue Exposing Imitation of Bank Login UIs

#10

Post by sammnaser » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 5:58 PM UTC

diggan wrote: post #5

Seems to have happened not because they deleted that specific issue but because they have disabled issues in general for that specific repository. Take a look at https://github.com/plaid/link and see there is no "Issues" tab. When doing that, it removes all existing issues.

Indeed, I didn't notice that. In any case, the issue doesn't exist anymore, and the public discussion on this problem was wiped.