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PayPal Denies It Will Block Safari
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon Apr 21, 2008 09:18 PM
from the phishing-for-apples dept.
from the phishing-for-apples dept.
Despite reports that PayPal may drop support for Apple's Safari browser because it lacks anti-phishing features, PayPal now says it ain't so. Though PayPal telegraphed displeasure with Safari last January, they're now unambiguous about their position: "We have absolutely no intention of blocking current versions of any browsers, including Apple's Safari, from our website."
Related Stories
[+]
Paypal Advises Users To Stop Using Safari 362 comments
eldavojohn writes "Over concerns for lack of an anti-phishing mechanism for Safari, Paypal is telling its Mac users to use another browser. An author from Ars Technica reveals that he has been using Camino and has fallen victim to a Paypal related phishing scam via e-mail so this story must hit home for him. 'Currently the Apple browser does not alert users to sites that could be phishing for your info, and it lacks support for Extended Validation. PayPal is, of course, a popular site among phishers in their neverending search for personal information, user IDs, and passwords. While it's not entirely fair singling out Safari (other Mac browsers like Camino also lack this support), it is perhaps at least a helpful reminder of the threat.'"
[+]
PayPal Plans To Ban Unsafe Browsers 367 comments
Alternative Details brings news that PayPal is developing a plan to stop users from accessing its financial services if they aren't using browsers with anti-phishing protection. PayPal is recommending the use of blacklists, anti-fraud warning pages, and EV SSL certificates. Browsers without anti-phishing features will be considered "unsafe." It seems likely Safari will be included in this category given PayPal's warning about the Apple browser last month.
"'At PayPal, we are in the process of reimplementing controls which will first warn our customers when logging in to PayPal of those browsers that we consider unsafe. Later, we plan on blocking customers from accessing the site from the most unsafe--usually the oldest--browsers,' he declared. Barrett only mentioned old, out-of-support versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer among this group of 'unsafe browsers,' but it's clear his warning extends to Apple's Safari browser, which offers no anti-phishing protection and does not support the use of EV SSL certificates."
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Current versions? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Current versions? (Score:5, Insightful)
However, if you use browsers don't support plug-ins/protocols/captchas/whatever that paypal demands of the browser, you may still be SOL.
In short: I expect there will be a black-list of unacceptable browser versions, rather than a white-list of accepted browser versions.
Parent
Trying with Lynx: (Score:5, Informative)
SSL error:no issuer was found-Continue? (y) y
www.paypal.com cookie: (censored) Allow? (Y/N/Always/neVer)y
www.paypal.com cookie: (censored) Allow? (Y/N/Always/neVer)y
www.paypal.com cookie: cookie_check=yes Allow? (Y/N/Always/neVer)y
www.paypal.com cookie: navcmd=_home-general Allow? (Y/N/Always/neVer)y
www.paypal.com cookie: navlns=0.0 Allow? (Y/N/Always/neVer)y
# FINALLY there's a homepage. "Member Log In" is on the second page.
SSL error:no issuer was found-Continue? (y) y
www.paypal.com cookie: (censored) Allow? (Y/N/Always/neVer)y
www.paypal.com cookie: (censored) Allow? (Y/N/Always/neVer)y
www.paypal.com cookie: (censored) Allow? (Y/N/Always/neVer)y
www.paypal.com cookie: (censored) Allow? (Y/N/Always/neVer)y
www.paypal.com cookie: (censored) Allow? (Y/N/Always/neVer)y
www.paypal.com cookie: (censored) Allow? (Y/N/Always/neVer)y
www.paypal.com cookie: (censored) Allow? (Y/N/Always/neVer)y
www.paypal.com cookie: (censored) Allow? (Y/N/Always/neVer)y
Refresh: 1 seconds
https://.../ [...]
SSL error:no issuer was found-Continue? (y) y
www.paypal.com cookie: (censored) Allow? (Y/N/Always/neVer)y
www.paypal.com cookie: (censored) Allow? (Y/N/Always/neVer)y
www.paypal.com cookie: (censored) Allow? (Y/N/Always/neVer)y
www.paypal.com cookie: (censored) Allow? (Y/N/Always/neVer)y
Ok, if I'd hit "a" to those cookies, it would've been a lot better. And there are a fscking LOT of cookies.
Now, I haven't actually tried to do anything with it so far, but I suspect that it would, in fact, work just fine. It's curious that it doesn't like the SSL -- I suspect that's a problem with my version of Lynx, as Firefox and Konqueror don't give me any SSL warnings. But other than that, Paypal isn't doing anything to block Lynx, and it looks reasonably navigateable.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Like I care ? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Like I care ? (Score:5, Funny)
*ducks*
Parent
Backpedaling faster tha you can say... (Score:3, Interesting)
Previous: "We know better than you do about what you should and shouldn't be using, so we will stop you possibly getting yourself into trouble."
Current: "Wow, there are so many of you that are quite happy to be wrong that we think you better be allowed to get yourselves into trouble."
My interpretation: Right or wrong, the masses will always win it seems.
Re:Backpedaling faster tha you can say... (Score:5, Informative)
They said that they would block the insecure browsers.
Specifically browsers like IE 5.5 which is old and should never be used anymore.
Parent
Re:Backpedaling faster tha you can say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Backpedaling faster tha you can say... (Score:5, Interesting)
Ars link [arstechnica.com]
Anti Phishing Block [eweek.com]
So, the general meaning of "so we will stop you possibly getting yourself into trouble" really wasn't wrong. Just because you don't type it in with black and white fonts doesn't mean you don't mean it.
"Lets put this out and check public reaction before we make it 100% official.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It looks like only those that have upgraded from Vista to Win2k are being supported.
Re: (Score:2)
Are you sure? (Score:2, Insightful)
It still sounds ambiguous to me. They could certainly mean "We will not target Safari by name, but we will just make you install a plugin that we know Safari can't use".
Re:Are you sure? (Score:4, Funny)
But trust me.... You don't.
I think you just want to make yourself sound smart, when in reality you don't know what you are talking about.
This is how bad info gets passed around.
If you don't know about the topic....Don't make yourself sound like you do.
PayPal's only motivation in blocking Safari is to keep the gays out. That's all. Don't paint any sinister motivation. That's just good business sense.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Are you sure? (Score:4, Funny)
This prompted us to contact you. In exchange for passing on you slashdot account details you will be credited with 10% of the mod points, The Transaction is 100% Legal and totally free of risks as all modalities has been Perfected to ensure the hitch free success of the Transaction, however due to some security risks we can only accept applicants who are using an recent version of Mac os X
I look forward to hearing from you http://www.slashdot.scam.nig/ [scam.nig]
Parent
Re:Are you sure? (Score:5, Insightful)
The increasing popularity of mobile browsing is an opportunity for Paypal to act as a mobile digital wallet. There's certainly no point in carrying a debit card if you can just use your phone. I'm guessing that is Paypal's aim. Whether or not they can beat the banks to direct money transfer is debatable though.
Parent
Re:Are you sure? (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't imagine why anyone would think it was insecure.
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Re:Are you sure? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I was thinking of something like this
0x67 0xE9 Lo Hi
Which is a jump rel16 on x86, overriden by the address size prefix. On a little endian ARM this looks like this
0xHiLoE967.
Now if rel16 was negative and between 0 and -256 I could make it Hi=0xFF. Which used to mean NV, i.e. the instruction would be a NOP regard
Re:Are you sure? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Safari (and other applications) no longer run as root.. it took them until 1.1.3 to fix that but they eventually did.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
They can't afford to block Safari...
And they don't need to. Steve Jobs reality distortion field automatically negates phishing. However unlike all other anti-phishing techniques, instead of patching the browser, this method patches the user. So never fear, you are safe...
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The increasing popularity of mobile browsing is an opportunity for Paypal to act as a mobile digital wallet. There's certainly no point in carrying a debit card if you can just use your phone. I'm guessing that is Paypal's aim. Whether or not they can beat the banks to direct money transfer is debatable though.
But there's hardly any inconvenience through carrying a debit card anyway...
Having said that, in Japan some phones have transport passes integrated into them, and in London there's an integrated transport pass, credit card and RFID 'small purchase' card [wikipedia.org] (for buying coffee etc), though I'm not sure how well the latter is catching on, I haven't seen anyone with one yet.
Paypal would have to reduce their fees a lot to gain much use by retailers, but maybe that will encourage the card processing companies to re
When I heard... (Score:5, Funny)
I take it back. PayPal are the terrorists.
People still use Paypal? (Score:3, Interesting)
There are so many other alternatives to Paypal that I don't see why people bother with it.
Re:People still use Paypal? (Score:5, Interesting)
If/when they do this in the U.S., I will stop using eBay. I'm no longer gong to deal with PayPal after the fiasco on a group buy I've been involved with.
Backstory: A bunch of us on a home recording bulletin board set up a group buy to purchase microphones, preamps, shock mounts, etc. from a manufacturer in China. This is about the third or fourth group buy organized by the same person, so his reputation is darn near unquestionable.
After order taking was done, we got sabotaged. Someone (who we strongly suspect works for a company that imports from this vendor and sells at a huge markup) signed up for a Yahoo email account and joined the group buy and requested a small item. Once about 10% of the people had paid their invoices, this person paid for the item, then sent in a claim to PayPal. The problem is that this person claimed to be a member of a bulletin board, yet that person has never been a member of the board in question. So basically the whole complaint was one giant fraud, and we're pretty sure we know who did it, as they have tried to sabotage group buys in the past....
Since the complaint was filed, PayPal's story keeps changing. First, they said that the person claimed he hadn't received an invoice, which is absurd, but easily rectified if the person had contacted anyone involved. Next, PayPal provided lots of details about how the group buy worked (way more than you would normally expect) and said that it wasn't a type of transaction that they wanted to deal with. That I could believe, but it isn't a violation of their TOS as best I can tell. Finally, they claimed that someone had claimed the product was "not as described", which is pure comedy since the manufacturer hasn't started making the products yet. Basically one half truth after the next (and even that half is giving PayPal the benefit of the doubt...).
After about a week of this crap, PayPal finally released everyone's funds. Fortunately, this time, one of the people they were screwing was friends with a highly placed executive at PayPal, so we had some leverage to get the situation expedited and get our funds back in a timely fashion. The last time PayPal screwed over a group buy, it took several weeks before we got our money back. (Yes, these dirty tricks have happened before thanks to a certain company who will remain nameless at least until I can prove it was them---if anybody in Yahoo's mail team would be willing to help with this, you'd have about 400 fans for life....)
Unfortunately, however, the person who set up the group buy had received another payment for an unrelated sale and needed the money to pay his taxes. His account is frozen for something like six months, after which he'll get his money and his account will be closed... all because of a single complaint by someone who could not provide one shred of documentation of any communication with the seller prior to filing the complaint.
Having seen how PayPal treats sellers, I'm no longer inclined to do business with PayPal. If I can't trust them to hold up their contractual obligations and do so in an equitable and reasonable fashion, then why should I trust them with my hard-earned money? I'm not protected any better than I used to be back when eBay sales all happened with cashier's checks, so why should PayPal be getting a cut if they aren't providing any real additional protection for the transaction?
At this point all I can say is this: PayPal Sucks [paypalsucks.com], and if you deal with them long enough, you will eventually get burned. It's just a question of when.
Parent
Re:People still use Paypal? (Score:5, Interesting)
I run a business, about a month ago we started to accept PayPal as payment (while waiting for our own merchant account to clear). We made about $17k in a week. We transferred the first $7.5k to our bank account (thank god!) after a day or two. After no more than seven days, PayPal closed our account, without giving any reason.
After having our lawyer write some letters to them (they didn't respond to us ourselves at all), and PayPal giving several different and evasive andwers, it came out that the 'contact person' for our business account had once ordered something of an erotic nature with PayPal, and that is against their agreement.
Now, several things are wrong with that. I won't go so far as to say that person has never bought erotica, I don't know and really don't care. What is definitely wrong with that, though, is that said person has only made two PayPal payments in his life and they weren't related to erotica (yes I am sure of this). Furthermore, PayPal mentions accounts that do not actually exist and never have. It's complete BS.
What else is wrong with that, how the hell can they close a business account because they do not like the contact person's personal account. Since when is a company responsible for their employees' private actions? What's worse, their allegations aren't even true.
So now PayPal is sitting on $10k of my money I desperately need, without a valid reason. They refuse to clear it, they refuse to discuss it. They have even refused giving us the 'offending' transaction details (how the hell can we dispute anything if we don't have access to the data?) - lawyer is dealing with that, though.
All in all, the money, the lawyer costs, the lost customers, reputation damage, etc, are now easily more than a $50k loss for us.
Should you read this and be a no cure no pay type lawyer (hey, PayPal got my money) in the UK, feel free to drop me a line so we can talk about sueing PayPal's pants off (our company lawyers cannot help us there, as PayPal Europe operates under English law and we're not from England).
Hey, I thought it wouldn't happen to me. But yeah I got burned. Doing business with PayPal is an accident waiting to happen...
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Business reason is ruling this world (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't need a phishing filter and I don't WANT a phishing filter. I'm a big boy who can read URLs just fine, thanks. I don't get to sensitive sites by untrusted links. I use my fingers to type the URL or I use a bookmark.
I also don't need Norton Internet Security, or anti-spyware apps, on my Mac OR on my PC--because I don't install trash downloaded from the Internet willy-nilly.
Aside from this worthless argument, no one has explained how Safari is any less secure than Firefox or MSIE.
Re: (Score:2)
anti-phishing is important for the masses
doest show you a URL, before you click it (by default, again default is important for the masses).
Sure you dont need security, but that's like saying that corporate networks should use virus scanners because they're users should be smart enough to not get infected / scammed.
I could browse the web using lynx and not get scammed, it doesn't mean that anybody else can.
Too late, CTO should resign (Score:3, Informative)
http://forums.macworld.com/thread/98919?tstart=0 [macworld.com]
I have never seen a thing like that. Macintosh community hates them so much after that disastrous stupid statement that I STILL get new message alerts after 2 months as people keep commenting how stupid they are, Verisign bribed them, MS lapdog, eBay is scam.
This is a OS that loads ocsp on startup to check the SSL certs at core OS level:
Apr 22 09:07:29 quad
EV matters? How much it cost to a commercial site at size of Paypal? Does Paypal feel their consumers are insecure instead of using FREE data from community powered services like http://www.phishtank.com/ [phishtank.com] ?
Post a job listing for Cocoa/Carbon, Objective C developer. Cough some money and distribute your plugin. Don't use "No XUL" as excuse, it is easy to watch current URL on Safari. ICQ from 2003 can still read it.
Re: (Score:2)
OH, right its just 5% of 5%, im tempted to start using pay pal, only if they ban safari, just to keep mac fanboys crying.
EV matters? How much it cost to a commercial site at size of Paypal? Does Paypal feel their consumers are insecure instead of using FREE data from community powered services like http://www.phishtank.com/ [phishtank.com] [phishtank.com] ?
Post a job listing for Cocoa/Carbon, Objective C developer. Cough some money and distribute your plugin. Don't use "No XUL" as excuse, it is easy to watch current URL on Safari. ICQ from 2003 can still read it.
to the 5% of the users that know how to install plugins, thats great, but the fact is that unless its done by default, phis
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Well here are facts. One of least popular (if popular at all) extensions for firefox is the EV certificate thing. They (Verisign) couldn't even make it work right.
Thats my point, few people are going to install extensions, and even fewer will do it for security extensions, that's why this sort of thing has to come by default.
Phishing prevention is one thing, selling your soul to Google and send them every single URL (including the page part) you visit is another.
True, but paypal havent said you have to sell your soul to google, hell i quite liked the FF2 method of downloading a list, do that regularly with diffs and you dont really need to send anybody your URLS
There are Paypal phishing pages which are up for DAYS as you can see from http://www.phishtank.com/ [phishtank.com] which they (as they are mega corp) can call the countries police chief directly from his home phone and get site raided.
True, but some sites can be unknowningly infected, others can be in strange juristicion, its alot harder to catch them than it is to try and
Missed Phishing Opportunity (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps PayPal realized what a phisherman's dream this would be: "Can't access your PayPal with Safari? Signup for PhishPal to get instant unrestricted access. We only need your email address, ssn, bank account number, credit card numbers and drivers license."
Joking aside, just teach people to type addresses in the address bar, and to check the address bar and status bar when they are entering sensitive information. Problem solved.
Re: (Score:2)
Just curious... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wish Apple Would Fix it (Score:5, Informative)
Now you have a little bar at the bottom of Safari that shows you the actual target of links.
Parent
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Why does anybody use safari? oh right it gives nice fonts:S
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I wish apple would fix Safari (and Mail too) to better display the actual targets of links.
Mail doesn't need to be fixed. Roll your cursor over any link and it will display a tooltip showing the URL to which the link would take you if clicked.
I would tend to agree that by default Safari isn't very helpful in this regard, but as previous posters already mentioned, the fix for Safari is simple: go to the View menu and select "Show Status Bar", or hold the Command key and press the / button. You only have to do this once, and Safari will keep this setting forever unless you turn it off.
That isn't a difference based on browser (Score:5, Informative)
Since your IE and Firefox cookies are not shared, my guess is that you haven't logged in on IE recently. Try logging in for both browsers then logging out and attempting a purchase. You'll get identical behavior.
Disclaimer: IANAEOP (I am not an employee of Paypal) but half my business runs through them.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The real question is what exactly does this do for "security". Anything that PayPal does on their end will have no affect on phishing sites. All current web browsers, regardless of how PayPal treats them, will function with phishing si
Re: (Score:2)
And existing users that use pay pal before getting scammed will upgrade.
Your argument is like saying google shouldn't get a new capatcha because spammers have already signed up, but if they change now they can at least stop new idiots / spammers signing up.
Re: (Score:2)
Seriously, I do that. My roommate has a XP machine with Firefox and IE. IE is her default browser. Same thing, too unconcerned to change th
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
They might download something so it doesn't break, but go back to whatever they wanted to use in the first place. People do that you know.
But in that case paypal has made them make their browser secure.
You do make a good point, but the people that get hit most by phising are those that dont even know what a browser is, the kind of people that will phone you up with such useful complaints as "paypal is broken, what do i do?". These people will have a friend "fix paypal" like this [slashdot.org], and wont even know what's happened.
The next most affected people are People who do understand thier browser but dont know about phising, this will not protect t