Slashdot Mirror
PayPal Plans To Ban Unsafe Browsers
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."
Heh. That address resolves! 404, though.
But back up a bit and you get the whole directory structure. TONS of porn in a couple folders.
Rob Malda has barely made any effort to fully describe the process of selecting Slashdot moderators. What little information that has been supplied is an outright lie. The story of Malda's moderation system is far more insidious than merely separating wheat from chaff.
Last night, as I leaned over to give my Natalie Portman poster a tender kiss goodnight, I was psychically cast into a hypnotic trance. While entranced, my spirit guides delivered unto me the tale of the Slashdot moderators. Prepare to have your faith in Mr. Malda and moderation shaken to the core.
Difficult as it is to believe, Rob Malda was an outcast teenager. He did well in some of his classes, but was terrible with English. As is so often the tragic case today, his teachers passed him anyway, just to get rid of him. Since Malda had no real life, he spent much of his time on the computer (of course), and watching the public-access cable channel. It was there that Malda heard of the mysterious Mongolian Monks.
Malda was watching his favorite talk show, "Elizabeth Claire Prophet." The guests that night were a group of monks based in Mongolia. The monks described how they had been travelling to China to trade some of their cute teen daughters for Natalie Portman memorabilia. The monks had travelled no more than three days when they noticed a brilliant light in the daytime sky. The light grew larger. And larger. And larger. Soon the sky was completely hidden, from horizon to horizon, by a giant metallic disk.
The monks were taken aboard the craft and placed under some sort of alien mind-control. There, they were given the deepest possible insights into the nature of man, the universe and God. A week later, the alien beings returned the monks to the Earth and vanished forever.
The monks considered the area holy ground and constructed a new temple there, not bothering to return to their old monastery. They took their daughters as wives and began their own commune of worship, based on the teachings of the aliens. The monks practiced meditations which unleashed powerful spiritual forces within them. As the wives bore children, the community grew.
Malda was intrigued by the spiritual insights received by the monks and excited by the idea of incestuous pleasures. Unfortunately, the monks had no internet connection and so Malda could not email them. Without hesitation, Malda booked a flight and left for Mongolia. The plane ride was long and tiring, but his curiosity kept him driven.
After a month of searching, Malda finally located the commune. Initially, he, kept a safe distance, for fear of rejection. He studied the monks from afar. Malda had heard stories of the monks' bizarre meditations, which gave them extraordinary powers. Malda was somewhat skeptical of these stories at first, until he saw the truth first-hand.
In the week that Malda studied the monks, he witnessed the breaking of every natural law. He was astonished as he watched the monks levitate, create pockets of lush weather within the commune and communicated with spirit forces. Malda grew more and more excited and he devised a plan for meeting them.
Malda knew the monks would respect him if he could display his own "magical" powers. He was determined to win their confidence, and he had with him all of the necessary tools. He approached the commune confidently. The monks greeted him with skepticism at the gate. Malda took a deep breath and began his show.
Using an AIBO, a can of Jolt Cola and an inflatable sex doll, Malda shocked the monks with his display of magical powers. The monks accepted him into the commune. Malda's head was shaved and he was given a robe and a room. The monks warned Malda to stay away from their daughters-wives.
The monks methodically taught malda the word of the great messengers. He learned eagerly at first, but soon grew bored with his life in the commune. Malda's life was further stressed when his blow-up doll suffered a puncture-wound and became useless. A few days later, his AIBO's power dried up. With no pet and no woman, Malda slowly
Dear PayPal User:
Please go to http://www.whatismyip.org/ and copy and paste your IP address into a reply e-mail.
PayPal thanks you for your time and effort.
Wow. That's a rather clever stragegy. I wonder why no one thought of it earlier.
I think they should just get all paypal users to assemble one day (may be in the Arizona
desert) and then teach all of them what you suggested.
Thinking more about it, maybe they should not just restrict themselves to Paypal users -
they should just assemble all internet users & teach them these things.
Dear PayPal User,
Due to recent security upgrades, you may no longer be able to log in. In order to give all our customers the highest level of protection against fraud and identity theft, we are requiring that you have up-to-date security measures on your computer.
Please install the enclosed program [malware.exe] to upgrade the security of your computer to ensure that you can continue to access your PayPal account.
Thank you,
- Scams R. Us
Somewhat related:
http://www.electric-escape.net/node/1475
http://www.thehumorarchives.com/joke/IRC_Idiot
A cat can't teach a dog to bark.
Is Lynx still considered unsafe? Have they fixed that graphics display hole yet? That was reported, like, 20 years ago.
SYSOP ('sih-sop) n.: the guy laughing at your typing.
Netcraft is dead. Paypal confirms it. And E-bay swapped it for some military hardware.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
...but the head of the International Phishers Guild says that all of their sites will continue to work with any browser you want. Spokesman Anome Smith says "We will not be following Paypal's lead on this. Popular phishing sites like www.payypal.com, www.paypa1.com, and 192.168.178.287/paypal will all continue to work with any browser you please. "
Paypal not letting you in?
Have no fear.. with paypalproxy.com you can use any browser to access your account.
--
So long and thanks for all the phish.
I think they should just get all paypal users to assemble one day (may be in the Arizona
desert) and then teach all of them what you suggested.
Send out a spam like this:
"I am the widow of a wealthy Arizonan entrepreneur. I am in need of assistance in transferring large sums ($153m) of money. Your help is appreciated. Meet me at the Tuscon desert state park at 8:00 in the evening on April the 19th to complete the transaction. I will give you 25% of the money as a reward for your assistance."
Also:
"Your PayPal account has been deactivated! To reactivate it, you must come to the Tuscon desert park at 8:00 PM on April 19. If you do not proceed, your account will be permanently closed!"
That should get all of the people in need of such education to show up.<g>
Holy fuck that's MY computer. WTF guys, that's not cool. Ok so maybe I don't have my firewall PERFECTLY configured, but why would you make fun of me by showing all my porn on slashdot? Shit dude I'm totally freaked out. I don't know how to fix it I'm fucking unplugging everything for the night. Fuck.
MOAR!
This Apple and Linux user blocks Paypal as unsafe.
And WE used to educate them every September. That is until AOL based their business on getting everyone to connect to the internet without bothering to properly educate them.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
Dear god in heaven, please let it be so!
John
What next, users have to pass an IQ test to get on the Internet? That way all of the stupid people who click on email links from phishing scams before looking at the message to see if it is fake or not, will forever see "Error ID10T: User is not smart enough to use the Internet. Request denied!"
We have those now. They are administered from a testing center in Nigeria. If you fail, your internet is soon cut off for non-payment.
I find your ideas intriguing and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
But I'm stuck at the end. Where's the "Suck it" menu?
All I had to do was lie
It's a page that deals with doing your taxes. Duh.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
... giving Paypal money. Wow, right on brother. Sock it to the man.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
THIS IS WHAT SCIENTOLOGISTS ACTUALLY BELIEVE
for those who missed it (and to avoid the lameness filter) that was a south park reference
For shame, you got marked as a troll for writing your comment in php. This should have been the proper response:
for (int i = 0; i < 50; i++) {
laugh();
}
Looks like Rob Malda is not the only one who has no life.