Is it possible to load a web page and then reliably and permanently prevent the browser (and the potentially hostile web page) to disclose any user input made on that page?
Cross browser?
Use case would be an online utility exposing some service on personal information. This utility will not need to make any server requests after it is loaded.
The following procedure explains the question, but is probably not sufficient nor efficient:
Load web page
Go offline
Interact with the web page
Close the page
Remove cookies
Clear web storage
Go online
Related
if we had a responsive web site with HTML, Css and Nodejs for it's back-end, can we make it to act like PWA application?
- I know the difference will the Service-worker file, but i wanna to find out is it the exact difference?
Here is the difference between PWA(Progressive Web Application) and RWD(Responsive Web Design):
PWA
Users access the website through any browser, and on a supported
browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and even Edge!) it asks the user if
they want to install the web app to their home screen. This lets users
download and the store the website on their devices (which then gets
updated with Service Workers in the background).
RWD
Responsive web design (RWD) basically refers to the practice of
designing a website that can be accessed with any technology you might
use to build a site. RWD allows the website to be fully functional
(and look good) no matter what size screen the user has in front of
them. It has been around since 2001, when Audi launched the first
documented responsive site.
Therefore, PWAs and RWD are not two independent ways to create a website — in fact, PWAs will almost certainly utilize RWD.
Here's some tips:
The best solution is to choose the best solution for your particular site. If you’re looking to maximize those app-like features (like easy home screen app access, offline use, and high-quality, full screen functionality), you may want to choose a PWA.
If you’re looking to maximize site speed and accessibility for the most users, RWD might be the better choice.
If you're asking if you can make a PWA without a service worker then i believe you can't since it (service worker) and the manifest.json file are both required to save an application to the homescreen.
from the google documentation:
In order for a user to be able to install your Progressive Web App, it needs to meet the following criteria:
The web app is not already installed.
and prefer_related_applications is not true.
Meets a user engagement heuristic (currently, the user has interacted with the domain for at least 30 seconds)
Includes a web app manifest that includes:
short_name or name
icons must include a 192px and a 512px sized icons
start_url
display must be one of: fullscreen, standalone, or minimal-ui
Served over HTTPS (required for service workers)
Has registered a service worker with a fetch event handler
Apart from all the other typical security best practices I'm wondering about this, since I lately read some articles talking about how browser extensions can spy anything their user does. So that we shouldn't trust them.
Therefore in order to give users and additional layer of protection should I process all users credential and sensitive info inside an iframe inside my webpages?
Can content inside a sandboxed iframe be read/spied by browser
extensions?
Yes
Could I use iframe to secure user credentials?
Quick answer, no.
When a user installs a chrome extension the extension can do basically anything in the website to access the user credentials. The extension has also access to the iframes that the page generates.
My proposed solutions to overcome this two issues and keep the website feel "secure" are the following:
If the end goal is to secure the content that your user will put in the website, and by no mean you want to let the user put content if there are other kind of extensions running in the page, what you can put is some kind of pop up in the page blocking the access to the user until he is accessing the website without extensions.
Another solution you could propose to the user is to go incognito mode, as there are many options to disallow extensions in incognito without having to force him to uninstall all of the extensions that he has on his browser. This could also make less users leave your page, as if you force him to uninstall of the extensions on his browser it might make him leave your page if it's not a clear enough reason for him.
If you do know which are the extensions that shouldn't be blocked or prevented because they are harmful or known to have some kind of shady behaviour, what you can do is checkout if the user has them installed with this solution Checking if user has a certain extension installed and then print a message to him saying he can't continue until he uninstalls those extensions.
I was wondering if it's possible to capture a screenshot and/or record my computer screen(s) via a website?
If it is possible, what languages would I need to learn/code? I already have intermediate knowledge of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, and PHP.
In other words: I want to have the ability to capture/record my screen (not the website) via using a website (not an application).
Thanks!
This is not possible. Web sites are very deliberately given only restricted access to your computer for security reasons. Imagine the havoc that could result if a malicious web site were able to see and capture what was on your screen--banking information, your confidential e-mails, etc. Even if the user had to give permission for this level of access, it would still be way too easy to trick a user into giving that permission.
The closest I could find/think of was http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/screen_recorder, but even then you have to download a launch plugin. I agree with #DLH. This is for your protection.
My favorite screen recorder is ScreenPresso - it is always running in background, and repurposed the PrtScn button as its launch key.
I am working on a website related to physically/psychologically abused person.
There is an emergency exit button available all time so the user can click on it before the "aggressive" person enter the room where the computer is located.
When the user click on the emergency button, the user is automatically redirected to Google with a query like "cooking apple pie" (this is an example).
Also, we would like to hide our website from the browser history in case the aggressive person check the history of the abused person. I think this cannot be done technically.
At least, can we generate fake browsing history to justify to the aggressive person the time that the user was on our website?
I tried multiple things to simulate a "browsing" like using an iframe or an ajax query to another website but none populate the browser history.
Is this can be done?
Thank you for your input!
I think you may be focusing too much on the browser and computer that you do not control and not enough on the content and the server that you do control. How about taking a different approach? Why not generate the pages for the user on the fly? The links are only good once. If you click on the home button (your escape key) and the aggressive person looks in the history the attempt to access them a second time could be made to display the weather or lottery results or something innocuous, Focus on what you have control over.
Useful Technical Details
Removing/Preventing Back Button Click History
You can allow the user to browse throughout a webpage without building up a history trail on the back button by having them click exclusively on javascript: links. This would still not remove any of the visited websites from their full browser history, so it's not a full solution.
Here's an example HTML JavaScript link:
CLICK HERE TO ESCAPE!
If this is acceptable, you could build an inoffensive homepage from which the user could access the site that would use JavaScript to send them to the real website. Every link on that new website would have to be a javascript link. Disadvantages of this would be that they would no longer be able to use the back button to navigate and that JavaScript is 100% required for the site to function.
Sanitized History
Make sure you have inoffensive titles and icons for any pages in the site so if the user does not delete their browser history they will not grab the attention of the third party.
Preventing Access to Protected Content
One option you have is to disguise your website as something else by having the user log in before they are allowed to access any of the content. You could save their session/login data in such a way that it is cleared if they hit an escape button it is erased or reset. As part of the login page, you could give users an alternate password to type in that would redirect them to fake content if their abuser becomes suspicious enough to demand they log in.
The session/login information should never save between browser sessions and always have a short expiration period, to further reduce the chances of the abuser gaining access to the website.
Disguising the Site
Considerations
If you choose to disguise the site either on the homepage or behind a "fake" login, be very careful to choose something that makes sense and would not arouse suspicion or interest. You don't want the fake page to be some sort of game or anything that might pique the third party's interest.
You also don't want it to look so boring or mundane that the original user would be hard-pressed to explain their possibly frequent visits. It shouldn't be anything so specific that the third party would think twice about the original user visiting it though. For example, it might be suspicious if someone who does not enjoy the great outdoors were to be visiting a page on mountain biking.
It also can't do something like just redirect them to Google without explaining the fact that they had to log in to access it.
General Advice
Private Browsing
Multiple sources have suggested either educating your target audience in how to use IE's InPrivate Browsing mode, Firefox's Private Browsing mode, or Chrome's Incognito mode.
There unfortunately does not appear to be a way to prevent the browser from keeping the current page in its browsing history through JavaScript. It's possible there might be some sort of plug-in or third-party control which would enable this, but it's probably just easier to get your users to use a private browsing mode.
Clearing History
Clearing a user's web history would not be possible since browsers restrict websites from accessing or altering data on the user's computer directly. Since the user's browser history is part of this data it would be a security issue if any website could clear the history.
You should provide instructions to your users for pruning or clearing their browser history, whether on the website itself before they enter, or through whatever resource you showed them how to access your website.
Generating a Fake History
If you need to generate a fake list of visited websites, you can always create new tabs/windows for the users (or possibly iframes) at timed intervals with JavaScript, but the user would have to disable their popup blocker for this to take effect.
Further Reading
Here is a helpful article on creating a useful Quick Disguised Exit From A Website. This forum thread that I found it on also had some useful information, but it's likely you've already seen it.
At least, can we generate fake browsing history to justify to the aggressive person the time that the user was on our website?
Have you cosidered turning it around?
What if technically all your pages and its content are about something else. So it is the content you want to hide that's loaded in a special way, making it easier for you to avoid having it in the browser history.
So then it becomes about knowing when to load/show the special content.
Above said, it's very important what #Frédéric Hamidi said:
Just keep in mind that if the "aggressive" person has control over that computer or the network, nothing can really prevent him/her from installing loggers on the machine or analyzing network traffic.
IE's InPrivate Browsing mode, Firefox's Private Browsing mode, and Chrome's Incognito mode
I would recommend this to prevent the abuser from finding the secret site in the browsing history.
Also, opening a social networking site and letting the browsing history collect that would be an excellent and believable excuse for the time spent on the computer.
Our application expose certain rss as
http://myservername/feeeds/feedid=110. This link works with with all browser and i am able to see rss.
But when i provide same URL to our sharepoint web part, it gives me error and not able to get headlines.
I would double check the security of the feed. If it requires any sort of authentication (windows, forms, etc.), it will fail in the normal SharePoint web part.
If your application is on the SharePoint server then you're probably running into the Loopback check, which prevents http access from the server to itself using an other name than the real servername.
If this is the case then you can see how to disable the loopback check in this kb