- cross-posted to:
- cybersecuritymemes@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- cybersecuritymemes@lemmy.world
(skeletor is leading by example by adding that unnecessary apostrophe…)
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To fuck with computers that don’t know how to do UTF8, add a few emoji.
I once set a WiFi ssid to 🌻 and I was amazed at how much problems that likely caused. I had people showing me their network manager was dumping random characters. Some other routers web interfaces became corrupted when trying to show the neighborhood. Some clients refused to connect. Even a bsod on a windows XP box.
One of my projects was validation for form submission and emojis melted me. I gave up trying to do it from scratch and trusted a library.
I’m currently in a project where the client has a custom, but not entirely consistent or known subset of utf-8.
They want us to keep the form content as it is, but remove the “bad” characters. Our current approach is to just forward everything as it is and wait for someone to complain. How TF am I supposed to remove a character without changing the message?
Yeah I had a backend with poor support for anything that wasn’t ASCII. So my solution was turning everything into hex before storing it. I wonder if people are still using it.
Yeah I had a backend with poor support for anything that wasn’t ASCII
PHP is like this. Poor Unicode support, but it treats strings as raw bytes so it usually works well enough. It turns out a programming language can take data from a form, save it to a database, then later load and render it, without having to know what those bytes actually mean, as long as the app or browser knows it’s UTF-8, for example through a Content-Type header or meta tag.
The tricky thing is the all the standard string manipulation functions (
strlen,substr, etc) don’t handle Unicode properly at all and they deal with number of bytes rather than number of characters. You need to use the “multibyte” (Unicode-ready) equivalents likemb_substr, but a lot of PHP developers forget to do this and end up with string truncation code that cuts UTF-8 characters in half (e.g.if it’s truncating a long title with Emoji in it, it might cut off the title in the middle of the three bytes that represent the Emoji and only leave 1 or 2 of them)
You just need to ensure you validate character by character (NOT byte by byte) and allow characters in the Emoji Unicode ranges (which are well-defined in the Unicode standard). Using a library is a great idea though.
Why not simply discard them?
They called it “The Sunflower Incident.”
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Is there a character limit? Can it be the binary for DOOM?
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I believe it’s 32 bytes, but it depends on the AP, some use a null terminator as the final byte.
64 characters long is wifi spec IIRC but some routers don’t follow spec, wouldnt go higher than 60. Idk if this helps answer your question.
I had a ton of trouble with an apostrophe in my SSID until I realized that was the cause.
I had the same issue. (Or rather, cause of issues.) Some devices couldn’t identify it.
Great success!
I had an emoji in my phone hotspot a while ago. Unfortunately I had to remove it after a while because some devices refused to connect.
To make sure millenials can’t read your password, 𝔀𝓻𝓲𝓽𝓮 𝓹𝓪𝓻𝓽 𝓸𝓯 𝓲𝓽 𝓲𝓷 𝓬𝓾𝓻𝓼𝓲𝓿𝓮.
How would this mess with millennials? I think you mean gen z.
Common mistake: When you’re ascribing a bad quality to them, “millenials” means everyone born after 1960. If you’re ascribing a good quality to them, it only means people born between December 12, 1989, and December 14, 1989.
Incidentally, @Xhieron@lemmy.world’s birthday is 13th December.
They’re one of the good ones
We learned cursive.
Were told our assignments in high school would get an automatic zero if we didn’t turn them in in cursive, even…
I knew someone who did physics in cursive. It was impossible to read (not bc it was sloppy, because seeing Greek letters as cursive threw me for a loop)
Yeah! Most of us can read analog clocks too!
I actually work in an after school program and I’ve been teaching kids how to read analog clocks. It is interesting to say the least
Even my gen alpha kid was learning cursive in third grade last year. I don’t expect him to write using it much but at least he knows how to read it.
Apparently that’s not very common anymore.
The only thing I write in cursive these days is my signature.
I journal in cursive since it’s faster and more natural, otherwise I use print.
Most of the time I don’t even write, I type or use swipe-to-text.
𝔒𝔯 𝔶𝔢𝔬𝔩𝔡 𝔢𝔫𝔤𝔩𝔦𝔰𝔥 𝔱𝔬 𝔰𝔠𝔯𝔢𝔴 𝔴𝔦𝔱𝔥 𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔯𝔶𝔬𝔫𝔢.
Sir, this is a Wendy’s account.
Since it’s noon, that’ll be $92. TYVM and fuck you.
Dave2
All I see is *****
To make sure millenials can’t read your password, 𝔀𝓻𝓲𝓽𝓮 𝓹𝓪𝓻𝓽 𝓸𝓯 𝓲𝓽 𝓲𝓷 𝓬𝓾𝓻𝓼𝓲𝓿𝓮.
Hey, millennials know cursive!
Forced to learn it in elementary school because “highschool and college require it!” by Boomers that didn’t recognize the tech revolution only to get to college and be told by those same boomers to never turn in a handwritten paper unless you wanted an auto fail.
told by those same boomers
Your elementary school teachers were also your college professors?
There is only one Boomer. It’s like an Agent Smith situation.
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CSVs are supposed be comma-separated files. Microsoft deviated from the specification and decided some languages would use semicolons for CSVs.
Source: StackOverflow
cemicolon separated values
Microsoft deviated from the specification
There is no specification for CSV, which is why it’s such a mess and different parsers and renderers have wildly different features. The closest thing to a spec is RFC4180 but that RFC simply describes the most common features across several CSV implementations, and is not actually a spec.
I agree that it should be comma separated though. My understanding is that it caused issues in countries that use a comma as a decimal point.
Also, Excel sometimes uses tabs rather than commas or semicolons.
Using comma would probably caused more problems as it is a decimal separator for those languages. My excel also uses semicolon in formulas instead of comma when separating parameters. Some VBA scripts break when using different language settings and some forumilas don’t translate automatically to different locale so they just give an error. Overall using excel in different locale setups is annoying.
Best separator I have used is | as i have never seen it in the data as an input. Comma and semicolon both have caused issues in the past for me as they might pop up at wrong places.
Here’s my confusion: as soon as it is no longer separated by commas, it is by definition no longer a CSV. Is it an SCSV now?
It turns into a CSV where the C stands for character.
Z̵̫̖͚̳̖̖̰̩̀̆͐͒͝ä̸̛̻́̈́̌͂̽̈́l̷̤̥̖̝͙̅g̵̱̤͙͕̥̮͌̽o̸̡̦̙̬̘͎̪̥̔ ̴͔̙̞̱̗͒͊͊̽̀̑͌ẏ̵̛̻̾o̸̡͍̤͔͌ų̶̠͔̯̲̖͇̯̅̒̓̃̏̓͊r̷͎̪̗̤̄̊̃̚͝ ̵̢̰͔̀t̵̡̘̤̙͕͎̅͂͛̀̚ȩ̷͙̙̖̲̟͍̉̎͝x̷͇̦̝̼͗͋̊t̶̫̹̳̩͇̼̠͚̿͆̅̋̔̃͐͗!̶̧̛͕̮̻̞͎͇̹͆͛͘̕̚͠
To fuck with computers that don’t know how to do UTF8, add a few emoji.
Even better, add some byte sequences that are invalid UTF-8.
My bank basically only allowing [a-zA-Z0-9]: I think not
Why do banks have the shittiest cyber security?
Because you, the taxpayer, will bail them out anyway
I emailed my bank about this a few years ago. Never heard back but to my surprise they actually updated the password restrictions! I should send another email asking for MFA and virtual cards…
Jeez mate you gotta get on that! You have the magic powers and you’re holding back civilization’s progress with your procrastination!
virtual cards
Do you mean tap-to-pay, or do you mean card numbers you can use for online purchases?
I think a more apt description would be proxy cards. It’s relatively new, but it lets you create cards that are linked to your primary without ever issuing a plastic card. This way if fraud happens you only need to replace it for the services it was used on. Or if you happen to lose your physical card, you can have it replaced without affecting the others.
I think this is the same thing as when I said
card numbers you can use for online purchases
I admittedly didn’t describe it very well, though.
You should send another email asking for more money.
Truly ancient Cobol running in the back is my only guess. Why they wouldn’t have their authentication systems completely separate with better security features and some sort of token based access to the backend is beyond my understanding of their back end.
This isn’t really true. If it were the financial world would be incredibly unstable and untrustworthy, and nobody would keep their money in banks.
Banks do tend to be behind the leading edge because their systems are thoroughly tested and have to be stable. They have to be regularly audited and there’s a lot of oversight. Change control processes are inherently slow. Given a choice between rapid and flexible or deliberate and reliable, banks will take the cautious route.
Because they can retroactively undo their fuckups.
Why is our money based on debt? Why do banks keep getting away with nearly collapsing the global economy? Why do private institutions have the right to coin currency?
Because banks put themselves in extremely risky situations, and civilization is based on the idea that money has value and the law is enforced. So laws get passed whenever they’re in danger (usually self inflicted)
Banks have security through legislation. It’s extra illegal to hack them. And since that’s the case, what’s a little more risk for a little higher profit? -_-
Spot the windows user….
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From many years of experience on the interwebs, I can recommend this password:
NUL,\t.;TAB\n\x07^C
It’s very secure and works most of the time. I use it for everything.
Just changed my password to this, thanks!
hunter2
hunter2
Wow, what a coincidence, my password is ******* too!
hunter2 isn’t a very strong password — personally I use ************.
IRC is leaking again…
You clearly don’t use this one, don’t you know lemmy instances automatically censor your ********?
Censor your what? Your ********?
What’s all the commotion? I’m pretty sure you can say ********, no?
Oh cool - how does it know?
Hunter2
Yeah, mine is removed.
Just added this to my brute force dictionary thank you 👌
Can you take it out again? I still want to use this. Thanks.
I dunno. If I was the asshole running the script that broke at whatever line your user was in. I’d take special care to fuck with you right back. ;)
No you don’t. I checked ;)
What’s it say? All I see is *******************.
While you’re adding commas, learn how apostrophes work.
That’s not an apostrophe, it’s a comma floating away.
S-H-comma to the top-Dynasty
Did you hear about Pluto?
I use it to signify “here come’s an S!”
Don’st.
I u’se it to 'signify “here come’s an 'S!”*
Dave Barry FTW!
You mean apostrophe’s.
And it’s not even consistent. Why is it “comma’s,” but not “password’s”?
Maybe they’re Dutch, there it’s only done for words that end in a vowel. Probably not though.
Interesting, didn’t know that!
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I think it’s a Greek root so surely it’s apostrophedes.
My main problem with passwords is the limits that sites put on what I can set for a password.
I could not tell you how many times I reset my password using my password manager, then immediately log out, and log in using the credentials I just saved into my password manager, and they don’t work, because the site is truncating the password to 15/20/whatever characters.
The number of times this limitation is not clearly stated, checked for, or even acknowledged by the site is too damn high.
I’ve made it a habit of testing a login after every password set/reset to ensure I don’t have trouble with it in the future.
The amount of websites that limit passwords to 16 characters is alarming
Usually 15, 16, 20, or 25 in my experience.
15/16 I get, no idea why 20/25 is so common.
My password manager generates 32 character passwords composed of random alphanumeric characters by default. I usually don’t modify it unless I hit a restriction, or its a site I’m particularly concerned about getting penetrated (in which case I increase the number of characters).
I don’t mind sharing that because bluntly: anyone reading this, good luck figuring it out. The permutations is something along the lines of (26*2+10+(special characters))^32… Which is 3.5239… * 10^60… Otherwise known as 3.5 novemdecillion.
Ha.
Wish we just had like 256 char passwords so I could actually use passphrases instead of passwords.
It’d be way more secure for me compared to what I’m doing now.
I’d do like Star Trek haikus or some such which would be actually possible to remember.
A person of culture, I see.
For spice, I randomly change my password length. 15 to 50+. I don’t even fucking know.
I created an account on a hosted service we use at work the other day, my password had to be exactly 12 characters. No more no less.
Wow, that’s an extra level of special.
Stored plaintext in a CHAR(12) field in a DB2 database.
My fucking bank: 👀
ALL banks.
Or when the app has different limits than the webpage!
See also: Sites that don’t allow “+” in email addresses while logging in, but do accept them at registration (including confirmation emails)
Funny, but csv values are quote encapsulated and special character escaped.
Common CSV parsers don’t require it and I’ve seen plenty of examples of unquoted CSV cells (which, given there’s no actual standard for the format, isn’t too surprising). Hell I’ve created my fair share while throwing together ad hoc datasets. The idea that some of these dumps might be made by folks who are too careless to properly quote and escape their CSV data isn’t hard to believe at all.
Oh, so it’s like USB cords. Or basically any other technology standard.
Someone never disappoints by linking this one.
A classic example of naive CSV encoding is joining a bunch of floats with commas while using a locale that has a comma for a decimal point.
I had a dota2 bug where all of the maps particle effects would spawn in the middle. Yep, a locale dot/comma thing.
When you’re lucky your data provider has high standards.
The CSV cells are escaped with quotes. So just maybe throw some quotes in too. Unbalanced for style points. It won’t defeat a CSV library, but might break a script kiddie
Unbalanced for style points.
I like the cut of your jib. End it with a single backslash, for good measure.
If you include ;",// you can mess with a wide variety of formatting.
'; DROP TABLE `passwords`; –
My bank doesn’t allow the characters you would need for a SQL injection in passwords. Checked client side, I don’t want to try and find out if it’s also checked server side, but I hope it is.
No serious software would fall for such an easy attack anymore. With prepared statements it’s impossible to break queries like that. Beside that one principle is to avoid using user inputs directly in your database.
Good way to punish websites that have zero security i suppose
“comma’s”?
“COMMA’S”?!
There was a (really short-lived) shady car dealership that used to have an A-Frame sign that they must’ve paid to get printed.
It said “Your approved”.
My approved?
I imagine someone must’ve mentioned it to them, because they replaced it not much later.
The new sign said “Everyones Approved”.
My approvedOUR approved.
I hate when when people misuse apostrophe’s
Use a password like MARCH1 so that Excel will change it when the data is loaded.
Thanks! just set that as my Lemmy password
I only see it as *******
Strange, it shows up as MARCH1 for me
🤣🤣🤣
That seems horribly insecure
While on the topic, this isn’t how passwords work in systems.
Passwords are stored as one way hashes. So it’s cryptoed only in one direction, it’s lossy, and can’t be recovered back to the original password.
When you log on, your cleartext PW is hashed in ephemeral memory/storage and then the cleartext password is thrown away.
That hash is compared to the hash in the DB. If the hash matches, then you have access. If it doesn’t, then your PW is incorrect.
It’s now how passwords work in good systems
And there are plenty of bad systems, especially in this fail fast BS paradigm clueless idiots like to use. We know because they keep getting hacked (looking at you, lastpass!)
Yes, I’m a waterfall guy - get off my lawn!
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Sure, but the comic isn’t talking about legit password usage systems. It’s talking about how a comma could break the csv formatting of a csv file that came from a data breach and dump.
That’s still not how it would work.
Ok, assuming that we’re talking about, like you say, a system that gets a breach which is storing PWs in clear text/plain text, instead of hashing it, which is a big if as those kinds of systems are either amateur/homebrew, or extinct at this point, but I digress. Let’s say it’s there.
The attacker would run a sanitization script out of the SQL table that would shift those problem characters into proxy characters, or correct them if it’s going to cause a problem. One or two passwords lost to correct for thousands isn’t a big deal. The result of trying to put some sort of SQL Injection or CSV formatting bug into your password, hoping it was stored as plaintext, and the attacker wouldn’t be sanitizing the common formatting issues, is just silly.
Plus, it’s not like they’re only exporting it once. They’ve usually copied the DB down locally, so they’ll see the formatting is skewed when parsing the CSV, and correct it on the next export out.
I’m all for the humor here, I was just calling out that nothing about the ideas the OP suggested would work in real life SecOps scenarios.
Souce: Am engineer at large corporation. Deal with scenarios and systems like this all the time.
Edit: People are downvoting this, seemingly because they don’t like that the answer makes the OP’s joke less funny and pretty unlikely. This is why it’s difficult and frustrating to have these kinds of conversations on Lemmy or reddit. I am an expert. I responded with additional information to correct some misunderstandings. It gets down voted because…?
cryptoed
Unless you were looking for a sick rhyme for tiptoed, try encrypted.
Encryption is inherently reversible though. Hashing is the most accurate term to describe it
You are correct.
No, I mean Crypto libraries.
The field of science and engineering that has the algorithms and libraries we would need to use to perform a proper one way encrypted hash, is going to be found in a cryoptographic library.
I suspect you’re thinking of Crypto in how it’s applied colloquially in the world today with a cryptographically signed linked-list ledger. There’s a whole world of cryptography that’s in use. Encryption is just one sub-function in that world.
While on the topic, this isn’t how passwords work in systems.
Passwords are stored as one way hashes. So it’s cryptoed only in one direction, it’s lossy, and can’t be recovered back to the original password.
When you log on, your cleartext PW is hashed in ephemeral memory/storage and then the cleartext password is thrown away.
That hash is compared to the hash in the DB. If the hash matches, then you have access. If it doesn’t, then your PW is incorrect.
Oh my sweet Summer Child. This is definitely how it’s supposed to work, but there are plenty of services that just don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.
Have you ever been on a site that has a stupid-low character limit for a password? There’s literally no reason to do that, all the hashes are going to end up the same size in the DB anyway regardless of the original string length. Even
bcrypt’s max secret character limit is 70-something characters.Ever change a password and have it not work on the next login because they’re silently truncating it after a certain character limit? Ever get an email with an actual password in it?
The only reason you would do things like this is if you’re storing/processing passwords in plaintext and not hashing it client-side first.
I can think of 3 offenders of this off the top of my head. It’s a lot more common than you’d think.
Even if it’s hashed, some systems still use unsalted MD5 which is effectively just as bad as plain text.
I don’t understand it. Argon2id has been around for nearly 10 years at this point, scrypt for 15, PBKDF2 for 20 and bcrypt for 25. It’s not hard.
The CSV specification (RFC-4180) is pretty clear. If a value contains commas, you wrap it in double quotes. If the value contains double quotes, you double each double quote to indicate its part of the value and not the end of the value.
A properly formatted CSV should have no problems from Skeletor!
There’s no formal spec for CSV. The RFC you mentioned describes the most common behaviour observed in many implementations, but it’s not a spec itself, as mentioned on the second page:
While there are various specifications and implementations for the CSV format (for ex. [4], [5], [6] and [7]), there is no formal specification in existence, which allows for a wide variety of interpretations of CSV files. This section documents the format that seems to be followed by most implementations:
Also, my understanding is that double quotes are only used for strings. Commas can appear outside of strings, for example in numbers in countries that use them as a decimal point. That’s actually why many implementations use semicolons or tabs as the separator.
Remove apostrophes from your plural words, they show possession, not plurality. Until next time.
It’s there intentionally as part of an injection attack
Woosh?
No, I don’t think so.
LOL
I do think so
Security advice: Just use URLs/links as password. Until next time!
Thanks, I now use This as my password for all my important information.
Can someone help me understand this? It seems interesting.
Long string of effectively random (in terms of their connection to you) words + special characters that make it hard to either guess or brute force.
Can you add a “TAB” into a password?
\t is your best shot. For good measure, you’ll also want to add double quotes (can be used to escape commas in CSVs), double double quotes, back slashes, and |s, just to mess with anyone trying to sanitize a CSV with your password in it.
Yes, char(9) is the SQL string for it.
However most modern password attributes are blocking this from SQL injections where a playfully named user “Drop Table” does not cause any harm
Of course. In Windows you can hold Alt and type 0 0 9 before releasing the Alt key to enter the character without triggering any “move to next field” behaviour. In *nix it should be Ctrl+I.
Similar with other control characters - NUL (0) might be harder to type, yet substantially more likely to break things!
SHY is good if you’d like a character which can’t be seen, without needing to resort to Unicode.
