Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:
Paul B. Gallagher wrote:
I recently visited an online site that accepts political contributions
for a variety of candidates. I entered my credit card info to make a
contribution, printed my receipt, and left. The next time I visited,
The same contribution site?
SeaMonkey had all the credit card info stored and ready to go, which
was really scary. I poked around and couldn't find any way to
prohibit it from storing info entered in this field or at this site,
so I ended up with the heavy-handed solution of purging ALL saved
data, which will be a safe inconvenience.
I've now disabled this dangerous feature (after ten minutes of
searching for the checkbox in the prefs -- it was just as hard to
find as last time), because
a) It never warned me that it was saving credit card info;
It wasn't. It merely saves formfield data. It doesn't know it's a credit
card. It's just text to the browser.
It's credit card info, and I don't care that the browser is too stupid
to know. Any human being who double-clicks on a credit card number field
(no matter how it's coded) and sees a 16-digit number pop up will know
precisely what it is.
b) There seems to be no way to prevent it from saving credit card info
-- it sees all form data as equally eligible.
Ah, you understand.
Browsers don't save specific types of info. They save based on the name
and ID of the form field(s). If, for example, that<input> field was
named "ccnumber" the browser would save what you typed. If you went to
an entirely different web site and there was a field there *also* named
"ccnumber", you card number would show up there as well. However, if at
the next site the author used the field name of "ccinfo" you would *not*
see your previously entered credit card number.
In the source HTML, you will find code similar to this:
<input type="text" id="ccnumber" name="ccnumber" size="16">
But don't worry. Nobody can see that except you and whoever is sitting
at your computer. The web site can't see it until you click the Submit
button.
My worry isn't that the website might see it. My worry is that another
person who gains physical access to my computer might see it. In this
age of laptops, isn't that something the developers should plan for?
c) There seems to be no way to inspect or edit saved data, so I can't
even be sure SeaMonkey really did purge the data.
You could check by revisiting the site and see if your data shows up on
the form.
As far as I'm concerned, this is a major security hole that should be
fixed as soon as possible.
If saving form data was removed, a lot of folks would be unhappy. It's
not a security "hole" and the behaviour will not be altered.
That isn't what I said, nor what I want (see my remark about "a safe
inconvenience"). I want to be able to /enter/ credit card info on secure
sites as needed, but prevent the browser from ever saving it. AFAIK,
there is no way to distinguish private data ("send this one time but as
soon as you do, forget it") from other data ("remember for my
convenience"). I'm perfectly capable of making the distinction myself,
but there's no way for me to tell the program.
So right now, the only way of preventing the browser from saving cc info
is to disable the form history feature entirely. That's unacceptable
(because most users won't do it) and inconvenient (because those who are
smart enough to do it lose the functionality). A bad workaround with the
feature enabled is to try to remember, each and every time I submit cc
info, to clear the form history the moment the card is accepted.
--
War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
--
Paul B. Gallagher
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