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Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 198
Member
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Member
Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 198 |
Please uppercase names and remove whitespace before checking to see if there is a display name collision.
I’m having trouble with a little rascal spoofing the other posters on my board by simply adding two spaces to the name instead of one.
Toast Brad
Toast Brad
The second one is the spoof, and because of the font, is very hard to spot. Please remove all whitespace before comparing names .. please :\
Member since November 2004 Gold Member since Feb 2008
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Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 16,299 Likes: 116
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Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 16,299 Likes: 116 |
actually, the browser ignores double spaces (in fact, you could put a hundred, it'll only recignise one).
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Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 1,649 Likes: 1
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 1,649 Likes: 1 |
I have NO idea about this particular issue, but in the end... Browsers do display what scripts pump out, consistently... but that doesn't mean scripts pump out what browsers should be displaying -- so it's a legit concern to look into
GangsterBB.NET (Ver. 7.6.1.1) PHP Version 5.6.40 / MySQL 5.7.23-23 (was 5.6.41-84.1) / Apache 2.4.54 2007 Content Rulez Contest - Hon Mention UBB.classic 6.7.2 - RIP
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Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 16,299 Likes: 116
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Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 16,299 Likes: 116 |
Well, the script is pumping out what the user inputs; it's just that the web browser ignores the additional spaces...
As a test, 1 spaced: Gizmo Is Cool
As a test, 10 spaces: Gizmo Is Cool
Now, do a quick quote, it will show that I did indeed put 10 spaces, and Threads did indeed store 10 spaces. Thus, a browser issue and not really a threads "security" risk at all... Though I'm not sure how a check would work too well as items are not stored in the db without spaces; I suppose you could remove the space and md5 the value and store that md5 hash in the db and compare against that...
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Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 215
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 215 |
I suggest surrounding a PRE tag may solve this problem.
English is not my native language. I try my best to express my thought precisely. I hope you understand what I mean. If any misunderstanding results from culture gaps, I apologize first.
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Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 9,242 Likes: 1
Former Developer
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Former Developer
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 9,242 Likes: 1 |
If you turn off special characters in display names in the control panel, then it prevents username spoofing. Strips out everything that isn't a alphanumeric characters, allows for _ however.
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Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 198
Member
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Member
Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 198 |
Apparently I’m unable to explain the simplest of bugs.
Rick, please approve my Display name change and you will see that I am now “David Dreezer”
The board does not check to see if there are two spaces in the display name, this happened to me yesterday.
I currently have Admin Approval for display name changes to stop this exploit, but it does exist and is an easy exploit; and easily fixed.
If you guys did not have Admin approval for for display name changes turned on, I would be showing up as “David Dreezer” at this very moment.
And if you still don’t believe me, I’ll give Rick admin access to my boards so he can see that I banned: “Toast Brad” (2 spaces) yesterday in order to protect the real “Toast Brad”
Member since November 2004 Gold Member since Feb 2008
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Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 9,242 Likes: 1
Former Developer
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Former Developer
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 9,242 Likes: 1 |
I understand the problem. The option under Registration Settings that I spoke of is how this is stopped:
Allow Special Characters in Display Names?
If that isn't checked, then it only allows for alphanumeric characters and the _ character.
It's more than just the need to strip out white spaces, there are several other things that need to be stripped out to prevent this. Some sites do not want that though, that's why it's an optional setting.
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Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 198
Member
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Member
Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 198 |
oh, hmm.. It's a role-play community and probably 50% of my posters use spaces in their names: Sir Simple Mrs. Ant Toast Brad Flannery Flynn Even though my simple-minded approach of removing spaces before the compare doesn't solve all known exploits, it does raise the bar a bit and make the exploit a fare bit more obvious. If I understand your reservation, is that the system can still be undermined by say substituting an 'á' for an 'a'. Am I correct? If this is the case: in the compare routine, perform the following logic. Create a temporary Source string of the following form: Foreach character in string that is not a-z or A-Z or 0-9, convert the character to a '#' character. Create a temporary Destination string of the following form: Foreach character in string that is not a-z or A-Z or 0-9, convert the character to a '#' character. Now do the comparison to look for Display Name Spoofing This test will work correctly virtually all the time. The obvious optimization would be to store a hash of the normalized string (as described above) to speed the duplicate display name check. I understand the answer is "turn off special characters" .. but I think we can all agree this is ugly and user unfriendly; especially for a role-play community where identity is everything. Please consider my solution. (I'll call phone in a pizza order for you to your neighborhood pizza parlor.)
Member since November 2004 Gold Member since Feb 2008
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Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 1,358
Veteran
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Veteran
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 1,358 |
The option is called "Dissalow special characters", so imho it should be used as a choice whether or not you want to have special characters in display names or not.
I don't think you turn of just any special char because you want extra security in spoofing display names.
My real suggestion would be to warn/ban users exploiting this. You just can't solve everything with technical solutions. Saying "it is not allowed" and punishing those who cross the line works for a lot if issues.
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Bots
by Outdoorking - 04/13/2024 5:08 PM
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2 members (Nightcrawler, Ruben),
694
guests, and
214
robots. |
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
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