It’s 2023, why are websites actively preventing pasting into fields like passwords and credit card number boxes? I use a password manager for security, it’s recommended by my employer to use one, and it even avoids human error like accidentally fat-fingering keys, and best of all with the credit card number I don’t have to memorize anything or know a single digit/character!

I have to use the Don’t Fuck With Paste addon just to be able to paste my secrets into certain monthly billing websites; why is my electric provider and one of my banks so asinine that pasting cannot be allowed? I can only imagine downsides and zero upsides to this toxic dark-pattern behavior.

There is even a mention about this in NIST SP 800-63B, a standard for identity management that some companies must follow in the USA, which mentions forcefully rotating passwords and denying “password paste-in” as antiquated/bad advice:

Verifiers SHOULD permit claimants to use “paste” functionality when entering a memorized secret. This facilitates the use of password managers, which are widely used and in many cases increase the likelihood that users will choose stronger memorized secrets

Edit: I discovered that for Firefox users there’s a simpler way than exposing your secrets to someone’s third-party addon. Simply open about:config, search for dom.event.clipboardevents.enabled, and change it from true to false.

Edit 2: As some have pointed out, that config value interferes with regular functionality on some sites. Probably best to leave it alone unless you know what you’re doing.

  • can@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    Thank you for the detailed reply. I just had other things in mind. For important things, sure, but I kind of appreciate the ability to give some website a username, password, and maybe an email and that’s all the ask.

    I know IPs and browser fingerprinting kind of make this moot anyway.

    • manitcor@lemmy.intai.techEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      you won’t even give them that in this kind of system. you will get a user hash that is based of your signature, the system your using’s key and some mux of time and entropy input. This hash will be how they track you in a database and as systems evolve could even be a way to communicate with the user directly (like email) without knowing or holding any PII/NPI

      Anything you assign to them would be data they have (maybe a common display name). Anything truly important that needs to be up there can be encrypted with different techniques that would allow the provider to work with your data without ever having to access or decrypt your data.

      so the idea of them “needing to have something” to function is true, but fundamentally, they don’t need as much to operate in this system and its possible to have standards that enforce security on your more sensitive details that are sent. Imagine the security of your data, on thier system, still being ruled by your security. Even if hackers get in and copy the entire database its effectively useless.