

Comcast's Incompetence Puts You At Risk - comatose_kid
http://unixjunkie.blogspot.com/2008/10/comcasts-incompetence-puts-you-at-risk.html

======
ewoodh2o
Wow...I just went through this last week. Definitely didn't think they'd be
dumb enough to encrypt the applet but not the chat traffic. But I was a little
sketched out by the fact that you go through this entire official ordering
process on their website through which you provide all your contact details,
then some low-wage support guy in who-knows-where asks for your SSN. I refused
to give it to him, which meant I had to put down a $100 deposit. On my credit
card. Which I had to type into that unsecured chat box.

As they say, it's Comcastic!

~~~
tdavis
Maybe this is just a result of being in the military and having my SSN on 10
trillion documents in various insecure facilities around the world, but I
would give out my SSN way before my CC number. Especially in a chat
application.

~~~
stoic
You can change your credit card number (cancel the card).

You cannot change your SSN.

~~~
gojomo
Actually, you can change your SSN -- it's just very hard, requiring something
like a risk of assault or proof of persistent misuse. Of course, even if
approved, the discontinuity incurs many other inconveniences when seeking
credit/employment/housing.

------
brown9-2
Interesting that the frontend is a Java applet but it's posting to an
ASP/ASP.NET url. Two technologies that you don't usually see a development
team combine.

Smells like a bunch of contractors plugging a few random components together
to just-get-it-working?

------
83457
Reminds me of a story I heard a while back of a store with a few locations but
only one credit card terminal. In order to process credit cards as needed they
just submitted credit card info by instant message to the store with the
terminal where an employee would process and respond with a confirmation
message.

------
tptacek
Backend applications that retail customers never see aren't secure. Film at
11.

~~~
tdavis
Maybe somebody should make the film. Because I already know all about it, and
it is still ridiculous.

But don't play it at 11. That's where news goes ;)

