Getting round website authentication with Firefox

[account.throw@gmail.com]

Using firefox's "save target as" feature, you can get round web authentication.

Make a password protected directory (with a video file inside) (using .htaccess and htpasswd), check that it actully requires a login when you click the link to the video normally, then create a hyperlink to the file, right click save as - oh snap, it doe
sn't ask for authentication.

I've only tested it with a video file and Firefox 1.0.6.

[Nate Smith]

On Sun, Jul 24, 2005 at 11:52:11PM -0000, account.throw@gmail.com wrote:
> Using firefox's "save target as" feature, you can get round web authentication.
>
> Make a password protected directory (with a video file inside) (using .htaccess and htpasswd), check that it actully requires a login when you click the link to the video normally, then create a hyperlink to the file, right click save as - oh snap, it d
oesn't ask for authentication.
>
> I've only tested it with a video file and Firefox 1.0.6.

If this got around authenticating, it would be the fault of the server,
not the browser. The browser is only sending a 'request' for a
document. If firefox fails to ask for credentials in any authentication
scheme, it is the fault of firefox, and should be reported to their bug
tracking system. Check their support forums first to see if it's known:

http://forums.mozillazine.org/

I tried it with firefox 1.0.6 and it didn't ask for credentials, but it
didn't give me the FILE, either :) If it has cached your authentication
response from a previous request, then yes, it will let you have the
file. But that won't work for someone who genuinely doesn't know the
username/password.

-Nate

[James Tait]

account.throw@gmail.com wrote:
> Using firefox's "save target as" feature, you can get round web
> authentication.
>
> Make a password protected directory (with a video file inside) (using
> .htaccess and htpasswd), check that it actully requires a login when you
> click the link to the video normally, then create a hyperlink to the
> file, right click save as - oh snap, it doesn't ask for authentication.
>
> I've only tested it with a video file and Firefox 1.0.6.

Did you restart Firefox after clicking the link the first time? Firefox
will remember the HTTP Basic Authentication credentials after you've entered
them once.

Did you make sure the "Use Password Manager to remember this password" check
box was cleared? Firefox *should* still prompt you for auth, but with the
values pre-filled.

Did you clear your cache? If you've already visited the page, it's possible
that when you click "Save Link As..." Firefox just reads the cached copy.

Are you accessing the protected page through a proxy server? Again, it's
possible the proxy server is serving up a cached response, or re-issuing
your original request to the origin server.

For what it's worth, I tried to reproduce this and couldn't.

JT
--
-------------------------------------+------------------------------------
James Tait, BSc | xmpp:jayteeuk@wyrddreams.org
Programmer and Open Source advocate | Mobile: +44 (0)7779 337596
-------------------------------------+------------------------------------

[Christopher Kunz]

account.throw@gmail.com wrote:
> Using firefox's "save target as" feature, you can get round web authentication.
>
> Make a password protected directory (with a video file inside) (using .htaccess and htpasswd), check that it actully requires a login when you click the link to the video normally, then create a hyperlink to the file, right click save as - oh snap, it d
oesn't ask for authentication.
>
> I've only tested it with a video file and Firefox 1.0.6.

Nope. This cannot work, you probably messed up your basic auth settings in
Apache. If you perform a HEAD /protected/video.avi, you will already see the 401
header - and there is no way to bypass that with a client.

For the sake of the argument, I actually tried it out - and it doesn't work (of
course).

I'd suspect that you a) didn't configure the basic auth properly or b) have run
into the infamous basic auth caching issue (a.k.a. "we can't log out users with
basic auth").

--ck