Comment On Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

Frequent readers of this blog are likely familiar with some of the innovative software developed by my current employer. And as you may know, my tenure there is almost over; I have accepted a job offer from another company. However, I think I would be performing a terrible misservice if I didn't share with you some of my favorite products perversions. Of course, don't let that stop you from sending in your own discoveries. [expand full text]
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RE: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2004-08-17 12:53 • by mearls@hotmail.com (Michael Earls)
What's the website URL? That's some fancy security.

"They'll never view the source"

re: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2004-08-17 13:13 • by df
I've spent literally minutes looking for a way to get rid of that horrible flash.

I'm with Michael, we need to have the URL in order to truly appreciate this masterful solution.

RE: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2004-08-17 13:22 • by nospamplease75@yahoo.com (Haacked)
Judging by this person's history, we can be pretty sure that the connection string connects as sa with no password. ;)

re: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2004-08-17 13:41 • by Phil Scott
Rot in hell RDS.DataControl. Though I do appreciate giving us bitches the spec: "don't let it blink."

I'm also liking the the "SELECT Null as ID, '' as Fullname as union ..." code. Can someone justify that code for poor little me?

re: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2004-08-17 14:05 • by Justin Pitts
Thats to give the user a blank line to insert a new row into....

re: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2004-08-17 14:10 • by Tony
Kinda gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to know that only a hacker with the complex knowledge to click the "View Source" right click menu item in I.E. can break my Database security.

re: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2004-08-17 14:35 • by Alex Papadimoulis
Out of respect for my employer (who, by the way, are wonderfully nice people), I cannot reveal any URLs or even the company's name for that matter :-)

re: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2004-08-17 14:41 • by Phil Scott
Thanks for the explanation, Justin. I had a scary thought that they were doing that to get the column names the way they wanted, or even worse accidently navigating past the first row via code.

Now that I think about it, I remember where I saw this code last. It was in some view someone had written. It kinda threw me off until I saw the ASP.NET page that was using the view:

if dr.Read() then DataGrid1.DataBind

RE: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2004-08-17 15:03 • by hassan.voyeau@gmail.com (Hassan Voyeau)
Unless we have 2 Alex's in the world, coudl this be?




[editor: Link Deleted ... if you really want to know, Google yourself. Last thing I want to do is get in trouble for having *referers* to their site!]




click on the staff link.

re: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2004-08-17 15:34 • by Google Power
Google rules!

re: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2004-08-17 15:43 • by Frans Bouma
"I'm also liking the the "SELECT Null as ID, '' as Fullname as union ..." code. Can someone justify that code for poor little me?"
If the second query doesn't have any records, you still have a record with the proper fields. So you don't have to add code to deal with an empty recordset, there is always a record. (that's what I think the reason is, but looking at the page, it might well be because it rained or the lakers lost their game)

re: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2004-08-17 19:22 • by Joe
There is another way, though it has it's own issues.

.NET Smart client (deploy rich client via IE).

Flash applicaiton.

No blinking and totally interactive.

re: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2004-08-17 19:39 • by Tim Cartwright
Congratulations! You have just proved the theory that there is no limit to human stupidity.

re: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2004-08-17 21:49 • by Michael Savoy
::I think I would be performing a terrible misservice if I didn't share with you some of my favorite products perversions.::

Whey're did youse lern Inglish? Theirs no such woid az MISSERVICE. Youse probablee meenz DISSERVICE but youse shood nose better then dat.

re: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2004-08-17 23:54 • by John S.
Where did you learn to be an arsehole? Seriously who cares about a typo...honestly some people.

Apologies for going off topic.

re: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2004-08-18 02:24 • by Andrew
There's a course you can do.

re: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2004-08-18 05:07 • by Pete Bassett
Either I've found the wrong web site or they've been tipped off. The Staff link just has some text saying its under construction blah blah...

If I've found the right site anyway.

Pete

re: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2004-08-18 05:10 • by Pete Bassett
If you get there, apparently "layouts are hard"...

;-)

re: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2004-08-18 05:14 • by Simon
Thats so bad, I did love the data control, (once you sorted out the ADCLaunch setting), but when I used it it was to connect to custom objects on the server, read-only I must add, and the sql fields were changed in the resultant sets.

But I wouldnt use it now, even in an extranet. Never used it on the web, that would be insane.

re: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2004-08-18 06:20 • by Richard@Home
If anyone is interested in avoiding the dreaded refresh, I've been trying some experiments:

http://richardathome.no-ip.com/index.php?article_id=317

re: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2004-08-18 08:36 • by cablito
as usual, "there is a perfectly reasonable reason for doing this"

re: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2004-08-18 09:57 • by Peter
>Now who sees something wrong with this?
Oh, let's see.
1) change the sql to something like...
"select * from sysobjects"
2) change the sql to something like...
"drop table tblWebGroupMembers"
3) I always wanted to be a pharmacist, I think something like...
"insert me into tblWebGroupMembers"
4) who wants some happy pills?
This one is so WTF, I need to go wash my mind out with beer to get rid of the smell.

re: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2004-08-18 13:29 • by Ron
This is kind of a step towards thick client ui's like gmail.

Give me blinking any day.

re: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2004-08-18 13:34 • by Matthew W. Jackson
Richard: That's very nice.

Props for having it work in Firefox. I would have simply suggested using IE's page-transition feature.

re: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2004-08-19 16:32 • by Scott
Now, now, don't just assume that any would-be hacker could see the source. Maybe they used some JavaScript to disable right-clicking and menus! Now they have flawless sercurity.

re: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2004-08-20 00:53 • by Matthew W. Jackson
Hah! Right-click disabled! Just shows you how few programmers actually know what that weird key between Window and Control is.

re: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2004-08-20 08:50 • by DCD
I must have a weird keyboard because I don't have any keys between CNTRL & Window. But I can do Shift F10 to simulate right-clicks.

re: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2004-08-20 13:01 • by Logio
I always liked that HTML comment in one webpage I saw eons ago...

<!-- Don't make me open a can of whoop-ass on you -->

re: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2004-08-25 14:37 • by Marvin Smit
Telnet
open {ip/dns} 80
GET / HTTP/1.0{\r\n\r\n}

Look mom, no IE ! ;)

re: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2004-08-28 14:45 • by Sean
Dear God, please tell me I'm not seeing what I think I'm seeing

re: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2004-10-04 07:42 • by Bert
Uhhuh,

Even I can discourage hackers to hack by 'programming' this way...

re: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2004-10-07 17:10 • by Bushism
>But I can do Shift F10 to simulate right-clicks

Not on my PC you can't, you must be thinking of Alt F4

Re: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2005-02-06 22:37 • by

I think one of the reaons you don't see it more often on other pages is simply because of the security. I usually don't want to show the user the SQL queries being performed on the database.

Re: re: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2005-02-10 14:15 • by Blue
29410 in reply to 23335
I don't care how much anti-right-click javascript you write.  I
can disable all javascript at will, and view whatever source I like! :)



Re: Avoiding the dreaded Refresh

2010-02-03 04:21 • by cbhacking (unregistered)
To everybody commenting on the plaintext connection string, bear in mind that if implemented correctly, it needn't be a major security hole. Create a user with almost no access (read-only, preferably only through a specific View or SProc). Assuming the default accounts are well-locked and the web server has no major security vulnerabilities that can be exploited just by knowing its address, you're probably OK.

Perhaps a more important question is what platforms are expected to access this page? It'll work in IE on Windows, so long as scripting of ActiveX controls is enabled. It might work in Firefox on Windows - not sure about that though. Non-Windows (including IE for Mac) seems a little unlikely...
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