There is that famous technical interview question that goes: what happens behind the scenes when you type in a domain name and press enter?

[grant_h@mastodon.social]

@SecureOwl My high-school CS lessons will be updated.

[xoriff@hachyderm.io]

@SecureOwl I always liked this one because it gave the person answering the question the space to explain it based on what they know. Hardware folks will spend most of the time on the different levels of the networking stack. Front end folks will spend most of their time on DOM stuff.

The full answer is so vast that how a person chooses to answer can reveal a lot about them.

[janxdevil@sfba.social]

@SecureOwl I remember that one time I freaked the poor bastard who asked me that by starting with the OPEN signal to the PPP on demand stack and going from there to the callout to the modem to start dialing the POP.

[ams@infosec.exchange]

@SecureOwl Don't forget the full google search on each partial domain, character-by-character as you type, with all the ad and promoted link bids that entails.

[coucou@masto.ai]

@SecureOwl lol this is great. I wish I used it when I was asked this question in an interview at amazon.

[alesandroortiz@infosec.exchange]

@SecureOwl Followed by:
- Malicious ad fingerprints your browser and runs a zero day exploit.
- Your AWS, GitHub, and npm credentials are exfiltrated within seconds.
- Within 5 hours you are triaging a widespread supply chain attack that started with you typing in a domain name and pressing enter.

[ann_effes@berlin.social]

@SecureOwl

Well ... I don't know if that is "more truthful"

Yes, that's true for many websites - though in some cases only after the page has been rendered, not before - but it certainly doesn't apply to every domain name or website. Not by a long shot.

I'm in favor of raising awareness among internet users, but I'm against going overboard and painting a bleak picture. That's more likely to lead to resignation than to a change in behavior in my opinion.

[secureowl@infosec.exchange]

I forgot to add that none of this can happen until Cloudflare gets to decide you are a worthy human for some reason

[_ad@hachyderm.io]

@SecureOwl that's after the TPM decides your hardware is still blessed and the HDMI equipment grants you permission to observe pixels displayed on the screen.

[mjturner@indieweb.social]

@SecureOwl You forgot "Cloudflare delays everything by a further 30s to make sure you're not a bot" (so that the site doesn't waste time tracking and pushing ads to non-humans!)

[jandi@mastodon.social]

@AMS @SecureOwl Plus the predicted keypresses, and comparison with previous "keypress sessions"!

[casar@mastodon.social]

@SecureOwl Type in a domain name and press enter *into what*?

[generalx@freeradical.zone]

@SecureOwl

"Yes, interviewer, when I press enter, uBlock Origin intercepts the request and gets to work filtering ad and tracking sites like google-analytics.com."

Interviewer: "Do you realize this is a Google interview?"

[dirk@gts.0x7be.net]

@SecureOwl Haha …

Page renders in browser.

As if! First a metric shit-ton of external JS libraries are pulled, then the needed CSS styles are compiled on-the-fly locally in the client, causing the client to stall all connections, then the page gives an “application error” because your client by default denies local storage and cookies.

[clickymcticker@hachyderm.io]

@generalx @SecureOwl Probably fine. They want you to drink their corporate kool aid, not the consumer kool aid they distribute widely.

[generalx@freeradical.zone]

@ClickyMcTicker @SecureOwl

Wouldn't the corporate koolaid be the justification of Google Analytics and how my salary depends on it? To ignore the internet hype around tracking and privacy? To become an analytics evangelist and see tracking as a powerful utility unlocking shareholder value?