If you’re trying to trick people into thinking a domain name is legit and definitely not harmful, just put google.com@ in front of it.

https://google.com@chriscoyier.net/

https://daverupert.com@chriscoyier.net/

https://definitely-safe-place-to@buy-drugzzz.com

https://github.com∕kubernetes∕kubernetes∕archive∕refs∕tags∕@v1271.zip

https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/archive/refs/tags/v1.27.1.zip

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6 responses to “If you’re trying to trick people into thinking a domain name is legit and definitely not harmful, just put google.com@ in front of it.”

1. Adam Richeimer says:

   05/22/2023 at 10:40 am

   This is part of HTTP Basic Authentication. Some websites allow you to login using http://myusername:mypassword@example.com or if you leave out the password then you get a little modal from the browser asking for it. It’s easy to turn on with web servers like nginx. Useful for password protecting a page for a website before it is ready to go live.

   Reply
2. Ben says:

   05/22/2023 at 1:46 pm

   Waaaaaay back, you could send your credentials to a website like http://user:pass@totallysafe.com. Browsers would take the username and password and inject them into the Authorization header. AFAIK, no browsers will do this anymore, but they still respect the URL format, in case someone clicks on such a URL from an email from 1998.

   Reply
3. Tont says:

   05/23/2023 at 12:41 am

   Firefox warn the user about it.

   Reply
4. Nicolas says:

   05/23/2023 at 4:25 am

   Firefox does show a warning:

   You are about to log in to the site “chriscoyier.net” with the username “google%2Ecom”, but the website does not require authentication. This may be an attempt to trick you.
   Is “chriscoyier.net” the site you want to visit?

   Reply
5. Jans Carton says:

   05/23/2023 at 12:46 pm

   It goes beyond HTTP and the web. It’s part of the URI spec — the “User Information” subcomponent of a URI.

   https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc3986#section-3.2.1

   The spec recommends that the userinfo subcomponent be rendered differently to avoid “Semantic Attacks”, which is not a very realistic option. They go on to describe the exact problem that Chris points out here:

   https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc3986#section-7.6

   You’ll see in the spec that the userinfo subcomponent is partially deprecated. In my opinion, it shouldn’t be supported by browsers at all.

   Reply
6. Chris Coyier says:

   05/23/2023 at 12:51 pm

   Sounds like Google is very on board for killing it.

   https://mastodon.social/@Yoav/110414080916605916
   https://mastodon.social/@mikewest/110414334955989895
   https://infosec.exchange/@fugueish/110414455869660479

   Reply