Submitted 7 months ago by tisktisk@piefed.social to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
are domains containing 'zip' near the end a legitimate threat?
I've heard a decent argument why it should be avoided, and I'm curious to know to what degree. I understand avoiding .zip links, but should I go as far as to avoid .zip communities too? Where does this thinking become genuine paranoia?
Waiting for Lemmy.exe
That’ll just install arch and delete windows
What would lemmy.sh do? Install the latest screenfetch and post it online?
The “.zip” TLD isn’t itself a security risk, but it should never have been created in the first place due to the overlap with .zip files.
Understanding the context of why the .zip TLD is a bad idea, you should be questioning the general competence of a web admin that would intentionally purchase and operate a .zip website. It’s such an obvious and avoidable problem that you have to wonder what other obvious problems they are failing to avoid.
I do not disagree, though I’m curious on your take of .COM since that has always had the same issue.
Basically, .COM files are not commonly used and definitely not commonly shared on the Internet. The overlap between use cases for .COM files and .com TLDs is almost nothing.
In contrast, .ZIP files are very commonly shared on the Internet as a convenient way to transfer a group of files all at once, and there are a few different techniques for using .ZIP files maliciously. There is a lot more potential for conflicts between .ZIP files and the .zip TLD on the Internet.
The difference is they everybody knows about zip files, even my old mom. Not so much for com executables. That’s why it can lead to phishing, etc.
Well put. Your explanation has me most confident I should avoid lemmy.zip communities for the time being--thx
Lemmy communities are run by volunteers who are often footing the bill themselves to run. Without these people Lemmy would not exist. One/some of these people decided to save themselves a few bucks a month and get a .zip domain. There’s nothing wrong with lemmy.zip
lol there is nothing wrong with Lemmy.zip. It’s a legit Lemmy instance and the communities are safe.
The concern is that someone might try to make a website / URL appear to be a zip file you can download and open. But Lemmy.zip is not doing that.
Also you are on a different Lemmy instance, so you never interact with Lemmy.zip directly. Instead, behind the scenes, your instance exchanges data with Lemmy.zip, and all other instances it is federated with, regardless of whether you personally subscribe to any .zip communities or not.
I fucking hope not because I belong to lemmy.zip!
@SEND_BUTTPLUG_PICS@lemmy.zip should I zip them and send?
I dont think there are any valid technical insecurities. Its just a TLD like any other. The issue is just that people might get confused by it and that could be used for phishing stuff.
Should .zip communities be avoided for this potential confusion or no?
Exactly this, the .zip file extension is widely known, and now that it’s also a TLD, it can be confusing for some people. There’s no technical vulnerability, but the existence of .zip TLD just gives more ammo for phishing. For example, someone could register a domain name recent-bank-statements[.]zip (without brackets) and then have a subdomain for chase.com and send someone a link to https://chase.com.recent-bank-statements/[.]zip to “Download your bank statements”. If you’re not looking closely, you might not realize there is a . instead of a / and think that this link would go to chase.com When the site initiates a download of a zip file, you might trust the contents thinking it came from Chase and not a malicious link.
Excellent explanation. So with this knowledge, should .zip sublemmy/communities be avoided as well or is this excessive for some reason?
No where did you heard that from?
The ending closed parenthesis is needed for this link but I can't fix it sry
TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
yeah id say so, tech literacy is bad as is. Adding to the scams is the last thing we need.
However it’s like any other .com just with a more customizable name, like files.catbox.moe fits because the site is decorated with anime drawings (Wikipedia page.
for a techy website .zip is fine, as long as they’re not using it as an attempt to scam.