Typing is prone to mistakes, that's why most sites will ask you to enter in crucial data twice, just to make sure you have entered it in correctly.... but blocking paste on a website because you are afraid that users will use it for evil is dumb, and it's been proven dumb by all tested metrics. Blocking paste actually decreases security, as now users will probably choose a more simple passwords/etc as they can't paste complex ones. It's not like these are missile codes (relevant XKCD). It's especially dumb when you need to enter a checking account number and routing number twice as it's easy to mistype/transpose something (even twice). It's much better to be able to paste in your bank account code from a password manager like lastpass/keepass/onepass.
This method used below will disable the javascript function from erasing the pasted data, thus allowing you to past in you check information into the crappy payment website for the County of Sacramento Utilities Department.
Disclaimer
The information is provided “AS IS” with no warranties, and confers no rights. Use at your own risk.
How?
For this guide we will be using the greasemonkey/Tampermonkey plugin with Firefox/Chrome to allow us to use paste on the stupid fucking website for the county of Sacramento, California Department of Utilities bill payment.
- Firefox - Install Greasemonkey
- From within the Firefox browser, go here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/greasemonkey/
- Click the "+ Add to firefox" button
- Confirm the install by click on on "Install"
- Restart firefox to complete the install
- Chrome - Install Tampermonkey
- From within the Chrome browser, go here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tampermonkey/dhdgffkkebhmkfjojejmpbldmpobfkfo
- Click the "+ Add to Chrome" button
- Click the "Add extension" button
- Install the script by:
- Option 1: Using the code directly form Github:
- Go to this github Gist:
https://gist.github.com/BrianCanFixIT/2d9ca18c1e36d6f596c222a0d47180e5
https://gist.github.com/BrianCanFixIT/2f3635f9d047316954943ba50c17a9f7 - Click on the "Raw" button, and click the Greasemonkey/Tampermonkey "Install" button.
- Option 2: Manually for Firefox+Greasemonkey (no automatic updates with this method)
- Click on the greasemonkey drop-down arrow, and select "New user script...".
- In the new window, enter the following:
Name: Official Payments Copy-Paste Namespace: officialpayments.BrianCanFixIT Description: officialpayments.com Allow copy-paste into check information confirmation fields Includes (One per line): https://www.officialpayments.com/*Name: Sacramento County Payments Enable Paste Namespace: paymentexpress.BrianCanFixIT Description: payment-express.net Allow paste into check account information fields Includes (One per line): https://www.payment-express.net/*
- Then click the "OK" button.
- Append the following to the generated code:
var scriptCode = new Array(); scriptCode.push('function clearPaste(x){}' ); var script = document.createElement('script'); script.innerHTML = scriptCode.join('\n'); scriptCode.length = 0; document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(script);document.getElementById("control-group-ec_account_number").className = document.getElementById("control-group-ec_account_number").className.replace(" js-noclip ", " "); document.getElementById("ec_account_number").className = document.getElementById("ec_account_number").className.replace(" js-noclip ", " "); document.getElementById("control-group-ec_confirm_account_number").className = document.getElementById("control-group-ec_confirm_account_number").className.replace(" js-noclip ", " "); document.getElementById("ec_confirm_account_number").className = document.getElementById("ec_confirm_account_number").className.replace(" js-noclip ", " "); - Option 2: Manually for Chrome+Tampermonkey (no automatic updates with this method)
- Click on the Tampermonkey icon, and select "+ Add a new script".
- In the new window, enter the following:
// ==UserScript== // @name Official Payments Copy-Paste // @namespace officialpayments.BrianCanFixIT // @description officialpayments.com Allow copy-paste into check information confirmation fields // @include https://www.officialpayments.com/* // @version 1.6 // @grant none // ==/UserScript== var scriptCode = new Array(); // this is where we are going to build our new script // here's the build of the new script, one line at a time //basically we're going to overwrite the functions that prevents you from doing a copy-paste, with one that does nothing scriptCode.push('function clearPaste(x){}' ); // now, we put the script in a new script element in the DOM var script = document.createElement('script'); // create the script element script.innerHTML = scriptCode.join('\n'); // add the script code to it scriptCode.length = 0; // recover the memory we used to build the script // this is sort of hard to read, because it's doing 2 things: // 1. finds the first <head> tag on the page // 2. adds the new script just before the </head> tag document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(script);// ==UserScript== // @name Sacramento County Payments Enable Paste // @namespace paymentexpress.BrianCanFixIT // @description payment-express.net Allow paste into check account information fields // @downloadURL https://gist.github.com/BrianCanFixIT/2f3635f9d047316954943ba50c17a9f7/raw/payment_express.user.js // @include https://www.payment-express.net/* // @version 1.1 // @grant none // It's too bad that people create crappy websites that encourage user-error and make things harder for people to use. // The script below will remove the class "js-noclip" from the form/input fields; this class prevents pasting into the // 'Account #' and 'Confirm Account #' fields. All other protections are kept in place (no copying data from the fields, // obviscation of the fields, etc). This is a very simple script and as you can see beloe the only change is to find and // replace the 'js-noclip' class with nothing. // ==/UserScript== document.getElementById("control-group-ec_account_number").className = document.getElementById("control-group-ec_account_number").className.replace(" js-noclip ", " "); document.getElementById("ec_account_number").className = document.getElementById("ec_account_number").className.replace(" js-noclip ", " "); document.getElementById("control-group-ec_confirm_account_number").className = document.getElementById("control-group-ec_confirm_account_number").className.replace(" js-noclip ", " "); document.getElementById("ec_confirm_account_number").className = document.getElementById("ec_confirm_account_number").className.replace(" js-noclip ", " "); - Then click on the "Save" icon.
- Using the script
- The script only loads when on the
"www.officialpayments.com""www.payment-express.com" website. - You may ow use the paste function on this website without having to do anything else.
Q: What happens if the County of Sacramento changes the code on their website and breaks this script/disables paste again?
A (short): You can disable the script, and I'll update my code to work again as soon as I find out.
A (long): It is
Q: What if there a problem with the script?
A: Disable the script, and let me know by email, briancanfixit@gmail.com
Q: How are you securing the gist to make sure no one else takes it over and sabotage it?
A: I'm glad you're paranoid, you should be. I use a random unique password for that github account that is stored in a password manager protected by two-factor authentication. I also do not click on links in email, nor do I open untrusted files on my primary system (that's what a VM is for).
Q: How can I trust that you won't sell your github account or sabotage the gist yourself.
A: I won't, but you can't trust everyone; that's why there is the manual install option up there.
