By any standards The Punch NewsPapers is a favourite of most Nigerians because it offers deep insight and objectivity in its publications hence i have been addicted to the Website to get the juiciest news.

So it came to me as a shocker when a few months ago they decided that access to the hitherto free full News reports on the Website would be possible only on subscription.Naturally I tuned off and went searching for some other free Online Newspapers to fuel my addiction to News. What i found lacked the rich content i had become accustomed to, so i swung back occasionally hoping that the Punch Business Managers would come back to reality(people ain’t gonna pay) and keep the market they are losing.

Did they disappoint? I guess they didn’t, albeit in a queer way.

I had made an interesting discovery that at seemingly random clicks on links to News stories I would be able to read the full stories without paying a dime because the Login Page doesn’t come up. Instead the name and account expiration date of some registered user appears on the Web Page and I get to savour all the news story. If you clicked again you might get to see the Login Page and if you clicked again it went away.

I wondered if this was a twisted gimmick by the NewsPaper but apparently it looks like a big security flaw in the Web Application which goes to promote lack of consumer confidence in E-Commerce Solutions in Nigeria. I mean why should i pay, when some other dude gets to read it for free and my identity cannot be protected. A NewsPaper as big as Punch should know better than give their job to quacks to handle.

Appropriate and secure handling of user sessions is fundamental in Web Application Design, lets always adopt the best practices. Whew!

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