SMS authentication for a website - authentication

I'm looking to implement an SMS authentication for one of my projects, basically before a user is able to register an account with us, we would like to authenticate the user by sending sms containing a code to his mobile phone, and get him to put in the code in our form before he can proceed.
I've been looking around and found onVerify to be a pretty good way to go
http://www.onverify.com/
But I'd like to know if there're any other alternatives similar to onVerify as it is a bit expensive, so if I could go with cheaper one, that'd be great.
Thanks!

You can do this easily enough if you have access to an SMS provider.
Typically you send an SMS to the user by making an HTTP request, containing the verification code. You'd store this code, and the recipient number, in some persistent database, against which you can compare when they fill in the details on the form.
You don't mention which geographic regions you expect your users to be in, which can be important given the variable delivery quality in some markets.
Have a look at the HTTP API for BulkSMS, message pricing and coverage.
Note that you can register in various regions, if you, for example, want to price in USD.
Disclosure: I work at BulkSMS

Related

Long living Shopify token

We are working on a system which retrieves data from customers' Shopify shops and provides some services based on this data. In order to make it as convenient as possible for an end-user we would like to update this data on a daily\weekly\monthly basis.
For now we only came up with a solution of implementing unlisted app, prompt a user to provide all necessary permissions for the app to access their shops and fetch the data. But the token we get doesn't seem to be valid for a long time and we probably won't be able to reuse it a day later.
We appreciate it if you can share any success cases of implementing this kind of approach.
You provide an App to the merchant they can install using oAuth. When the merchant is prompted to approve the App, Shopify will then provide your App with a long-lived access token you can use as much as you want, for as long as you want. I use a custom App from my Partner App dashboard to create these kinds of one-off Apps. It is superior to the one where the merchant has to tick off scopes and permissions IMO.
There are two kinds of token you can ask for and receive. One is considered for offline access, or long-lived. It works for everything. It is for webhooks as an example, or other access where no person is involved. But, there is also, online access tokens! Say a person clicks into the App from Shopify to do some work. You can request an online token for them to do their thing, and that token is only good for say 24 hours.
So you have options!

Payment confirmation using Authorize.net in VB.NET

I have a single authorize.net account, and I have 5 different e-commerce applications tied to that account. Some are posting from a public site and some are posting from managed access sites. I am using SIM and I have read about the Relay Response, but as far as I can tell I can only have one URL listed. That will not work for me as I need a different URL for each different point of entry into the e-commerce system.
My problem at the moment is that I need to update a datafield via a guid upon successful payment completion to confirm purchase of a digital item, but if I put in a relay response page it is getting sent to all my access points and throwing errors. Other parts of the e-commerce system need to send different emails upon completion etc, plus all the urls are different at the top level.
Is there some other way of accomplishing this task that I am overlooking?
Use Silent Post*. It's Authorize.Net's equivalent of Paypal's IPN. It will only post to one URL per account but it happens behind the scenes. This means you can send a custom flag along with each transaction identifying which site the purchase is for and then have it respond accordingly (e.g. send emails, update database, etc).
*I am the author of this content

Paypal API and several emails in same PayPal account

I can not praise with my contribution here, because I am new user,
but would help if I can.
I have a big problem and I do not know how to solve it, please help.
In the same Paypal account with the default email address: email1#somedomain.com, there is 7 more emails:
email2#somedomain.com
email3#somedomain.com
email4#somedomain.com
email5#somedomain.com
email6#somedomain.com
email7#somedomain.com
that's the maximum allowed number of emails under one PayPal account (8).
So we are using API on several pages, and only one API signature can be done in the paypal
interface, so same API signature is used for each web page.
We would like to define where will money go - to which email address inside the same PayPal account.
We use Premium PayPal account, and we know that for logo change, email remove and so on, we would need Business account,
but for defining money receiver email address inside the same PayPal account
we suppose that it can be defined, otherwise we do not se a point of having several email addresses inside one same PayPal account.
The problem is that always is shown default email when making a purchase :S
We tried to define SUBJECT:
SUBJECT=merchantEmailAddress
N O T E: Typically, a merchant grants third-party permissions to a shopping cart...
And set merchantEmailAddress email2#somedomain.com.
In sandbox it works like a charm as soon as we put it on production, default mail is shown again.
Please if anyone had the same issue help.
Thank you very much, this forum is great and I realise that without nice people and contribution as well there would be no answers.
regards
You would not be using SUBJECT unless dealing with Permissions and making calls on behalf of 3rd party PayPal accounts.
You're working with a single PayPal account, so you won't be using SUBJECT at all. You'll use the credentials like you are already.
That said, I'm not sure I'm following you entirely what trying to send to different emails. I don't understand the end goal with that..?? The API credentials are what are going to tell the system where to drop the money, or pull data from, or whatever.
If you're just trying to get different logos to show up during checkout you can do that with parameters in your standard button code or API requests.
Let me know if that helps or not. Again, I'm not sure I'm understanding what you're after here.

What are the options to implement a Groupon like system?

I like to build a system that will allow users to "commit buy" a deal, but will only be charged after a minimum # of committers are reached. The time span in which the "deal" will continue can be either weekly or monthly.
I like to stay away from building one from the ground up as much as possible.
I know there's another thread on StackOverflow that asked paypal, amazon, or google checkout API to serve this purpose, but this seems too much like a hack?
I did some reading on using a gateway like Authorize.net to process credit card information and they can store the user information and has a service like pay-as-you-go. Would using their API be a better choice? Can their pay-as-you-go method provide the system that I'm looking for?
I did some reading on using a gateway like Authorize.net to process
credit card information and they can store the user information and
has a service like pay-as-you-go. Would using their API be a better
choice?
I have used Authorize.net for recurring payments and it is easy to implement if you are fluent in working with a web service (regardless of language). You can integrate with them without the user needing to leave your website and without storing the user's credit card information.
However, you will be receiving the user's credit card number to implement such a model, and there are still precautions to be taken (versus redirecting to a secure third party site to receive the number).
Refine your question to be more specific to receive more specific answers.

I don't understand how Westpac Payway API and NET works

Been googling all day, reading numerous PDF's and still getting confused with the concepts of sending data to Payway system from Westpac (a bank in Australia). They offer access via API but also give access via what they call "NET."
The way I understand is that when client want to pay on my website, in case of NET, client gets to the page (hosted by a bank or hosted by me) where is provided with form to enter credit card info details. Then this form is submitted via normal POST call to Payway's specific https address. It is processed then and browser returns to the URL I specified as one of the parameters I sent in hidden field.
In case of API story is similar, so user receives form, fills in the data and then data is send to my backend (not Payway's). My backend then calls payway API with data provided and once answer received returns confirmation page to the client.
Is my understanding right? Please explain as I have a feeling I am missing something basic here.
There are a number of different ways to interact with PayWay Net, depending on how much control you want. The simpliest way is this:
You create a HTML format containing fields with certain names. This form is served up by your website, but when submitted goes to the PayWay website. You can add to this your own hidden fields and information fields.
Your user enters some details and clicks Submit.
Your user's browser submits the form to PayWay. PayWay validates the values and displays a page asking for credit card information (over https)
The user enters the credit card details then confirms the transaction.
PayWay processes the credit card transaction
Optionally, PayWay can conduct a post back to your server indicating the status of the transaction so you can complete the order (called server-to-server payment notification)
Optionally, PayWay can redirect the browser back to your server (but do not use this to update yoru database)
There are also ways to fully customise the credit card input page and receipt page.
PayWay API is different. You install a piece of software on your server. When you want to conduct a credit card transaction, you invoke this piece of software. It talks over the internet to the PayWay server, conducts a transaction, and gives you a response. You could use this if you were writing a phone payments system, for example, as no browser is involved in the PayWay interface.
(Disclaimer: I work for Qvalent, developers of PayWay).
Your understanding is correct.
I've done a couple of Payway integrations and have always opted for the API solution so that users get a consistent experience and are not jumping between websites.
An odd thing about PayWay, is that while most payment gateways have 2 options.. a merchant hosted or server hosted, PayWay offers this pseudo-merchant hosted with their NET option using the token request. Credit Card details are taken directly on the merchant site and only redirects the confirmation momentarily to the server and then back. This would be great if a payway account worked universally with both NET and API.. but it seems an API account doesn't support NET methods. So if you want to accept cards on your site, the NET token method is pretty much eclipsed by its bigger API brother.