Slashdot Mirror
Online Publisher Blocks LinuxToday Referrals
MadChicken writes "This weekend, LinuxToday found that their link to an article was blocked by CMP Media LLC (publishers of Information Week). The editorial with full details is here. Could this have impact on other online news sites?"
Gone are the days of carelessly outside linking!
Life isn't worth it any more, goodbye guys!
What does denying links achieve? The web is great because it is just that. Start blocking links and it will start to fall apart.
People have been blocking Slashdot referrers for months now and that has never made the front page.
So people are sick of having their bandwidth pissed away by others. Big deal. You can still cut and paste.
That's not very nice. I hope this does not happen to Slashdot.
I don't think it would matter much. Only n00bs read the articles here anyway.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
No more slashdot effect once evryone realises you can block us?
How many computers are too many?
The cynic within immediately asks 'who gains ?' from reducing the number of users on your site by denying traffic from what is essentially a free referral service. It doesn't seem to make any sense... If the story was being copied verbatim, and the source-site was losing ad revenue then there's just cause to block the copying site, but in this case Linux Today is only posting excerpts containing links ...
So, what gain can there be ? Does the process of having an outcry against you, then acquiescing to public demand (becoming a 'good guy' again) give you a sufficiently high profile that it's worth losing some page-views temporarily ? I think that it might....
Simon the cynic.
Physicists get Hadrons!
they can block whoever they want
Most people with something to say dream of being slashdotted. Yes, your server melts and your pipes burn, but it's worth it to get 100,000 geeks talking about your project.
So, which brilliant head of marketing thought "hey, they're linking to our pages, giving us free publicity... the bastards, block 'em!"
Good job, Jimmy!
ROTFL.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
My advertisers certainly won't be happy that all these people are seeing their ad via a link to my hit story. I'd better cut them off, and fast!
/bin/fortune | slashdotsig.sh
MIRROR
the admin of this box is a total ***hole, so i mirrored the article on it. bombs away.
I see this all the time when people want to stop "leeching." Clearly this isn't a "leeching" situation, but rather a "deep linking" situation, but isn't it the right of the site-op to just redirect referrers from outside?
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
Aparently when you click on the link provided by Linux Today you get: "Unfortunately, we cannot satisfy this particular request because it comes from a source that is not authorized to redistribute our content..." This is not redistribution in my opinion. This is how the net works(?).
Don't make your problems my problems!
They said they wanted to respect bluh bluh, but if they wanted to these types of blocks can by bypassed by opening a new browser window using JavaScript and going to the site in those.
Slashdot should also be taking note of this, I relised this could happen a few months ago.
This kind of silent blocking of a referrer does nothing but hurt the blocking site. If their point was that they dont want their material reproduced on another site, this block doesn't stop that - actually it encourages more if it since the site in question cant link to the original material. They are well within their rights but it doesnt seem like a very good strategy for a company who depends so much on the internet community.
I was crazy back when being crazy really meant something. (Charles Manson)
This happened 3 years ago when Slashdot linked to a page hosted by U of Wisonsin servers... a professor had posted something about a chip cooling system he devised if I remember correctly. But now we're talking about a commercial site, so it's different... U of Wisonsin definitely didn't get any ad revenue from their Slashdotting (before they blocked /. referrals, that is).
Just Click Here
Is Slashdot also blocked as referral?
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.j html?articleID=18400894
...where all sites will block slashdot referrals except for the NY Times leading to endless discussions where all that's left to talk about is not RTFA and rampant misspellings and duplicates.
How ironic, they block LinuxToday to keep the traffic down, then they get slashdotted because of it, heh.
We've (well, many others and I) have always said that if you don't want people linking to you, configure your web server to block it -- it's not difficult. CMP has done this.
But even though they have the right to do something, that doesn't mean that they should. I don't know anymore more about this story than the LinuxToday editorial, but after reading it, I definately believe that LinuxToday did nothing wrong (what they did certainly does fall under the category of `Fair Use'), and reacted accordingly when they discovered the block -- except that I saw no mention of CMP being contact. Perhaps they were contacted and it just didn't make it into the editorial, but if not, they should have been. It could have just been a misunderstanding or misconfiguration, though the message seen does suggest otherwise.
I predict that CMP will change their configuration shortly, probably due in large part to the LinuxToday editorial and this /. article. We'll see if I'm right ...
Edit user.js and add/change
user_pref("network.http.sendRefererHeader", 0);
No more referers sent.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
2. Set 'network.http.sendRefererHeader' to 0
3. Enjoy.
This simply kills off the referer tag from being sent and lets you through. While it's very unlikely this will cause problems, some web sites might not work w/o the tag.
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
I swear that some of these kinds of decisions are made by people with grilled cheese for brains.
It is unfathomable to me that someone would block incoming traffic to an article on their website. Maybe redirect the visitor to the home if it's that necessary to force people to come in through the "front door," as it were, but to make the visitor feel like he's intruding somehow... that just seems pretty dumb to me.
Website operators need to think about how what they do is perceived by visitors, the same way hotel operators and shopping mall operators think about it. Don't make visitors feel unwelcome, for Pete's sake!
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
Type about:config in as url and filter using the word Refere. Once you see the Referer entry change the 2 to a 0.
Problem solved. It is problably a good idea to have this set to 0 i.e. no info given to site as a general privacy precaution. Why would you want to tell anyone that you just came from BigJugs.com?
Help fight continental drift.
The referrer field is, especially when it is used to act against my interest (by blocking access to something), my own browser being hostile toward me. Without the active participation of my _own_ browser, they would not be able to block me from accessing the site. This is on the level of DRM, and ought not be acceptable in the free software world.
Now, in mozilla you can turn of referrer all together, but that is not good enough, because then they can simpyl start blocking access to deep pages when there is no referrer (this will create problems for instance for emailed links, but I know some sites do it (porn...)).
So mozilla needs to go further to assist it's users, rather than be party restrictions on them. My software should serve me, and me alone. Here is what it needs:
- Always set "Referrer" to the root of the host.
- Always set "Referrer" to one directory above the current page.
- And, most importantly, support for an html extension where the "a" tag (or any other, now that other things can be links) has a parameter that tells the browser referrer to use. So that Mozilla could be set to respect links like this:
<a href="http://slashdot.org" referrer="http://www.google.com">
and then set the HTTP referrer field accordingly. That way the browser would not betraying me my providing the source of my link to the destination site, so that they can use it against me.
CMP Media: We take the 'online publishing' out of online publishing!
The crux of the message on CMP's blocking page reads: "Unfortunately, we cannot satisfy this particular request because it comes from a source that is not authorized to redistribute our content..."
Since when is hyperlinking redistributing?
If other sites start to follow suit, a new feature will need to be added to Mozill/Konq that allow the user to not send the 'refering url' to certain sites .
This seems like an easy problem to solve. The block links coming from you, but not others? Just rip off their content ... err... I mean mirror their content for them, and post a link to the mirror. Or better yet, post a link to the Google cache.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I don't get it... to me this is completely short-sighted.
But having these referral sites, I have been introduced to news sites that I would never have thought to go to. From slashdot, I now regularly scan through cnet's site, etc.
why not take advantage of the extra eyeballs and put more targetted advertising? Ads are the only thing keeping these content sites anyway... This to me would be the smarter business decision, instead of just blocking people from viewing free content. Why not put up an ad from Redhat or Microsoft whenever a viewer comes from LinuxJournal???
This is a mark of a stupid business person.
= 9J =
It's well known that the #1 factor in the Google PageRank sorting routine is the count of links to your page from sites that have no relation to you. Therefore, blocking other site's refererals will just lead to them not to linking you, and your placement in Google to drop.
/Homer
Though they have the right to do this, does not make it a smart thing to do. They get an increase in stats which help sell the more advertising. It would be a different if there was framing involved. Or if they were just grabbing an image from the site as their own.
Fight Spammers!
If you set +hide-referer{forge}, it will fake the referer header to look like you're coming from the own site you're navigating to. This will work with any site that I have seen, and has the added bonus of you being able to set up pages locally that links to various referer-sensitive sites.
Power to the Peaceful
The Referer header is what I consider to be one of the worst parts of HTTP. Alhough there are a few sites that require it for operation, I have rarely encountered any troubles simply not sending one. I believe it is considered somewhat "unclean" to send a bogus HTTP Referer header (such as the / of the dest server), so it might be better to simply disable it altogether.
The Links web browser has the builtin ability to set the Referer to a static value, the page being requested, or not send it at all. I have been referer-free for quite some time, previously with a proxy server, and now with links.
I would advise people to consider whether or not they want the administrators of every web server they visit to find out how they got there (including web searches and privately-hosted HTTP servers).
This (seems to me) to be a clear violation of rights by CMP Media LLC. This would be an ideal case to pursue in court as it would give the courts an opportunity to opine on, and clarify, issues of linking, fair use and unfair competition.
By specifically blocking access to links from a specific foreign source, it could be argued that CMP Media is unjustifiably damaging the reputation and legitimate operation of LinuxToday by using discriminatory technological measures.
Would be a perfect case to be pursued pro bono by the likes of EFF or others.
Privoxy. It works on MacOS X, Windows, Linux, etc.
If they want to configure their server to refuse to serve up pages if the Referrer: header contains something they don't approve of, that's certainly their right to do so.
Tim Berners-Lee [or whoever it was who authored the spec] goofed big time here: What the hell business is it of theirs to know who the hell acted as the referrer?
And why don't all web browsers set things like "referrer" and "browser" and "operating system" and "host name" to blank strings anyway? What the hell business is it of my browser to be disclosing information like that about me?
When you put a sniffer on an ethernet network, it is just appalling to see how much information about you is being divulged to complete strangers.
.. you can block the referrer header with a suitable Squid configuration. What's more recent versions of Squid allow you to configure this is a fine-grained manner: blocking the referrer header by default by allowing it for specific sites.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
If everyone mirrored/posted links to mirrors more often perhaps the /. effect wouldn't be nearly as harsh and sites wouldn't take to drastic measures to try to keep their sites going.
:(){
... will they have any business left if slashdot readers don't post links to their site?
I remember a story about a computer surviving a Slashdotting. Windows 95, 120 Mhz, 96,000 hits in 12 hours. It was running a funky fast little web server called Xitami.
If a Win95/120Mhz server can survive being slashdotted in 2002, there's no excuse with today's systems.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
But even if it is intentional, it is totally within their rights to set up their servers any way they see fit.
Closed archives, copyrighted databases, blocking "unauthorized" traffic, ... Sir Tim, all this does not have 'semantic' writ all over. Our condolences.
Forgive them, for they know not...
668.5
There are plenty of other organisations who don't block referrals.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Aren't these the yahoos that take over dying magazines and resurrect them as skinny little crapfests of thinly veiled advertising?
If so, I'd say their cluelessness is implicit.
to a case from a few years ago where a site was barred by a court from deeplinking to a news site?
the news site complained as they didnt go throught the front page and saw a bunch the ads there.
wish i could remember more but its past 9pm and the export is in full flow...
On the other hand, some websites that don't like deep linking will only show you their deeper pages if you DO have a REFERER set from one of their other pages - so you have to go in through the front door. That's one reason you might not want to block REFERER permanently.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Yup. I got my tinfoil hat on. Here goes... this is from their front page...
"For comprehensive news and analysis on Microsoft products and strategy, check out InformationWeek's newest resources. Subscribe now..."
Seems pretty obvious to me where CMP's buns are buttered.
I wonder if IBM or Novell advertise with CMP? If so, I hope they'll reconsider, especially with the drop in traffic.
While it's very unlikely this will cause problems, some web sites might not work w/o the tag.
Actually, quite a few use this as leech-protection, in order to prevent external direct links to downloads. Privoxy does this the smart way - it forges a referrer header from whatever site you're loading. If I follow a link to say, CNN, they will see "www.cnn.com" as the referrer.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
(No, don't respond to this post telling me why these things can't be true. Arguing about what it could be is just as stupid as the original assumption as to what it is. This is like arguing about what time it is, when the real question should be "Who's got a watch?")
Plus it's dumb to assume that IW did this without attempting to contact LT. Maybe the LT email server is broken? The message got discarded by an spam filter? The recipient discarded it without reading it? Happens all the time.
When you have a problem like this, you should work with the other party to solve it. If they refuse to cooperate or explain, then you have something to complain about. Going immediately into crusade mode based on total ignorance is childish.
Before everyone breaks ankles jumping to conclusions...
Some web sites (like the New York Times) have others redistribute their content and customize their pages accordingly. LT's link may have used a URL that said it was for one of those partners, and CMP's server, seeing that it wasn't referred by that partner, threw the BS flag. Don't forget that there's money tied to some referrals, and the company writing the check would be mighty pissed if the numbers were inflated.
It's a jump... to conclusions... mat!
I only state this hypothetically. I doubt that information week has collected such statistics. I even doubt that sufficient statistics could be collected to accurately identify a group of users so unlikely to click on an ad to make the almost free cost of serving a page too high.
For other types of services, like ones which are more bandwidth heavy, I can see this being a more legitimate response.
Well with the "not authorized to redistribute" quote we know what this particular incident is about, but I see tons of posts above saying how terrible it is to block people coming from Linux news site. I think it's quite possible that it would be beneficial. Linux users tend to be much more tech savy than most and along with browsers like Mozilla rather than MSIE they are much more likely to simply block advertisements than run of the mill users.
Personally I don't block adds at all (well I refuse to install annoying ad showing software like that flash crap) and will actually click on ads for sites I like. However, I know countless people who not only block ads to leech off sites for free, but seem proud of doing so. Anyway, my point was simply that with the number of people who do this rising, being selective about who you waste bandwidth (which can be quite costly for large sites) on isn't necessarily a losing prospect anymore.
Yes, they can block who they want, but they don't have a right to determine who will have fair use rights. The message that they displayed was "Unfortunately, we cannot satisfy this particular request because it comes from a source that is not authorized to redistribute our content..." That implies that LinuxToday was violating CMP's copyright (because CMP has no legal right to decide who is 'authorized' to make fair-use excerpts. Thus, CMP has slandered LinuxToday.
On a wider scale, we have seen large corporate entities go to great lengths to prevent fair use. The RIAA and MPAA have redefined fair use and put copy protection into place to prevent fair use copying and backup. Broadcasters will have a "flag" in HDTV broadcasts that tells digital recording devices whether a broadcast can be recorded. Software companies have long fought against fair use. I just bought Unreal Tournament 2004. It uses a form of copy protection and, on top of that, requires that a "Play CD" be in the drive. You can't back up that CD using normal methods and you're hosed if it gets damaged or lost. (There were cracks out the next day, but 99% of people will never know about the cracks.)
We need laws protecting fair use before large corporations effectively quash it. Should CMP be allowed to "punish" a site for exercising their fair use rights to excerpt? I see both sides of this one, but, given the big picture of corporations deciding to prevent fair use, I have to side with LinuxToday.
...could that be developed into a generic anti-slashdotting? I.e. you simply keep count of the referrers, which you got spare power to do before the real crunch starts... if load gets too high, issue static pages to the top referrer(s).Hmm 30secs of thinking, but it definately sounds patentable :D.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Except that it's CMP media. They're not an IT publishing company, they're an entertainment publishing company. They are to the IT world as Rush Limbaugh is to Repulicans or the Tappet Brothers are to mechanics. Amusing for the masses but rarely containing anything of particular use to industry professionals. Surly the link from Linux Today was an error, for I seriously doubt that they could have found anything of substance to link to on a CMP web site.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Let the blocking site shoot themselves in the foot (in the end).
Talk about cutting off your nose for all the trees!
They can't see the forrest to spite their face!
[/mixed-metaphors]
It does demonstrate quite a lack of understanding of how the internet works and a complete unawareness of the benefits of links from news collecting sites.
It does seem odd that a publication that puts itself forward as an authority on techj issues would be this clueless, but if they truly desire to block any potential new readers from LinuxToday, there's nothing that can be done, and nothing that should be done, about this.
The only real harm is to their own business, and if they wish to devalue their web presence by limiting their potential readership, let them.
The story has been re-posted, with a link to the same original story, but this time the link is to the same story on a different site.
Read, L
Most people with something to say dream of being slashdotted. Yes, your server melts and your pipes burn, but it's worth it to get 100,000 geeks talking about your project.
All publicity is not worth it. I have to pay for bandwidth, and if the bandwidth is being eaten up by a souce that isn't likely to make me money, I don't want them on my commercial site. It exists to make me money. I've been kicking around the idea to block all clicks from Slashdot to my porn site because the surfers very rarely if ever become customers. It's a customer base made up of kids and geeks who believe that they're entitled to everything for free. It's not good traffic. It's bad traffic. There IS a difference. The porn industry has been doing this for a LOOONG time. If a surfer is from a country with a long history of credit card fraud (ie: Eastern European of Asian), then they see very different content than Western Europeans or Americans see. Why? Getting 90% chargebacks from surfers from one country ain't worth the hassle and the expense. Throw them to a dialler or some other revenue source that doesn't involve credit cards.
Plain and simple they don't want linuxtoday to link to their site, that's it. This article should not be under "Your Rights Online," as it is not even newsworthy. I can't wait until the day when more sites stop linkling like this, and will easily put Slashdot, and sites like it that steal content, under.
... damn! I forgot that all the subscriptions I have for them are free.
Just copy the url and open in another window/tab...
I don't see the issue, other than somebody acting like a 2-year-old ("Mine! Mine!"). But then our economic system is pretty much designed to encourage everybody to act like that.
If United Business Media doesn't want other sites to bring eyeballs to their sites because their content is just too precious and special, then phuckem.
Page ranking only matters if you plan for your content to be online indefinitely. News sites often put it on a free site for a couple weeks, then put it on a paid site.
Or get PrefBar. You can enable and disable on the fly. It works in Mozilla v1.6. :)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
We need a new option for the "a href" tag that specifies what referrer to use. For instance:
(Ignore the semicolon in the </a> tag - I don't know why Slashdot added it). This link will tell the browser what to specify in the "REFERER" header when it requests the page. This will allow people to keep the referrer option enabled and still have links like this one work.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
1. $
2. $
3. ???
4. $$$$$
Infuriate left and right
Hmm... Look like this guy beat me to it. I really wish Mozilla would add support for this, even if it isn't standard.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
If everyone mirrored/posted links to mirrors more often perhaps the /. effect wouldn't be nearly as harsh and sites wouldn't take to drastic measures to try to keep their sites going.
Mirroring a site without written permission from the copyright holder(s) is a clear violation of copyright, while simply linking to the site is not. My bet is that if LinuxToday had mirrored the articles they'd be looking at a lawsuit from CMP instead of just being blocked. Mirrors just aren't a practical solution against a slashdotting under the current circumstances because there's no real time to get the required permission to set them up.
In Opera, You can toggle the sending of the Referrer Header at any time.
Use the quick menu: Just hit F12, then 'f'. (on v6.03 at least)
I can see lots of uses for this. You can use this to hide where you're coming from, such as clicking on info links from BitTorrent repositories of questionable nature. Or when trying to get through to sites who have blocked access via Referrer from Slashdot.
From the online docs:
"
Disabling referrer logging
Do you want Opera to send information referring to the page from where the document or picture was requested?
If you enable this option in File > Preferences > Privacy, Web servers can store information about the site that you last visited before you jumped to the current one. This allows webmasters to analyze how people find their way to his website.
Disable this option if..."
[Remainder of text deleted to fit within fair-use guidelines. Ahem.]
It would wreak havoc on the spirit of the internet to have user-definable Referrer fields, though...
-j.
Why bother?
When you open the link, assuming the error page doesn't change the link itself (didn't RTFA), you can click in the address bar and press Enter.
Viola.
If you assume the only reasons for a Corporation (or Government) to not do something is politics or money the answer becomes (IMHO) a bit clearer
Since news of this blocking will spread amongst the Linux websites, it can't be providing good politics for TechWeb (I assume this to be source of the linked article). Advertisers will question why traffic is purposely being blocked and will reduce their custom accordingly.
The only remaining possiblity is that UBM Plc (the parent parent company) thinks that there's money in this scheme.
There are three methods of obtaining revenue from a news website. The first is selling advertisments (and the registration information if any). The referral blocking has effectively ruled this out as a method here.
The remaining methods, subscription and reselling, might be the answer. UBM resells its news stories through B2B channels
PR Newswire provides comprehensive communications services for public relations and investor relations professionals....news and information distribution to global audiences, and communications monitoring and measurement.
(I would link, but it's framed and hidden, it comes from the UBM plc website). They also claim to be the leading US B2B media company.
Taken the path of least intelligence. The reason LinuxToday was blocked is either the CMP wire customers are complaining or some CMP subscription service is suffering because of the ease of getting the information via a 3rd party aggregator. Why 'pay' for access to the NY Times and the Washington Post when Google will aggregate the important stories for you?
It could of course be more complicated, involving low click-through rates or ad-impressions for LT referrals, but the blocking message implies there are 'authorised redistributers' of the content.
bb
Even if there's short term pain from a slashdotting, (linuxtodaying just doesn't have a good ring to it, does it?)... even if only 0.5% of people come back on a regular basis, that's a lot of money from advertising alone.
Not to mention all the people also linking from their blogs... the increase in page rank...
Ok, so I'm showing I'm as much a marketer as a geek... but since I'm paying hundreds of dollars for that traffic, I just can't understand why anyone would be so stupid as to block traffic.
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
you know what would be a great plugin for mozila.
To make the referer the actual link that you are going to, ie, if i clink on foo.com on slashdot make the referer foo.com in mozilla errr firebird errr firefox errr anything else they might like to rename their fine product too.
I have to agree with the parent to this reply: having a policy blocking based on referrals is, except on a very temporary basis, just incredibly stupid.
Other sites should avoid copying this, not for "our" good, but for their own good.
It might make sense to process referrers to avoid the slashdot effect, while under an effective DDoS because somewhere like Slashdot has effectively overloaded you with traffic. But even that only makes sense if you've got "regular" users you'd rather serve than the unwashed masses of slashdot; if all you want is eyeballs then first-come-first-served matches your requirements.
But the real problem with this policy is that is encourages people not to send referrer data. This field is only provided for the benefit of the server site, it makes damn all difference to the client.
It's ten years since I first started working in commercial web development. I'm opposed to arguments from authority (so feel free to disregard this next comment) but in all that time it's become pretty clear to me that content providers desperately desire better information about their users (why else all those "free registration required" sites?). Persuading users (clients) to send less of it is just unbelievably counter-productive.
I'm not a fan of sending out lawyers' letters, or even quasi-lawyers'-letters, but it sounds like CMP could have readily stopped LinuxToday just by asking. Wouldn't that have made more sense? But this is still a "less bad" option; this isn't a conflict between the "free web" and commercial interests, it's just an example of a company making a mistake as to where their interests lie.
Unless they come up with a darn good reason why they chose to block referring URLs from Linux Today, I'll have to decide whether or not to continue receiving the publications (url is http://www.cmp.com/publist) of theirs I currently subscribe to.
If I'm not allowed to point others at articles of theirs I find interesting and useful, they are of no more use to me, personally or professionally.
--The more you know, the less you know.
Gee; maybe a few people should contact their advertisers anonymously and suggest they ask if CMP does anything to discourage viewing of the ads they pay for? (such as blocking certain other technical sites from making referrals...)
A lot of the comments so far seem to assume the issues has to do with deep linking, which is probably not the case. LinuxToday includes a few paragraphs of each linked article, and it's a fair guess that that's the real issue. The linked editorial by Brian Profitt seems to assume that's the real issue, and it seems pretty obvious anyway.
It's less obvious to me whether or not this exerpting harms the linked sites. I don't visit LinuxToday regularly, but when I do, I don't click through to all of the target articles. For some I just read the headlines, for others I just read the excerpted paragraphs. For a necessarily smaller number I click through to the complete article. I don't know the legalities, but I can understand why an ad-sponsored site would be upset by this. News is often reported in such a way that the first few paragraphs convey most of the content of the story. If LT included less content, or only the headline, most likely more readers would click through to each original story. I would have guessed that it's still better than no link at all. But I don't know for sure. Perhaps CMP believes it will get more traffic on its IW pages if people can't follow links from LT. Or perhaps the just picked an odd way to coerce LT into including less content.
The Mozilla PrefBar has a configurable checkbox option for sending referers.
Oh, no! You have walked into the slavering fangs of a lurking grue!
I don't know about the rest of ya'll but this really doesn't surprise me in the least given my experience with them. I subscribe to Sysadm Mag. Ever since I subscribed I've been getting spam for all their other magazines. The spam always comes from email-publisher.com, better known as the spammers at topica.com. Why CMP is using a known spammer's services I have no idea. I've tried unsubscribing to no avail. If it wasn't for Sysadm Mag and a few of their other nice mags I'd tell them to stick it.
It's ten years since I first started working in commercial web development. I'm opposed to arguments from authority (so feel free to disregard this next comment) but in all that time it's become pretty clear to me that content providers desperately desire better information about their users (why else all those "free registration required" sites?). Persuading users (clients) to send less of it is just unbelievably counter-productive.
Ah, but see, it's a public good problem. As long as only one or two people block based on host-referrer, people will continue to use host-referrer, and those folks will get the (percieved) benefit of preventing other folks from visiting their site.
Also, a few sites *require* http-referrer to be from the same site.
It's annoying enough that I maintain a script that wraps wget for dumping websites. It runs recursively, no-parent, and forges a host-referrer of the same page as the starting address I pass in. I've yet to see a website that's dynamically generated from a database and checks that referrer results are from the correct exact page -- normally they just check the domain of the referrer.
May we never see th
The problem is that then you get web designers sitting down and thinking "Should I really worry about catering to these bastards using Firefox? They avoid looking at my pop-up ads, most of them block my banners after the first time through, and I can't even get referrer data from them. I'll focus on IE users -- they're easier to deal with."
May we never see th
I've ignored these guys since.
iksrazal
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." Stephen Hawking
Send them this in your fake header, should give them something to worry about at their monthly web strategy meeting =)
c lient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=disgusting+filthy+goat+s ex
Referer:http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=nav
"Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace." V.Stone, Microsoft Corporation
"Or when trying to get through to sites who have blocked access via Referrer from Slashdot."
Whoo Hoo! Now we can get to the Goatse.cx site.
" Defamation usually requires that you know that the information is incorrect, and you intend to cause harm by publishing it."
Well the harm here is very real and I'm not so sure intent to harm need be proven. The content of the refusal page strongly imples that the linker has done something roguish and has attempted to violate their intellectual property rights. Below is a fair use excerpt of CMP's blocking page:
"Unfortunately, we cannot satisfy this particular request because it comes from a source that is not authorized to redistribute our content. Thank you for helping us protect our intellectual property."
Nonetheless, I'm sure this CMP will reverse this foolhardy decision, once they notice the blinky lites in their server farm aren't blinking so much anymore and as their advertisers start clammoring for make good ads to offset the reduced traffic. This is just the kind of issue that will lead to a mushrooming boycott by their primary target audiences and make CMP an overnight Internet pariah.
Hmm, I am very aware that links are fundamental to the web, but since when is linking a right?
If they don't want the trafic, then they can block it, and if you link to something without talking to the source you run all kinds of risks like.. the content being pulled, changed, or like this, refusing linking to it.
I went to the articel url posted in the comments here, and at the bottom of the page I noticed a link saying "Licence this Article". Clicking it provides a pop-up window which lets me get a "Quick Price" (SM?) on how much I should pay for re-distributing the article. If I want to link to the article from my corporate or academic website, the cost is $2.50. If I want to email a link to the article to one friend, the price is $5.00. This despite the fact that there's a link at the top of the article which apparently lets you email it for free. This service is provided to CMP Publishing by an outfit calling itself the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. They are at www.copyright.com. *Sigh*
I look at the Talkbacks submitted by other readers when I go to Linux Today. If they say a story is crap then thats good enough for me, and I do not visit the referred site.
My faith is expressed through Nihilism. Do you understand?
/.ing them sends exactly the wrong message. You want them to see a sharp reduction in traffic to all CMP sites and reduced readership for their dead tree publications as well:
Bank Systems & Technology
BioMechanics
C/C++ Users Journal
Call Center
Communications Convergence
CRN
DB2 Magazine
Diagnostic Imaging
Diagnostic Imaging Asia Pacific
Diagnostic Imaging Europe
Diagnostic Imaging SCAN
Dr. Dobb's Journal
DV Magazine
EE Times
Embedded Systems Programming Magazine
Game Developer
Geriatric Times
InformationWeek
Insurance & Technology
Intelligent Enterprise Magazine
MSDN Magazine
Network Computing
Network Magazine
Optimize
Psychiatric Times
Software Development
SysAdmin
Technology & Learning
Transform Magazine
VARBusiness
Wall Street & Technology
Windows Developer Network
Xtreme Video
If you are looking to obscure your link, you can visit almost any popular site and repurpose their own redirection script. Almost all sites have this, for example, want to visit slashdot and have the referrer come from Google? Just use
THIS (http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.msn.com)
This won't work if the site is restricting referrals to its own hosts, but otherwise it can obfusicate the referer.
I thought Al Gore -oops-I mean DARPA- designed it to be for the military and its contractors.
Opening a new tab sends the Referer Header in Mozilla 1.6. I know this because there are quite a few Japanese CG sites I visit that block "foreign" links -- the ones hosted on tripod.co.jp are the worst for this. If I tab-open one of these from my.yahoo.com, it doesn't work, I have to copy the URL and paste into a new window or tab to get it to go.
Mirroring a site without written permission from the copyright holder(s) is a clear violation of copyright
shh don't tell Google, or Archive.org who both do just that, unless i "opt out" with my robots.txt
At those prices I'm sure as hell not going to read any of their articles. What kind of egomaniacal crowd are they to think a single article is worth that kind of money?
Minor nit -- it would be libel, not slander. Slander is spoken.
I stand corrected. But do you know why law makes the distinction between the two? AFAIK the distinction between written and spoken communication isn't usually made (eg. by the First Ammendment)
you know what would be a great plugin for mozila.
Privoxy does this, and it's pretty handy. As a webmaster, I hate it (seeing how users navigate around helps me improve the site), but as a user, I like hiding my referer [sic], because I know as a webmaster I point and laugh at the wacky search terms people use.
Here, lemme demonstrate... in the past 24 hours, I've gotten hits from "why I like cooking", "how do i get interested in stuff", and "how do you spell fiance". (Yeah, ask.com always gets the best Stupid User Queries. I should go see if they run a ticker like Google does (used to?))
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
Blocks up the old colon tighter than Brittany Spears...oh never mind, I was thinking of the 3rd infantry for a second there...
Start blocking links and the people start telling their browsers to fake or not send http-referer: to the offending servers.
It's our HTTP request headers, we can put in there whatever we want. 1:1, score tied, the game continues.
Its one of the last of the "old-time" computer magazines. Its excellent material and actually covers easy-to-understand *computer science*.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
It's about time.
Linux Today didn't provide a link to the CMP article, they used the magic of frames to make the article's words appear on a *Linux Today* page with Lunix Today's ads encircling it. Have a look at this link which points at the replacement article. This isn't what I'd call "a link to an article. It is linux today *pretending* they wrote the article and
L LP B
generating ad-revenues for themselves.
http://linuxtoday.com/developer/2004032000726NW
Ignore the space slashdot put in the URL. I don't know why it does that.
-ac
Could be blocked by them, though. TinyURL
The advertisers can always opt to in-text ads (see Google model), or at least make them fit into the page's color scheme, make them less obtrusive, small and fast to load, if possible relevant, and - for gods' sake - NO ANIMATIONS and no popups. Much fewer people will then bother with ad blocking.
Dear Sir,
I find it offensive that your default page, seen when linking to InformationWeek from a recent LinuxToday article, seems to accuse LinuxToday of unauthorised redistribution of content. Simply using a small fair-use excerpt of an article, with a link to the entire article on your site, is NOT content redistribution. It's more like free advertising. Furthermore, as the head of marketing, I find your actions extremely counter-intuitive, as I thought the idea of marketing a website was to get hits, so as to generate advertising revenue. Personally, if I were you, I'd get rid of the mental giant that came up with THAT very, very bad idea. All you have done is alienate a large chunk of readers, and simply copy-and-pasting the link works around the blocking anyways.
Congratulations on losing another potential subscriber. Not particularly because of the referral blocking per-se, but, because of your demonstrated inability to understand how the web works. Why on earth would I consider your publication(s) as a reliable, knowledgeable source on information technology? It would be like asking the designer of the Hindenburg how to make my gas furnace safe. I have also compiled a list of advertisers from your sites, and a copy of this e-mail will be forwarded to their administration and marketing departments. Hope you weren't counting on a bonus this quarter.
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
There are two simple ways to get around this; both are browser independent. The first way (not user friendly) is to offer a non-clickable link (i.e. plaintext). This forces the user to copy and paste the link into the address bar, which is seen by the target server as a direct request (with no referer).
The second method (slightly less user unfriendly) is to make use of a meta-refresh tag. The clickable link that you provide should point to a local page that is comprised of nothing but a meta-refresh tag that redirects you to the target server immediately (i.e. using a 0 second delay). This also strips the referer header and is seen by the target server as a direct request. This is still somewhat user unfriendly because it breaks the back button; however, this can be remedied by giving the meta-refresh tag a 2 or 3 second delay and offering an ad or picture as content for that brief moment.
If this becomes the norm the folowing long term effects will result:
Large news sights like Slashdot will grow smaller and it will be more a thinly distributed link accrost many websites instead of one main source.
Then websites will be slashdotted from 1,000 diffrent websites instead of 1 and we'd have our Distributed Slashdot.
Websites will still go down the stairs and be protected from the terrable secret of space.
I don't actually exist.
What? What havoc? We fake emails and make balogney accounts everywhere we go, in order to avoid spam. So what if we fake the referer as well?
Most sites and services would work just as well.
I guess I just don't understand your definition of havoc...
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
Nope. A reader replied to the LT editorial by posting a direct link to CMP's feedback page. Guess what? That link also resulted in the blocking message cited in the editorial. However, when I later chose that same link from my browser history it then did *NOT* redirect to the blocking page.
...lest anyone should forget. Of course a pale imitation by that name is still available as a web edition for just 19.95/yr.
to be quite honest. i used to be a regular at linuxtoday until i realised that they censored a lot of feedbacks... and i'm not talking goatse/GNAA posts. i had the final straw when the editor pulled an entire story (+feedbacks) when he got in a flame war about something silly and obviously didnt want to talk about it any more.
I agree with your position, as long as you do not deny the accessor's rights to use their own technological means to bypass poorly implemented (usually poorly conceived) restrictions. This has been discussed here before.
As a libertarian and strong defender of personal rights.
Good to hear a libertarian that defends personal rights. The common libertarian party position in favor of software patents and other unjustified government interventions would not lead me to generally characterize lp members as the defenders of personal rights (other than in the sense that Republicans and Democrats claim to be, too).
The present health care disaster is a direct result of government regulations including patents, over-regulation of medicine, etc. and yet on lp pages, all I read about is how important it is to continue to enshrine the positions of the drug companies so they can continue their government-granted monopolies keeping medicine unaffordable.
I'm not sure which lp pages you're reading. I have seen a number of calls for strong government controls of drug companies, and liberatarians do generally oppose that. I do as well. However, I (and other libertarians) also favor eleminating most of the current regulations as well. Is it possible you're seeing a specific argument in a specify context (ie, a response to the calls to increase drug company regulation) and assuming that it covers the entirity of the situation?
In general, libertarians oppose both corporate welfare and most corporate regulation. Allow the free market to work.
Libertarians also strongly support personal rights. However, it's important to understand exactly what a "personal right" is. A personal right is something which you may not be prevented from doing. It doesn't guarantee you any special considerations or assistance. You have the right to free speech, but no one is required to listen, and no one is compelled to provide you with a bullhorn, newspaper space or any other assistance.
Of necessity, a personal right does not impost obligations on any one else. Thus things such as health care are not personal rights, despite claims by the UN to the contrary. If you have a personal right which grants you access to health care, then it follows that someone else is obligated to provide you with that health care. Whether we're talking about the physcian who provies the health care or the taxpayer who funds it, someone else has suddenly become responsible for you - their interests have been subsumed by your interests. Libertarians don't believe rights work that way.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
It isn't that hard. Go to the LP web site (www.lp.org where they have also trademarked the term libertarian so they can redefine it) and search for the term patent. Also, while browsing issues notice the number of spokespeople talking at great length about freedom from government-imposed regulation who are also patent attorneys actively filing patents. Find one article on the site properly questioning the effect of such patent monopolies on the market place.
When two people invent the same thing, one person is prevented from using his own invention.
When a so-called invention becomes part of a standard or de-facto standard (or government health regulations), the monopolist controls that part of the industry, only through the government-granted monopoly.
In every article found on the lp site, searching for the term patent I found, a position defending the patent system is being discussed, apparently by a libertarian representative.
Here are a few random examples:
http://www.lp.org/action/pagetools.php?function= print&page=%2Flpnews%2F0209%2Flibsolutions.htm l
Jennings implied that patents provide drug companies with a monopoly so they can charge higher prices. However, later in the show he noted there are 170 drugs available for high blood pressure. Many of those drugs have existing patents. So which is it? Monopoly or strong competition?
The country's Founding Fathers thought intellectual property rights were so important that patents and copyrights are the only property rights affirmatively protected in the U.S. Constitution (Article 1, Section 8). Yet, one talking head on "Bitter Medicine" called patents "a government patronage system." That's a radical view, and just plain wrong.
Patents reward innovation by protecting inventors from competition during the 20 years following the granting of a patent. In the case of pharmaceutical drugs, approximately nine of those years will be taken up with testing, trials, and FDA delays. This leaves the companies with 11 years, on average, to recover their R&D expenses and earn a profit.
The patent system has worked well in the drug industry. Generic drugs - copies of the original patented drugs that are "bioequivalent," meaning they are absorbed into the body at about the same rate as the brand-name drug and produce the same effect, have increased their market share rapidly in recent years and now account for nearly 50% by volume of prescription drugs.
http://www.lp.org/lpnews/0211/talkingpoints.html
These drugs are being developed only because pharmaceutical companies can acquire patents and then sell their drugs at a profit. Typically, only one of 5,000 to 10,000 compounds ends up as a marketable drug, and of those only 30% make money. Those few must pay for everything -- research and development, dry holes, overhead, lawsuits.
http://www.lp.org/lpnews/0006/forum_ayala.html
Libertarians have two reasons for resenting government intrusion in the marketplace. First, we like our freedom and we don't like people telling us what to do. Second, we like open competition and consumer choice and we don't like to see impediments to innovation and value creation.
But what happens when these objectives conflict? What becomes more important? There are instances in which an unrestrained free market will lead to severely curtailed competition and consumer choice. And conversely, there are instances in which government action can make the market more efficient in providing value to consumers and investors.
Examples of the heavy hand of government acting to successfully encourage or invigorate the market are easy to find. Take the patent system. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office grants exclusive rights and ownership to the developers of intellectual property. Inventors and innovators can then expect huge potential profits from their hard work and research dollars.
Bu
what would be a great plugin for mozila ...
To make the referer the actual link that you are going to
The Multizilla extension for Mozilla has this feature this. I get to select whether
- Do not send a referrer
- Send URL as referrer
- Send fake referrer
You can specify what text to send in case of the last option.There is also the RefSpoof extension
On a side note, in my webserver logs I noticed that someone was consistently sending the first couple of paragraphs from Lincoln's Gettysburg speech. I do not get the point.
In many ways "fall apart" is all that could be expected once the "corps" got themselves involved.
Even now, you can't really do half the things you used to.
More and more information is hiding in databases, making it opaque to Google and such.
More and more spam.
More and more corporate types using all sorts of dubious marketing techniques in newsgroups.
Heck, newsgroups themselves being usurped by propriatary discussion sites.
DRM.
The list goes on, and will continue unto the very death of everything the Internet was hoped to bring to the world.
Corp types are blunt objects. They have their education (as I do) but rarely use it for anything other than to justify whatever hairbrained idea they woke up with. From my somewhat considerable experience in dealing with them, 1-5% actually apply any of that education with any degree of rigor.
So, you have sales sites makeing themselves invisible by keeping most of their site opaque to Google searches.
You have the brain damaged like the CMP web product marketing manager getting snooty that someone like LinuxToday is "leveraging THEIR property"! Oh, that drives ad hits? Oh, that improves brand visability? No matter, marketing manager can, and will, justify their brain farts unto the end of the world.
The sad part is that there are few checks inside the Corporate system. The only real one is the bottom line of this particular decision maker. As long as they web site makes money, anything goes. Even to the point the site is diminishing the rest of the company.
So, enjoy the Advert Super Highway.
I believe you mean circumvent
circumnavigate means "To proceed completely around" as in to circumnavigate the globe.
This is actually a valid question, IMHO, and one which I have actually entered into a search page.
Fiance vs. Fiancee
There is a difference.
-dave-
The pig browse. With Google. Sigh is to the chicken. Chicken is fool. Giggle. The DailyWTF giggle.
Put a nonce in the URL of each page you view, like:
Then, every time you'd click a link, I'd do two things:- Verify that the nonce in the HTTP_REFERER is valid, then delete it from the "current session" database.
- Generate a new nonce and append it to the end of every internal link rendered in the new page.
Alternatively, I'd start each page by looking for a session cookie, and if one doesn't exist, then you get a picture of a naked fat lady or something else not typically desirable.Your idea is simple, elegant, and trivially easy to defeat by any webmaster who really doesn't want you deep linking into their site. Is that a stupid thing for them to do? Yes. Will that stop a gang of dedicated idiots? No way.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
So you oppose all patents? If so, you left me behind. I note that you quote extensive arguments for patents but post very little in the way of rebuttal.
In your first post, you specifically mentioned software patents. No argument from me there - patenting software is ludicrous. However, patenting a legitimate invention for a limited time is, I think, justified. If you want to amend the patent system such that two people who independently invented the same object can have a co-patent of some sort, I'm willing to listen to your proposal. I oppose drug companies patenting DNA sequences but I don't oppose them patenting specific drugs.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
Can't we just use betrothed?
Best Slashdot comment ever
I have spoken to a number of people in chemistry and drug industries who confirm that the situation between the industries is not that different. Drugs and genomes are very interrelated, too.
Certainly giving us unaffordable medicine is not the answer, and claiming that no one would make reasonable medical progress without patents is ludicrous. The arguments against corporate welfare are not that different from other arguments against government intervention.
Back to your characterization of libertarian views, in my view, it is clearly unlibertarian to prevent a second person from inventing what a first person has laid broad claim to having invented, most of which came from others in the first place. At best it is extremely unfair, while if everyone had the legal resources to be treated "equally" with the corporations who can afford the legal expenses, all progress would be stopped.
The situation between the industries is very different in some key ways.
First, if you write a software product which does some task, its almost always straightforward for me, assuming I'm a competent programmer, to implement the same functionality in a clean room environment. My code will not be identical to yours. It might be similar in some aspects (thus the SCO debacle) or it might be wildly different in all aspects, but it certainly will not be identical. A software patent prevents me from selling my code because it implements the same functionality as yours. You haven't patented your code, you've patented the idea of what your code does. You've patented its functionality.
The situation is makedly differnt if you patent a specific drug which treats a specific disease. Before that drug can be used, a great deal of testing must be done to ensure that it is effective and safe for use. That testing costs time and money. If I now start selling that same drug, it is absolutely identical to the drug you're selling. If it is not identical, it's a different drug. I am perfectly free to find another drug which performs the same function - treats the same illness. You haven't patented the idea of treating the illness - you've patented a specific chemical compound. If you're unable to patent your drug, and I start selling the same drug, I'm able to take advantage of all your research and testing. You did all the hard work and invested all the money, yet I'm able to jump in and reap the profits. That isn't what libertarianism is about.
Certainly giving us unaffordable medicine is not the answer
...claiming that no one would make reasonable medical progress without patents is ludicrous.
Right here, you've left the land of libertarianism. Who is this "us" you're talking about? Who's this unnamed person giving something to this mysterious "us"? Your underlying assumption is of a group of people who have some inherent right to medicine and of some group in authority who regulates that access.
Claiming that medical progress would be slowed and harmed by not allowing companies to profit from their invested money and time is not at all ludicrous. As it is, most drugs lose money for the originating company. The companies are carried by the successes.
Our patent system is a mess. It is badly in need of reform, and I'm talking about more than just software patents. An invention is supposed to be original and non-obvious to an expert in the field. All too often, things patented as new inventions do not meet the criteria. They're obvious and/or far too broad. I'm all for tightening and revising the patenting system. But because the current implementation is poor doesn't mean that the concept is itself flawed.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
I believe that you are wrong in your assessment of how patenting works in the legal drug industry.
One company applying for a bunch of patents in a specific area, chills the area to research, just like it does in other industries. Researchers shouldn't be forbidden from using ideas that others have registered.
You argue for strong government interventionism and call it libertarianism.
I couldn't care less if someone produces a product that is too expensive for me as long as he can't apply for a government monopoly in the field, so that someone else with better ethics and morality can do a better job.
The patent system is a mess because it deals in establishing government monopolies. Call it libertarianism? Sure, whatever, since lp.org trademarked the term, as though it did not have a far different meaning before, but it is not even close to fair or good in it's current form. If you can propose something that does not do more harm than good, I would like to see it. Sure, the patent attorneys at lp.org will way it is great just the way it is, just like the patent office does.
I suspect that there is NEVER anything patented that it is not possible that some expert in the field will independently invent. Television is a good example. It was clearly very innovative, but two independent people developed it at the same time. To grant one person the right to his invention and deny another person is wrong, granting a government monopoly, and unlibertarian. Even if someone had invented it independently a year or 10 years later, it is wrong to establish such a thought police as the lp.org writers defend. It is none of government's business that someone is copying the ideas of someone else. I know of no one, including the greatest minds, who has produced more kinowledge than he has used freely in the public domain.
Admittedly I wasn't familiar w/ Linux Today until the linking issue arose last week and linking rights and fair use is a hot button issue for many of us. On closer review, it is clear that what LT was doing didn't always fall under fair use doctrine. Quoting large portions of of a targeted article, especially while adding little or no original commentary about the article, is certainly not fair use by any stretch.
I've had frequent occasion myself, in several sites I've been involved with, to link to content from various news sources. In doing so, I have always been scrupulously careful to be respectful toward the rights of the sites I link to by keeping quoted excerpts ever so brief and usually only briefly paraphrasing a couple key points. That is fair use.
Admittedly I wasn't familiar w/ Linux Today until the linking issue arose last week and linking rights. My earlier comment was unwarranted. Fair use is a hot button issue for many of us, me included. On closer review, it is clear that what LT was doing didn't always fall under fair use doctrine. Quoting large portions of of a targeted article, especially while adding little or no original commentary about the article, is certainly not fair use by any stretch.
I've had frequent occasion myself, in several sites I've been involved with, to link to content from various news sources. In doing so, I have always been scrupulously careful to be respectful toward the rights of the sites I link to by keeping quoted excerpts ever so brief and usually only briefly paraphrasing a couple key points. That is fair use.