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UrlHosted Experiment: Host Content Within the URL
New submitter graphicore writes to point out an experimental "unhosted" app that challenges the concept of the URL. By putting the post data after the # mark, the URL is (mis-)used as the data storage. You can store your data within your bookmarks list, host it via a URL-shortener(!) like here: http://goo.gl/DYxr5m or attach it directly to a tweet
I also attached the full-url to this slashdot post :-) This raises the question about who is hosting the content and it will probably break the internet.
This is a quote from Google's shortener policy: "Please remember that goo.gl directs you to content that is already in existence on the internet. This is not content hosted by Google." It could also become a storage strategy for any other web app. The app is GPL v3, no strings attached.
And there's always DNS, too.
... it will probably break the internet...
Oh no Mr. Bill. The Internet will be broken.
.
Give me a friggin' break. Get real.
You still need to point to a base URL that knows how to unwrap the URL hosted content...
So who who host those, knowing that any URL directed there might be mistakenly attributed to content they are hosting? You could make it appear as if such a site is saying ANYTHING... it's like you pre-hacked yourself.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Now he just needs to get the javascript powering this to fit in a data:// uri and it can be entirely hosted in the url.
I usually see it used to make you jump down to a particular heading in, e.g., a wiki article. I think it also activates stuff in scripts sometimes?
How is this different from the Data URI Scheme?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_URI_scheme
Not sure if serious, but I'll bite. The default action for URLs ending in #~~~~ is for the browser to find a tag named ~~~~ and scroll to that. It's used to link to a specific part of the page. Originally the tag needed to be an <a name="~~~~"> tag, but modern browsers will find any tag with id="~~~~" and use that.
It's used here because the browser does not send the #~~~~ part of the URL to the server, so you're not limited by the URL length limits in certain browsers*cough*IE*cough*. Instead, the webpage includes javascript that reads the window location variable to find the #~~~~ and parse it.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Javashit developers abusing the structure of a URL.
It was supposed to go to an anchor tag - so that if index.html says [A NAME=foo] you could have a URL of the form index.html#foo that would go to the correct part of index.html.
Like everything else, it got ruined by Javashit when someone discovered you could manipulate things with it that had nothing to do with anchor tags.
And since Javashit "programmers" presume that everyone wants to run third-party executables within their browser, if they have nothing to supply their Javashit framework they just include the "#" and leave the rest of the URL blank.
Remember kids, without Javashit, it'd be a lot harder to have pop-ups, pop-unders, and interstitials, so always make sure your web page renders absolutely nothing without it active. The best and most portable web pages are single line obfuscated Javashit functions that load six typefaces and twenty scripts before rendering a single byte of the static HTML content that the user came from.
All this stuff about non-hosted content, and the image tag points to a wikimedia picture of a kitten instead of a data: URI?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
i think this is kind of cool. it's clear that there's some sort of server thing that interprets the URL and spits back friendly HTMLs. it would be cool if this could be done locally, so alls you would need is a shortened URL and you would get a page of content. it would work well for wikipedia.
How many of these URLs already exist and how much malware are they hosting?
OO
Something like :
data:text/html,<html><body>Hello</body></html>
Will not be "shortended" by a url shortener like bit.ly, whereas the "#" embedding technique will (but then you need to know how to decode it)
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
My, what an exciting new way to fuck shit up and break all sorts of standards!
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
and that's all. Why should I allow some unknown host to execute javascript?
Seems IBM WebSphere did something like that. Their default URL's were often longer than a Giraffe's intestines.
http://stackoverflow.com/quest...
Table-ized A.I.
Wait a sec. It's gonna let illegals invade your webpage? Who thinks up these stupid policies?
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
It the github/content is interesting, why not. Your question is like asking "So anyone can just write a few words in English, and that gets to the front page now?". Yes, and no. It depends on what those words are, and if they are interesting to the readers.
The smileys don't make your position any less smarmy. If you want the client to render something complex, a web browser is the wrong tool. You should write a client application. Of course this hasn't stopped legions of braindead idiots from including megabytes of javascript in their sites that does fuck knows what...
This is against everything we know about cross site scripting. It is like having ?errormessage=text at the end of a URL. We know the security implications of this, and we know not to do it. The potential for abuse is way too high.
Sig: I stole this sig.
Everyone thinks their own content is interesting. If it really *is* interesting, someone else will submit it.
It's really scary to see people asking this, apparently seriously, we've drifted so far from simplicity and standards back into a very specific world with lots more potential lock-in. This is the case for 'apps' too, they provide direct connection between the company and consumer, apart from snarfing up any data that they possibly can. Of course, I'm old, I do do apps and a lot of javascript, but I'm a big fan of open standards and KISS.
On y va, qui mal y pense!
I might be subjective as I'm the author of it, but this somewhat remind me of my http://mdoc.su/ project, which is what I call a deterministic URL shortener, or, perhaps, better yet, a semantic URL provider.
The whole source code is an nginc.conf configuration file, and is just a bunch of regular expressions and `rewrite` and `location` rules, available under an BSD/ISC licence, of course -- that's the one that comes with "no strings attached", BTW!
http://mdoc.su/
http://mdoc.su/FreeBSD-10.2/fs
http://mdoc.su/f102/resolvconf
http://nginx.conf.mdoc.su/mdoc...
https://github.com/cnst/mdoc.s...
But in this case, the users that browse the firehose and recommend stories, and the editors have found it interesting, so I dont see the problem.
You know what's scary?
(1) That someone on friggin' slashdot has no clue what the # in a url is, and thinks that asking it is easier than just friggin' googling it
(2) That another poster on slashdot answers in apparent earnest with "I usually see it used to make you jump down to a particular heading in, e.g., a wiki article. I think it also activates stuff in scripts sometimes?"
For crying out loud, where did all the nerds go? Reddit?
I love this idea! Also, I have to add something: If the URL-shortner uses 302 to redirect to the full URL, the content part behind the anchor/hash will not be sent to the server. It will still available to the JavaScript returned from the server that is run in the browser. So the server will not know about the content. (This feature is already used by e.g. OAuth2) In addition, instead of accessing a remote server, the URL could point to localhost, and the user could run the "content unpacking" webserver locally (and maybe automatically prevent any unwanted cross-site requests, since this is the default behaviour of the browser)
The link goes to a 2 day old undocumented and messy looking repo. So clearly those guys are asleep at the wheel.
People using the firehose. click a button to recommend stories. Obviously enough people recommended it. If they are a sleep, the story would like have been buried.
Wasn't that what Java was supposed to be for (after it was supposed to be for set-top boxes, but before it was supposed to be the new C0807)?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
A person could use this app to run a blog of sorts, and as popular as it became the blogger would be hosting it on the cheap. You host the app and tweet the shortened URL's. The content is hosted, but not by you. The URL shortener hosts the content. But unlike LiveJournal or Wordpress.com, the URL shortener never agreed to hosting your content. You've essentially repurposed its functionality and subverted its intent.
I'm guessing the various URL shorteners will respond to this very quickly. The hack will end up being as short-lived as it is cool.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
You know what's scary? That someone politely asks a question -which is completely on topic- and gets so much condescending flak about this. Not all nerds are html/scripting/ coding wizards.
And maybe, maybe, sometimes non-nerds stroll here accidentally. Let's quickly chase them away!
Jesus fa... what the fuck did I just read???
It reads like it's being said by an eight year old girl who's just been given two double espressos and a new kitten.
Software/web development is the only field I can think of where practitioners delight in ridiculing people outside of their specialty for not knowing everything that they do. I don't see that with medical doctors or lawyers or pharmacists or physicists. Every profession seems to have its own standards for basic maturity.
A browser is a client application.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
Plain HTML/CSS is fine for read-only sites. If you make your navigation dependent on Javascript you should be taken out back and shot. On the other hand if you want a form with even a moderate level of validation, date pickers, chained selects, chosen filters, basic HTML editing (in my case, an email template) or whatever then AJAX is pretty much the only way to go. The whole "put everything in a POST and rerender the whole page on every change" method is just terrible, both from a user and developer perspective. I must admit I haven't looked terribly hard at alternatives since I'm experimenting on an intranet site but even without trying very hard I needed jQuery, jQuery.UI and TinyMCE to fulfill the requirements. And at that point you're really there where you need Javascript anyway, so if another script or library can solve a problem well...
Not that I really want to include every library under the sun, but there's so much basic functionality for a web application I feel is missing. Sort of like being back at plain C++ without the Qt library, sure you could reinvent the wheel but why? Not that I really should expect it to, I mean originally it was just a bit of text mark-up with linking. Unfortunately it's not the 90s anymore, we don't want plain text sites and thick applications. We expect the apps to live in the browser unless they have some really special needs. Mostly it's a good thing, the Javascript sandbox is pretty strong. It's Java, Flash, ActiveX and all the other plug-ins that have been the huge exploit vectors. I guess you could go all RMS on this, but whether the server sends me "x=4" or "x=2+2, you do the math" doesn't really concern me.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
First time I read the summary I was like WTF is this, an advertisement?
Second time, I'm still wondering WTF. Someone needs to go back and read what a URL (ahem, URI, excuse me) actually is. It's a LINK: connecting things... not storing app preferences and shit. That's like, real, old school... before sessions, and cookies!
At one time it was. Then on the second day Tim Berners-Lee said "Let there be forms"
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
Way to miss the point.
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
Slashdot is always at its worst this time of year. It's a seasonal thing, related to the start of the academic year and the great number of wannabee clever-than-thous who are suddenly thrust into new environments and forced into searching for new sources of ego food. It will get better around the Fall Quarter midterm exams.
Until then, us graybeards must suffer the little children and their antics. Some of them will mature into tomorrow's hope; others will drop out or flunk out.
Will
While there are definitely Javashit programmers, Javascript has evolved into a solid programming language with some interesting pieces of elegance.
As to the Javashit programmers, that is a case of the 99% giving the rest of the Javascript programmers a bad name.
Will
Someone mod parent up.
Hashb.in has been around for several months longer.
Mr fister may have not known about it tho.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
Oh no! An anonymous coward on a webpage called me names! How will I ever sleep tonight? You are a mean man, mr ac.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
This will break the T-shirt business! All those whose living depends on selling t-shirts with DeCSS source code, "09 F9" AACS key, etc. as all we need now is a shortened url (white t-shirt + that marker that you have still have from freeing CDs from Sony's key2audio protection).
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
Since getting at game saves is not something the average user can easily do in most cases on mobile platforms, would this be a useful method for sharing save games?
Just drop a URL to the desktop and now anyone can have full hearts, the champion sword, and the unobtainium underpants.
It's a pan-field nerdish thing. Just watch The Big Bang Theory.
Oh yeah they do and with some frequency.
Link or lie, AC.
What they do and what they *tell you* they do can be two entirely different things. This is after all, SlashDot, home of "don't give a shit about the users". You know, Beta, serial posts by favored buddies, etc.
This raises the question about who is hosting the content and it will probably break the internet.
No, absolutely not. No on both those assertions. In fact, it really clears up who is responsible for the content of the link. As the same host contains both the "link" and the data. People have been converting data to text and embedding it directly into HTML pretty much since HTML has existed. It is neat if often the wrong way to go about it, but also very useful for userscript developers.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
As i felt that is the ISP related issue. if you don't getting internet properly. So try some other internet connection. Host it via a URL-shortener is the some old way technique to saturate the internet connection and redirect according to Google's shortener policy.
That someone on friggin' slashdot has no clue what the # in a url is, and thinks that asking it is easier than just friggin' googling it
# is punctuation, and general-purpose web search engines have historically choked on queries not for letters or digits.
Client side input validators LOL.
Where do you work?
Presumably somewhere that realizes the value of validating input once quickly on the client and again securely on the server.
If you're so dead-set against JavaScript, would you rather have to reload all comments to a Slashdot article every time you expand or collapse a subtree?
Three million downloads across how many different platforms' app stores? How do you normally reply when someone asks about wanting to use your client application on a platform for which your client application is not currently available?