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JavaScript User Prohibitions Are Like Content DRM, But Even Less Effective (teleread.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the no-cut-and-paste dept.

Robotech_Master writes: It always puzzles me whenever I run across a post somewhere that uses JavaScript to try to prevent me from copying and pasting text, or even viewing the source. These measures are simple enough to bypass just by disabling JavaScript in my browser. It seems like these measures are very similar to the DRM publishers insist on slapping onto e-books and movie discs—easy to defeat, but they just keep throwing them on anyway because they might inconvenience a few people.

1 of 188 comments (clear)

  1. Re:How do you stop someone from viewing the source by cfalcon · · Score: 4, Informative

    Javascript is a steaming pile of shit, riddled with vulnerabilities and broken from tip to top.

    So of course they try to allow some overrides:

    http://stackoverflow.com/quest...

    Basically, you can google anything with "javascript disable" and get developers asking how to fuck their users in the pee hole. Often, there's an answer.

    It wouldn't actually prevent users from viewing source though- I'm not aware of a way to do that. However, if there is, you can find it at good old google bombing expert sex change:

    http://www.experts-exchange.co...

    Also note: the real workaround for this isn't globally disabling javascript, though if everyone did that the web would shape up immediately. The real workaround is the various -monkeys that let you redefine pieces of javascript locally. Many sites go through several hoops to prevent loading on a browser that won't run their shitscript, but redefining parts and/or loading your own CSS can get you around most of it.