TIL during the early days of the internet, companies tried to prohibit linking to some of their sites. The linked site linked to all of them during half of 2002

In one of the even more absurd cases: According to an AP report (cited in Slashdot), Intentia International has filed criminal charges against Reuters PLC, alleging that the news service illegally obtained an earnings report that the company had not yet released, by guessing the URL at which it had been posted on Intentia's public web site. Intentia claims that the report was "not available through normal channels," according to AP. (Also see Financial Times and CNET News.com reports.)  DES

limelight79,

Awww, come on. /. still exists. Here’s the URL to them directly.

Aatube,
Aatube avatar

I'm a lazy man, I just copied the archived page and ran it through a markdown converter.

BobbyBandwidth,

Remember in the early days when a teacher would write a super long url on the chalkboard and then you had to write it down with a pencil on paper, and then later type it all into a computer

teft,
@teft@lemmy.world avatar

And the teacher’s 1, l, I, and | all look the same.

the_kalash,

Or when people on the telly read out a website, always with the full www. in front

grue,

Hey, you never know: it might’ve been a Gopher page instead! \s

Smokeless7048, (edited )

Follow us online, hch, tee tee pee, collon slash slash Double-yew Double-yew Double-yew dot…

Aatube,
Aatube avatar

two w's?

Smokeless7048,

Fixed, that shows me for being lazy!

oldGregg,

I’m going to practice free handing QR codes just to spite you

BuffaloPants,

This post's title will surely be a finalist at the inaugural fediverse dementia inducing post title awards!

Kethal,

Can someone translate it? The title seems to have nothing to do with the post, unless I’m misunderstanding the title, which I’m sure I am. Because it’s nonsense.

Aatube,
Aatube avatar

Because the entire thing is companies trying to prohibit people from linking to them which is unenforceable nonsense indeed. The body text is an example. The link shows more examples.

Balios,
Balios avatar

I was accused some years ago (like... 2012?) of "hacking" an alpha of an online game because I changed some urls to get items or move them between players... I actually documented all of this and sent them plenty of bug reports. It was an alpha, after all and we were specifically asked to report bugs.
They then literally sent me an email and told them that they can see my provider from my IP and will contact them to sue me for hacking...

The game never left their alpha state and soon after closed down completely over some drama where a mod got access to important keys and locked everyone out.

Fun fact: the programmer of that pile of shit then announced that they started working for a huge online game company.

Viking_Hippie,

Is it Zynga? I bet it’s Zynga.

Balios,
Balios avatar

I'm not sure, but let's be honest, it was probably Zynga.

Zeth0s,

Most sites you could navigate all files and pages as file explorer. No unauthorized errors.

Good times!

mtcerio,

Internet security in 2002 was an unpublished URL!

teft,
@teft@lemmy.world avatar

Security through obscurity.

Viking_Hippie,

Employee complaining about an unnecessary meeting back then: This could have been an unpublished url!

sagrotan,
@sagrotan@lemmy.world avatar

We’re not so far away from that as you may think. The judicial power still lies in the hands of rich boomers who don’t understand shit. Watch the politics - they almost catch up to the 21rst century. Almost.

Bonehead, (edited )

I was once accused of hacking at a former job. I used File Explorer to log into a remote system and look at files of a program we were troubleshooting, while they were logged into the desktop remotely. In those days, Windows only allowed 1 connection (plus console, but that's another story), so when I started describing the file structure, they got all quiet. Then they asked how I could see that, which I explained I just used File Explorer. They didn't know how I could use Explorer (they didn't know the difference between File and Internet Explorer) to access the server, so obviously I must be hacking. I explained how I was just looking at the files, and if that's really relevent as the software was currently broken and we were trying to fix it for them. They insisted that I stop hacking their servers. So I had to spend the rest of the session asking them to describe the file structure over the phone so I could troubleshoot their software.

You'd think this was at some podunk little company...but no, this was a multi-billion dollar oil company in Texas. Never overestimate the abilities of someone just because they work for a large company.

dustyData,

Peter principle. Everyone rises up to the exact level of their incompetence. The vast majority of people have no fucking clue of what they’re doing, and at best they’re taking educated guesses.

Lexam,

This not true. I have risen much farther than my level of incompetence!

Etienne_Dahu,

So you’re being competent at being incompetent, thus you will be promoted until you are incompetent at being incompetent.

SoNick,

Is it 2002, or the early days of the internet?

Aatube,
Aatube avatar

Sorry, it was in 2002 which I think is the early days of internet being popular.

SoNick,

Nah, the 90s were the early days of the internet being popular, with AOL launching their internet service in 1991 and even The Today Show talking about the internet in 1994. While 2002-internet isn't the same as today's internet, it was far from the early days by that point.

Aatube,
Aatube avatar

Jesus, AOL launched in 1991?? Guess I didn't do enough research. What will you quantify 2002 as?

TheBat,
@TheBat@lemmy.world avatar

1990s was discovery era

2000s was wild west era

2010 onwards is exploitation era

teft,
@teft@lemmy.world avatar

The early days of web 2.0. Around the early 2000s the internet changed from being a web where content creators were few with the vast majority of users simply acting as consumers of content to a web where everyone was making their own sites and content.

From wikipedia:

A Web 2.0 website allows users to interact and collaborate with each other through social media dialogue as creators of user-generated content in a virtual community. This contrasts the first generation of Web 1.0-era websites where people were limited to viewing content in a passive manner.

teft,
@teft@lemmy.world avatar

Tell me OP was a teen in 2002 without telling me OP was a teen in 2002.

Aatube,
Aatube avatar

Nah man I wasn't born yet.

Selmafudd,

Man the guessing the url part just trigger a memory for me but I can’t remember what the site was… Was a website back in early/mid 2000s that used to do a girl of the day post, it was originally a clothed and naked shot but for some reason around 2006 that stopped having the links for the naked shots, you used to have to manually add a N to the end of the url… Anyone remember what that site was, page style was heavily black with fluro green accents

bobbytables,

I don’t know that specific site but lots of porn sites used to do those “preview of the day” things with a date or iterator in the URL.

I remember writing a simple script/page (must have been around 2002) where you could just paste a URL with wildcards and the wildcards could be iterated from x to y. It even checked if the generated linked page existed or threw http errors. It was amazing, how many links I collected and never visited again. The things you do for porn…

Tangent5280,

Nothing can stand between a horny teenager and his porn.

PS How did you get the monospace username display? How do I get the same? Can we do this for any font?

bobbytables,

You can set a displayed name in your profile and you can use Unicode characters for it. I use an Android app called “Stylish Text” for conversion but I am sure there are countless other options out there.

rob_t_firefly,
@rob_t_firefly@lemmy.world avatar

Those fancy fonts use extended Unicode sets which can look cute but which are really bad for accessibility. (sound on)

bobbytables,

Oh, wow, thanks for bringing this to my attention! I had no idea. I mean now that I know it, it seems kinda logical… The classic mistake of a person not dependent on accessibility tech.

octoperson,

I just see a row of ‘missing character’ glyphs

bobbytables,

I changed it back to the standard font. If it’s more accessible that way I’m all for it.

Pons_Aelius,

That is the equivalent of hiding a new book in a library by placing it on the correct shelf in Dewey decimal order but not updating the catalogue.

Then getting upset when a library member finds it on the shelf.

XEAL,

Now, this is a proper TIL and not someone’s opinion.

yads,

Elite hackers at Reuters

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