[Cialug] TinyURL

[Don Ellis]

Looks like it's back up now (correct me if I'm wrong - the basic site is
responding).


On Tue, May 20, 2014 at 9:48 AM, Todd Walton <tdwalton at gmail.com> wrote:

> Top posting to preserve the discussion below (since I'm resurrecting a
> thread that not everyone will still have in their mailbox...).
>
>
> http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2014/05/20/is-gd-goes-down-takes-a-billion-shortened-urls-with-it.html
>
> is.gd goes down, takes a billion shortened URLs with it
>
> The popular is.gd URL shortening service has been offline for more than
> two
> days, taking with it more than a billion shortened URLs. Shortly before the
> site disappeared on Sunday, the homepage reported that its links have been
> accessed nearly 50 billion times.
>
> The shortened links generated are usually not more than 18 characters long,
> including the protocol http://. These links are commonly used in tweets,
> emails, and text messages where long URLs are impractical. Despite the fact
> the shortened links do not work, many previously-created is.gd shortened
> URLs are still appearing on Twitter.
>
> is.gd is owned by and supported by UK hosting provider Memset, who planned
> to support it as a free service indefinitely. Notably, its sister site,
> v.gd,
> is still up and running. Other free services provided by Memset include
> TweetDownload, TweetDelete and the statistics calculator Tweetails.
>
> For security reasons, both is.gd and v.gd disallow the shortening of URLs
> which use the data: and javascript: protocols. Nevertheless, the service is
> still abused by fraudsters who use the shortened URLs to direct victims to
> phishing sites. Some fraudsters have appended a query string to the
> shortened URL in an attempt to make it look similar to those used by the
> phishing target. For example, the following is.gd URL was used to redirect
> victims to a Taobao phishing site:
>
> http://is.gd/Tb###U?2.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=2007.1000337
>
> Throughout April, is.gd was the fifth phishiest URL shortening service. By
> far the phishiest was tinyurl.com, which pointed to 17 times as many
> phishing sites, making it account for 60% of all phishing activity amongst
> the top five URL shortening services. Privately-held bit.ly, Google's
> goo.gland GoDaddy's
> x.co also pointed to more phishing sites than is.gd.
>
> Three years ago, the is.gd service suffered a shorter outage of a few
> hours. This was caused by the failure of some of the virtual machines in
> its frontend cloud, which were responsible for accepting HTTP requests from
> a load balancer.
>
>
> On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 10:54 PM, Adam Shannon <adam at ashannon.us> wrote:
>
> > Having a service (or services) to shorten a url that breaks in use
> > (email, webpages...) is perfectly fine, but that service should only
> > be giving the user the actual link, not directing them to the link
> > they wanted.
> >
> > What happens when that short link provider goes out of business or is
> > hacked, then I lose the ability to control where I will end up
> > (negating anything on the link I'm trying to reach does) because I
> > can't see where I'm going.  If the service is hacked and spreads
> > malware than anyone with javascript or cookies allowed on that domain
> > will be infected or tracked.
> >
> > In my view, short url providers should only be presenting a page for
> > the user as to what the short link represents, the short link is not
> > the same link and therefore shouldn't act the same.  It's a
> > representation for another url.
> >
> > Thoughts?
> >
> > On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 17:26, Scott Prader <sprader at iastate.edu> wrote:
> > > Sometimes a URL that takes up multiple lines can get cut off with a
> > carriage
> > > return inserted by some program, at some point.  When I see a link, I
> > like
> > > to think that I can click on it and not get a 404.  TinyURL fixed this.
> > > What they don't do is auto-forward a 404 to archive.org, which tends
> to
> > > cover what a downed URL can't, whether it's complete or not.
> > >
> > > -Scott
> > >
> > > On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 4:58 PM, Barry Von Ahsen <barry at vonahsen.com>
> > wrote:
> > >>
> > >> 7 ff addons tagged 'unshort url', probably more under other tags
> > >>
> > >> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/tag/unshort%20url
> > >>
> > >> -barry
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Nathan C. Smith wrote:
> > >> > Seems to me there could be a whole industry for a technology for
> > >> > converting the various short-URLs back to long ones, particularly if
> > the
> > >> > tools and technology provide a means to mitigate potential risks.
> > >> >
> > >> > Don't bit.ly and others use a hash that stays the same for each
> > >> > shortening of a reference?  So that if you shorten cialug.org and
> > send it to
> > >> > me I will get the same shortened url if I do it?
> > >> >
> > >> > -Nate
> > >> >
> > >> >> -----Original Message-----
> > >> >> From: cialug-bounces at cialug.org
> > >> >> [mailto:cialug-bounces at cialug.org] On Behalf Of Ed Meacham (@work)
> > >> >> Sent: Friday, June 18, 2010 3:12 PM
> > >> >> To: 'Central Iowa Linux Users Group'
> > >> >> Subject: Re: [Cialug] TinyURL
> > >> >>
> > >> >> I love the idea of URL shortening services. Though, they
> > >> >> definitely have instances where the use of one is more
> > >> >> appropriate than others... I don't see the need to shorten a
> > >> >> URL in an email, unless you're spreading "infectious-love."
> > >> >>
> > >> >> Rather than write off TinyURL/Bit.ly, I would blame improper
> > >> >> organization and/or the sender not qualifying the details of
> > >> >> the URL in the message.
> > >> >>
> > >> >> I see there is a plug-in for Thunderbird for converting a URL
> > >> >> into a TinyURL... wonder if it has a reversal option? (I
> > >> >> don't have Thunderbird installed on this machine to check) If
> > >> >> not, a lookup plug-in might be a good project for someone. :P
> > >> >>
> > >> >> -emeacham (@work)
> > >> >>
> > >> >> -----Original Message-----
> > >> >> From: cialug-bounces at cialug.org
> > >> >> [mailto:cialug-bounces at cialug.org] On Behalf Of Todd Walton
> > >> >> Sent: Friday, June 18, 2010 6:27 AM
> > >> >> To: Central Iowa Linux Users Group
> > >> >> Subject: [Cialug] TinyURL
> > >> >>
> > >> >> And another reason I hate this tinyurl thing... I know
> > >>
> > >>