Careful With Links

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Socoder -> Site & Server -> Careful With Links
Thu, 21 Oct 2021, 16:58
Jayenkai	Careful With Links Earlier tonight, Steve posted a link to the shout box which included a f(ace)b(ook)cl(ient)id(entifier) parameter. The site struggled with formatting the link, and I had to go in and fix it, Yada Yada... To be fair, the site struggles with all manner of things, and the ShoutToTopic script amplifies these quirks to no end!! Not a big deal. I can cope with that! (And alarmingly frequently do!!) But that's not all.. The server stats for the past few hours have been insane. Starting from a crawler that was apparently hunting for those parameters, it then scoured the entire site, apparently looking for more. And it's not just one, either. I'm not 100% sure what that parameter on a url does, how much that link can get back to you, or somehow be used to track you.. but .. I'm just letting you all know, it resulted in some pretty fishy looking behaviour. Be sure to clean up any url's before you post 'em, frankly for your own safety, more than anything else. Remember that SoCoder can be read by anyone, and that includes leaching spider-bots, desperate for any of your information that it can grab. Stay alert!! Relevant link doesn't appear to consider it dodgy, but.. call me paranoid..!! -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Thu, 21 Oct 2021, 17:14
steve_ancell	I think it might have been me making a typo with the url tag, it did look a bit screwed up in the shoutbox.
Thu, 21 Oct 2021, 17:16
steve_ancell	It was just a newspaper link about Vikings finding the Americas 1000 years before Columbus. The same topic is on the BBC news page, the link looks a lot more tame.