on 07:34 Wed 16 Mar, Heddle Weaver (weaver2world@gmail.com) wrote:
> On 15 March 2011 23:40, Dotan Cohen <dotancohen@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > The problem here is the use of the redirect service. I also never
> > On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 03:11, Rob Owens <rowens@ptd.net> wrote:
> > > I've seen posts like this on Freecycle, and they're almost always spam
> > > or malware. I haven't looked at this link, and I suggest you don't
> > > either.
> > >
> >
> > follow those links. Not only are they "blind links" masking the
> > destination, but why add an unreliable extra link to the
> > already-fragile chain of events that must transpire to access a
> > webpage. What if tinyurl's server is down, or gets hacked, or goes out
> > of business, or becomes malicious?
> >
>
> I only use the service because it saves even short links like this one from
> getting broken by MUA character limits:
> http://blog.internetgovernance.org/blog/_archives/2011/1/29/4737705.html
URLs < ~72 characters should be reasonably safe, though that's not a
completely safe bet.
There are a hell of a lot of really broken content-management systems
which insist on insanely long URLs, often containing characters special
to the shell ('&' and '?' come to mind). In this case, URL shorteners
are convenient, though they raise a host of other concerns.
> And I only use tinyurl because it's stable, unlike the .ly extensions which
> are hosted in Libya,
You're confounding domain registration with hosting site.
As of a few moments ago, bit.ly resolved to 168.143.172.53, which
appears to be hosted by Verio in Dallas or NTT America, with a postal
address in Centennial, Colorado. Or so suggest mtr, hostname
resolution, and WHOIS records.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true,
by the wise as false,
and by the rulers as useful.
— Lucius Annæus Seneca.
Terrorism, the new religion.