Dereferrer

[Tomek]

Hello,

To make sure that the links posted on this forum don't transmit private informations, instead of adding an _underscore at the beginning of the link, admins could check if they can add a plugin to the forum, to automaticaly convert links through a derefferer service, like _http://anonym.to/

Regards

 

[Gawan]

Sounds like a good idea. From what I see, then every link gets automatically converted, which would not be the best option cause sometimes "good" sites are shared too. And it trains to be as most considerate as possible when posting, to think about the sources etc.

But this is just my point of view and eventually such a plug in could get switched on/off or implemented (to have the free choice of using it) is another idea.

 

[ocean59]

Hello,

To make sure that the links posted on this forum don't transmit private informations,

How is it that a link posted on this forum would ever be able to transmit private information? I'm not sure I understand the concern...

Also, some sites contain both useful info and pure disinfo, and cannot always be blocked by site address alone. Take Youtube for example - a video link might need to be _'d out, but other videos we may actually want to link to properly.

At least using the '_' system, one can see the source website, and then make a decision whether or not to visit. Otherwise, you would have to click the scrambled link, just to find out where it goes.

 

[TheSpoon]

How is it that a link posted on this forum would ever be able to transmit private information? I'm not sure I understand the concern...

It's not the link per se that is giving out the information. Your browser sends through the URL of the page you're coming from as part of your request.

So the receiving site will know that the user has followed a link from cassiopaea.org. Potentially that's a piece of information that you might not want someone to know.

See _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_referer

However, since the leading underscore convention forces us to copy'n'paste the URL into the address bar, there is no Referrer since you're not clicking a link directly. So I think we're covered?

 

[ocean59]

It's not the link per se that is giving out the information. Your browser sends through the URL of the page you're coming from as part of your request.

So the receiving site will know that the user has followed a link from cassiopaea.org. Potentially that's a piece of information that you might not want someone to know.

See _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_referer

Thanks for that info, I didn't realize that happened for every single link I clicked - I had thought that was only when clicking links from Google (redirects), etc. Good to know!