Re: LYNX-DEV When taking a guess isn't so smart

[Weisenfelds]

Help, I'm on this list and I can't get off!!!!!


Anyone know the administrator of this infernal robot?

Thanks


On Thu, 23 Oct 1997
address@hidden wrote:

> Having in the past given up with the domain name private.org due to
> the amount of irrelevant email I received to it, you would have
> thought I would know better.
> 
> I own the domain name HTTP.ORG. The web site for that domain has
> always received a fair amount of seemingly random hits, presumably
> from people mistyping URLs and having their domain suffix search
> order including ORG.
> 
> Recently however I have noticed a dramatic increase in the number
> of hits to www.http.org, so I decided to investigate further. Looking
> at the access logs, it did appear that the recent upsurge in hits
> could also attributed to mistypes. But why the very recent increase ?
> The common link is Lynx web browser 2.7.1.
> 
> It would appear that the latest version of Lynx likes to pretend to
> be clever and guesses at a URL if it doesn't receive a response from
> the host that you typed. Unfortunately this means that a request for
> any of the following typos:
> 
>   lynx http//:www.somedomain.com
>   lynx http//www.somedomain.com
>   lynx http/:www.somedomain.com
>   lynx http/www.somedomain.com
> 
> Will result in Lynx trying...
> 
>   Looking up 'http' first.
>   Looking up 'www.http.com', guessing...
>   Looking up 'www.http.edu', guessing...
>   Looking up 'www.http.net', guessing...
>   Looking up 'www.http.org', guessing...
>   Getting http://www.http.org//www.somedomain.com
> 
> At which point my site is queried.
> 
> The risks are obvious. Confusion reigns and I receive a constant
> flow of hate email from users all around the world who think that
> I have hijacked the web sites they are trying to reach. *sigh*
> 
> Dom.
> -- 
>   Dominic J. Hulewicz - mailto:address@hidden - http://www.intanet.com/dom
> ;
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> 

                                        TTFN
                                        Weisenfeld
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