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


From: dom
Subject: LYNX-DEV When taking a guess isn't so smart
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 17:03:22 +0100 (BST)

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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