Category Archives: Internet

Here is the robots.txt file from the last.fm site:

User-Agent: *
Disallow: /music?
Disallow: /widgets/radio?
Disallow: /show_ads.php

Disallow: /affiliate/
Disallow: /affiliate_redirect.php
Disallow: /affiliate_sendto.php
Disallow: /affiliatelink.php
Disallow: /campaignlink.php
Disallow: /delivery.php

Disallow: /music/+noredirect/

Disallow: /harming/humans
Disallow: /ignoring/human/orders
Disallow: /harm/to/self

Allow: /

via PanGloss, Do robots need laws? : a summer post:)

(If you need the joke explained to you, you are not a geek.) You can also click through to the original post for 'Masilow's Hierarchy of Robot Needs' and some serious stuff about robots too.

The best short comment I've read on the mating dance between Verizon and Google is the Great Grimmelmann's About That Open Internet Thing.

The Pants That Stalked Me on the Web.

Seth Godin writes about a way to have a convenient low-security privacy shield:

The internet is constantly, relentlessly public. Post something and it's there, for everyone, all the time.

Acar has come up with a clever idea, a small idea that makes things just a little protected. Trick.ly is a url shortener with a twist. You can share a URL but hide it behind a question that only insiders can easily answer.

So, for example, you could tweet, “Here's the source for my world-class chili: http://trick.ly/2L5”. Anyone can go there, but only people who can figure out the clue can discover the site you were pointing to.

It's not secure. It's sort of private. Neato.

For people who don't have their own servers and don't want to mess with .htaccess files, this probably is a great thing. Of course, some people will over-rely on this or a related service, and the blackmail will start…

“ARE YOU ALIVE? IF NOT CONTACT HIM URGENTLY.” (This is followed by what seems a pretty standard 419 scheme, although allegedly based in the UK.)

Wonder who responds?

Panopticlick

Ran this the other day in Firefox and got:

Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 551,209 tested so far.

Currently, we estimate that your browser has a fingerprint that conveys at least 19.07 bits of identifying information.

Not one of the 551,209 browsers tested so far emit my plugin details

Similarly, not one of those 551,209 browsers has the same mix of fonts installed.

Might as well surf naked.

IE8 with privacy mode on is only a little better:

Within our dataset of several hundred thousand visitors, only one in 275,626 browsers have the same fingerprint as yours.

Currently, we estimate that your browser has a fingerprint that conveys 18.07 bits of identifying information.

And that 'other person' is probably … me.