Spammers create their own URL shortening services

Thanks Ron for this.

What is your advice for users regarding shortened URLs in general -- use a service to view the entire URL, avoid them, click anyway?

thanks,

-rich

 

I agree.

But it's becoming difficult to insist on that as a firm policy since even in legitimate articles, web masters are using shortened URLs to link to other information, and users want to follow the link.

When I see that, I send an email to the web master.

regards,

-rich

 

Agreed, but some sites make things difficult, using automatic programs to generate URLs. How about this:

Yes, that is a legitimate URL, and this is not uncommon.

A friend sent me a similar usda.gov URL and had to shorten it because her email program broke the link in 4 places with line breaks!

regards,

-rich

 

I do not know. Search engines do the same thing:

(I had to put in some line breaks so the window width wouldn't be too wide)

regards,

-rich

 

Yes, Google always ranks their tracking URLs at the top of the page.

Scroll down farther and I see another link to Amazon for the same item, w/o Google's tracking:

http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-Four-Thirds-Interchangeable-Free-Angle-Touch-Screen/dp/B005058BTW

But the long URLs occur in other situations, where automated programs generate the URLs with random characters. I do not understand the need for this in most cases.

regards,

-rich

 

I never click on shortened URLs. If someone wants me to see a site, they had best not send to to me this way. There is nothing that uses them that is important enough to see.

 

I'd use entire URL service and URLVoid for unknown sites. Not any more dangerous than other URLs this way.

 

Bit.ly generally of Twitter fame is a large offender of URL shortening issues

 

Not just the usual culprits either Yes it's good in one way, as it checks the www's first for Malware etc But as been intimated it gets people normalised into bad habits =

McAfee Secure URL Shortener & expander

http://mcaf.ee/b1d069



http://mcaf.ee



*

Here's an AddOn for FF that Undoes the naughty deeds

 

Clicking on a shortened URL, without first checking it, is akin to "Russian Roulette" surfing, effectively one is saying "take me where you will"...it's a huge risk, but I suspect over 90% of users are totally unaware of the dangers involved.
The reality is, that one's own awareness and practices are the first line of defence. The criminals are very innovative and ruthless in their "quest" and the weakest and most vulnerable are their number one target.
This is a very interesting and growing phenomenon, and thanks for posting this ronjor
URLvoid have an expanding service here : http://www.urlvoid.com/extract-url/

 

Thanks for the new services.

 

There is a similar danger in clicking on a hyperlink like this:

Wilders Security Forum

Would you click on this link in an email message, or on some blog or chat room site?

If users' browsers don't display the URL when hovering the mouse over the hyperlink so they can check, users can't be sure where they will end up when they click.

regards,

-rich

 

Hi Rmus, for an hyperlink like you showed, I'll hover over, and see what's displayed above the taskbar before deciding, thanks....I certainly wouldn't go to Google Thanks, Dermot

 

You and probably most who frequent Wilders!

But I'm thinking of the 90% mentioned above, and this trick has been very successful in the past. One was a paypal scam, where the email had a legitimate link to the paypal login page.

Hovering the mouse over the link reveals that it is not legitimate, and sends the user to a fake paypal login page:



Here is another example of a legitimate link -- using the Wilders URL instead of just the name Wilders as I did above.

https://www.wilderssecurity.com

regards,

-rich

 

Another URL expanding service is http://longurl.org/.

 

I have been using a Greasemonkey script LongURL Mobile Expander to expand shortened URL's. It can be found via MRBrain's link posted above.

When I need to use a shortened URL, I stick with TinyURL. I always post the original link along with the shortened one. like this:

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1964968&postcount=21
http://tinyurl.com/3ffc44a

Screen shot of LongURL Mobile Expander in action

The [more] takes you to longurl.org