It goes on and on deeper into paranoia

January 29, 2003 11:50 AM

Can anyone explain this? It seems to go on and on, no matter how far you follow the links.
posted by thirteen to MetaFilter-Related at 11:50 AM (44 comments total)

whoa. It seems like it's completely up to date. The person running it must be scraping metafilter at an alarming rate.

I'll check my logs to see how is gulping down the site, and block them.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 11:53 AM on January 29, 2003

I realize this is only tangentially MeFi related, but I cannot figure this out, and it did swallow the mothership here.

It was suggested this might allow Asia to creep around firewalling of content. Sound reasonable?
posted by thirteen at 11:53 AM on January 29, 2003

It does appear to behave like an advertisement-driven proxy.
posted by cCranium at 11:57 AM on January 29, 2003

Like anonymizer.com or something in that vein.
posted by cCranium at 11:57 AM on January 29, 2003

Does anyone read Japanese? It seems like it might be a legit anonymizer, scraping as requests come in.

upon preview: anonymizerslip
posted by daveadams at 11:59 AM on January 29, 2003

Like This?

If you goto the mailn page (http://pack.soksok.jp) it lets you enter any site you want...
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 12:02 PM on January 29, 2003

Why didn't you simply . . .

ASK MR. COMPUTER! (That's me.)

This site is what's commonly known as a "packet redirection module." When a page request is made to Matt's serving from your bursar, this site has a cookie spider that intercepts the signal. Then it propogates the code into its own database and runs an analytic conversion script on it to translate it into Asian and reposts the output off of its own serving. It is crafty technology and I think Matt should report them to the DNS or possibly the ICANN.
posted by Skot at 12:07 PM on January 29, 2003

Gee Mr. Computer! That's swell!
posted by machaus at 12:09 PM on January 29, 2003

I found it, and blocked the IP. I wouldn't have a problem with this if someone would just *ask* first.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 12:10 PM on January 29, 2003

Looking at the user-agent it sends, I believe it may simply be a proxy server for phone-based net access (the user-agent shows up in the logs at DoCoMo something). It appears to be stripping most CSS, maybe that's to make it show up on a phone.

But again, if they asked first, I'd have no problem with it. BTW, 13 how'd you find this?
posted by mathowie (staff) at 12:13 PM on January 29, 2003

It wasn't through those porn sites there now, was it?
posted by y2karl at 12:16 PM on January 29, 2003

Matt, redirecting that user-agent to the rss feed might be a subtle way to prove your point.
posted by machaus at 12:18 PM on January 29, 2003

13 is omniscient. Duh.
posted by anapestic at 12:18 PM on January 29, 2003

BTW, 13 how'd you find this?

I heard it from a little bird that 13 found it because a friend was ego-surfing.

As usual, Skot is to blame.
posted by frykitty at 12:21 PM on January 29, 2003

But again, if they asked first, I'd have no problem with it.

But one can't really expect them to ask every site on the internet for permission for a service like this. How is it ultimately different than a search engine or an RSS aggregator or even a proxy server? If I am grasping how it works correctly, someone has to make the request for Mefi content before it passes stuff through, right? So what's the problem?
posted by daveadams at 12:29 PM on January 29, 2003

Matt, was the User Agent unique? Were many people reading mefi through that link before we started to?
posted by djacobs at 12:31 PM on January 29, 2003

If I am grasping how it works correctly, someone has to make the request for Mefi content before it passes stuff through, right? So what's the problem?

Possible problems:

The repackaging of content with an ad link at the top of the page.
The lack of explanation, as far as I can tell, on the root page of the site.
posted by iceberg273 at 12:38 PM on January 29, 2003

What Kitty said. I a glad this has more or less been explained away. I am rather embarrassed that I did not reduce the URL down to the pointer page, and it seemed like a massive mirror for no reason.
posted by thirteen at 12:44 PM on January 29, 2003

∞ ...
posted by Shane at 12:55 PM on January 29, 2003

I don't quite understand what this is, which doesn't really matter; I like the discussion.



Is it possible (or was it suggested above, and I am just slow), that this posted sight might be usable to avoid government censorship? Perhaps people in China, North Korea and Iraq are getting inspiration from Mefi right now?
posted by ParisParamus at 1:35 PM on January 29, 2003

And by extension, inspiration from me?! Wow.
posted by ParisParamus at 1:43 PM on January 29, 2003

whoa. It seems like it's completely up to date. The person running it must be scraping metafilter at an alarming rate.

This sounds like something Chekov or Riker would say.
posted by ParisParamus at 1:44 PM on January 29, 2003

Looking at the user-agent it sends, I believe it may simply be a proxy server for phone-based net access (the user-agent shows up in the logs at DoCoMo something). It appears to be stripping most CSS, maybe that's to make it show up on a phone.

I read and speak some Japanese, but for some reason no kanji is showing up (kanna displays fine). If someone wants to either post the Japanese text here, or e-mail it to me, I'll take a look at translating it.

That being said, Matt's probably right. I imagine that it's just a CGI script that filters out all the crap (images, CSS, tables, etc) and just produces a plain hypertext document, with all links re-written to include the CGI script in them. It's probably not spidering MetaFilter. You can enter in any site, and it will produce a similar result.

Many Japanese people don't own computers, and access most of the internet from cell phones. I don't think this script is doing any thing malicious.

I found it, and blocked the IP. I wouldn't have a problem with this if someone would just *ask* first.

I wouldn't block it (but hey, it's your site). This isn't a MetaFilter-specific script. It's just a general gateway to access things on a DoCoMo cell phone. (The more I look at it, the more it looks like just a gateway for cell phone users. There are no tables on the main page, and it uses the Shift_JIS charset, which is for mobile phones. No wonder it isn't displaying correctly for me)

Some one is accessing metafilter through this proxy, probably over a phone. Blocking the proxy's IP killed this person's access. I'd imagine it takes up as much bandwidth as someone who just access the page normally. In fact, it's probably just like this, with some routines to change the formatting around.
posted by SweetJesus at 2:13 PM on January 29, 2003

Okay, I'm totally confused. Is this a link or a script that is within the mefi server? Both? And why are there pr0n pics on it? A bonus?
posted by elwoodwiles at 2:22 PM on January 29, 2003

It's definitely some sort of proxt to the 'net for Japanese cellphones. There's a bunch of NSFW content up there at the moment...
posted by gen at 2:25 PM on January 29, 2003

Now it's just porn, right? Well, mostly porn. And that's ok, right? Porn?

Alternate response: My God, it's full of stars!
posted by mmcg at 2:48 PM on January 29, 2003

very weird. i see nothing but a plain white page with japanese link to other pages of japanese links. i havent seen anything here all day related to mefi (and i've been reloading it since before matt blocked the IP) nor do i see any porn, NSFW content or much of anything. they must be on to me. IE6 on Win2k.
posted by quonsar at 2:48 PM on January 29, 2003

It's just a general gateway to access things on a DoCoMo cell phone.

Yeah, but in addition to stripping bits from the site, it added an ad at the top of each page. When I looked at it, I saw the metafilter homepage with an ad for something sexually related (couldn't read anything besides "sex" the rest was probably kanji).

i see nothing but a plain white page with japanese link to other pages of japanese links.

It's because I have blocked them. Previously, it looked pretty much like metafilter, without the images and most css, but every page resided on their server.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 3:07 PM on January 29, 2003

Well, I know this makes work for Matt, but how about a version of Metafiler formatted for the cellphone?

I frequently read Metafilter from my Trio. It works "okay" but not as well as a custom version would.
posted by y6y6y6 at 4:05 PM on January 29, 2003

how about a version of Metafiler formatted for the cellphone?

Since I dont have a treo (I want one over a danger hiptop), I can't test it.

Can you grab a typical page at metafilter, save it to your server, then format the HTML so it displays nicely on the treo?

Then I could just follow the formatting you did to get it working on my server (or someone could just give me a treo).
posted by mathowie (staff) at 4:38 PM on January 29, 2003

It was suggested this might allow Asia to creep around firewalling of content. Sound reasonable?

Ok, this may explain two odd e-mails I received. They were both in hieroglyphical characters and when I replied, undeliverable. They did contain, XXX in part of their addresses.

Or is this what happens on my first post to the front page yesterday.
posted by thomcatspike at 5:09 PM on January 29, 2003

"Can you grab a typical page at metafilter......"

Yeppers. I think they emulators for various phones. I'll see if I can find that also.
posted by y6y6y6 at 6:34 PM on January 29, 2003

I assume this a new thing, so :

That page just fired up MSN messenger on me and started trying to dial a number using the phone thingo. I'd exercise caution. That was scary.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:40 PM on January 29, 2003

This is a fun discussion.
posted by ParisParamus at 8:00 PM on January 29, 2003

Let's buy Matt a Treo! I'm in for $10.
posted by luser at 8:26 PM on January 29, 2003

Let's buy Matt a Treo! I'm in for $10.
No. ;)
posted by riffola at 8:39 PM on January 29, 2003

Why not let's all just agree to a 10% tithe?
posted by crunchland at 8:40 PM on January 29, 2003

I'm in for 10$, too. Who'll collect the money?
posted by bshort at 9:57 PM on January 29, 2003

I can. Blank money orders to my PO Box, please.

I also have brand new laptops for sale on ebay, if anyone's interested.
posted by jdaura at 10:44 PM on January 29, 2003

It was in the news here in Japan yesterday that these mobile web "dating clubs" were being trolled by AUM Shinrikyo (Tokyo subway-gassing cult) gals reeling unsuspecting lonely guys into the cult.
posted by planetkyoto at 5:04 AM on January 30, 2003

I'd take that date. I defy a woman to outgas me in a relationship, Sarin or not.
posted by yerfatma at 5:21 AM on January 30, 2003

how about a version of Metafiler formatted for the cellphone?

Heck, why screw around - why not just exchange cell phone numbers?


*shudder*


i kid because i care
posted by gottabefunky at 6:32 AM on January 30, 2003

Perhaps people in China, North Korea and Iraq are getting inspiration from Mefi right now? And by extension, inspiration from me?! Wow.

Calm down, man. I have a tough time envisioning China tossing out Mao and Communism in favor of ParisP-ism...
posted by Shane at 6:46 AM on January 30, 2003

Come to think of it, I guess technically China did throw out Mao's career post-1957...
posted by Shane at 7:17 AM on January 30, 2003