Re: Webpage picketing?...

Jim Choate wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I have been looking at how to impliment picketing on the web. To date I have
> been unable to come up with a way to force a connection to one machine to go
> through a third machine in order to express some view about the original
> target.
> 
> This idea came to me while watching some folks picket a local grocer over
> something I couldn't make out (the signs were poorly done). It occured to me
> that since one could argue that the links between sites are public avenues a
> site could 'picket' another site. The question became at this point, how?
> 
> So far I have been unable to figure a way out. Any ideas you might care to
> share with us all?
                                                                      
 
>   |      No people do so much harm as those who go about doing good.   

Jim: 

I know you've been on this list for quite some time, but this is 
not only impossible (as you would know if you understood the 
technology involved); it's also highly undesirable. You may dislike 
one of the sites linking to yours, but you really can't hijack their
connections and force people to listen to you who don't want to.

Imagine if you could! Anyone who dislikes any other page on the
web could block access - 'right to life' groups could hijack
connections to Planned Parenthood, a church site could block
playboy.com for the entire world, any government could extend it's
domestic censorship standards to the entire net. Pepsi could block
links to Coke.

There are two things you *can* do. 

1. You can put a disclaimer on your page "If you linked here from 
XXX.XXX.XXX, please be aware that I object to that connection for 
the following reasons..."

2. If you or your webmaster have any kind of technical 
sophistication, you can force links to your page to go to a CGI 
script, which uses the HTTP-referrer: header to provide different
pages depending on the source of the connection. I suspect that
Ticketmaster is doing something like this in blocking links from 
MSN. 

But please, don't try to extend the 'information superhighway' 
(blech!) metaphor to include virtual sidewalks with picketing
rights - this is silly. A better metaphor for what you want to
do would have a church groups insist that all mailings from Planned
Parenthood diverted to them, so that they can insert their own
fliers into the envelopes.

Peter Trei
trei@process.com
Disclaimer: The above represents my opinion only.

At 09:57 AM 6/3/97 -6, Peter Trei wrote:
>Jim Choate wrote:
>> I have been looking at how to impliment picketing on the web. To date I
have
>> been unable to come up with a way to force a connection to one machine
to go
>> through a third machine in order to express some view about the original
>> target.

There are a couple ways to do it.  One would be to implement an
"anonymizer" type scheme, where you "hijack" an unsuspecting surfer by
sending him/her off to http://www.evil.hijacker.org/www.yahoo.com, where
your server does the surfing for the victim, editing and picketing the HTML
returned.  You can do anything you want to them, your machine is in control
of the http connections.

Another method, which is quite a bit easier (and I've enclosed an example
below,) is to throw up a frame; giving the bottom of the users the screen
to wherever they surfed to, but retaining a frame on the top to play your
parade of protest animated gif banners.

Note that both of these require you to be an unscrupulous stealer of other
peoples browser space.  They also require the users arrive at your site
first, and leave via your links (their own bookmarks or typed URLs will let
them off the hook.)  I don't know of a way (short of usurping a DNS
server's authority) of getting hooked into their site from the first.  I
suppose if you ran a router between the site you wished to hijack and the
viewer whom you've hijacked, you could, but we're talking MAJOR no-no (and
lots of code) here.

Enclosed is an example set of files that shows "permanent" frames of the
type that hang around and annoy people.  Cut'n'paste to save them to your
local machine, then open the file fooIndex.htm with your frame-enabled
browser.  Notice how the banners (picket signs) hang around even after
linking off to somewhere else.  The drawback to this method is that your
protest is not "dynamic".  If they're on your vegetarian site, and follow
your link to www.beef.com, your banners will scream "Meat is Murder."
However, if they then follow the link from www.beef.com to
www.fur-coat.com, they'll still be under "Meat is Murder" banners.  You'd
be unable to display the "Fur is Dead" banners, because the browser hasn't
been talking to you since it loaded your page.

John

-- fooIndex.htm -- cut here --
<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Picket Line</TITLE></HEAD>
<frameset rows="80,*" framespacing="0" frameborder="0" border="0">
<frameset cols="400,*" framespacing="0" frameborder="0" border="0">
<frame src="fooTop.htm" SCROLLING="NO" NORESIZE MARGINWIDTH="6"
MARGINHEIGHT="6" >
<frame src="fooTopRight.htm" SCROLLING="NO" NORESIZE MARGINWIDTH="6"
MARGINHEIGHT="6" >
</frameset>
<frame src="fooMain.htm" SCROLLING="AUTO" NORESIZE MARGINWIDTH="0"
MARGINHEIGHT="0" BORDER="0" >
</frameset>
</HTML>
-- fooTop.htm -- cut here --
<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>FooTop Title</TITLE></HEAD>
<H4> This is FooTop. </H4>
Down with Foo!
</HTML>
-- fooTopRight.htm -- cut here --
<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>FooTopRight Title</TITLE></HEAD>
<H4> This is FooTopRight. </H4>
Down with Bar!
</HTML>
-- fooMain.htm -- cut here --
<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>FooMain Title</TITLE></HEAD>
<H4> This is FooMain. </H4>
Not to be confused with EggFooMein.
<P>
Click here to not be here.
</HTML>
-- fooBar.htm -- cut here --
<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>FooBar Title</TITLE></HEAD>
<H4> This is FooBar. </H4>
You're not where you were before, but there are still picketers hanging about.
<P>
Where we want you to go today.
</HTML>
-- end files -- cut here --

--
J. Deters "Don't think of Windows programs as spaghetti code.  Think
          of them as 'Long sticky pasta objects in OLE sauce'."
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NET:   mailto:jad@dsddhc.com (work)   mailto:jad@pclink.com (home) |
| PSTN:  1 612 375 3116 (work)          1 612 894 8507 (home)        |
| ICBM:  44^58'36"N by 93^16'27"W Elev. ~=290m (work)                |
| For my public key, send mail with the exact subject line of:       |
| Subject: get pgp key                                               |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

On Tue, 3 Jun 1997, John Deters wrote:

> Note that both of these require you to be an unscrupulous stealer of other
> peoples browser space.  They also require the users arrive at your site
> first, and leave via your links (their own bookmarks or typed URLs will let
> them off the hook.)  I don't know of a way (short of usurping a DNS
> server's authority) of getting hooked into their site from the first.  I
> suppose if you ran a router between the site you wished to hijack and the
> viewer whom you've hijacked, you could, but we're talking MAJOR no-no (and
> lots of code) here.

It's not too difficult (in theory) to exploit some race conditions in
recursive DNS lookups and to forge entries for sites.  By doing this you
should be able to redirect most sites to your site, from at least a
selected audience.  (Those people whose primary nameserver you can usurp)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ryan Anderson - <Pug Majere>     "Who knows, even the horse might sing" 
Wayne State University - CULMA   "May you live in interesting times.."
ryan@michonline.com                           Ohio = VYI of the USA 
PGP Fingerprint - 7E 8E C6 54 96 AC D9 57  E4 F8 AE 9C 10 7E 78 C9
-----------------------------------------------------------------------