The horror one man can unleash upon an unsuspecting public

October 1, 2001 6:32 PM

The horror one man can unleash upon an unsuspecting public What a lead sentence; "A U.S. court shut down thousands of Web sites after it determined that they diverted Web surfers and held them captive while bombarding them with ads for pornography and gambling, the U.S. government said on Monday." Redefines the meaning of "get a life".
posted by jeremias (16 comments total)

But as of early Monday afternoon, at least one site registered to Zuccarini, www.annakurnikova.com, was still functional.

But does anyone dare find out if this is so? ;)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:40 PM on October 1, 2001

Take that Meatfilter.com... On Monday, Oct. 1, the FTC plans to announce the beginning of a campaign against scores of Web sites that capitalize on typo variants of popular domain names in order to dupe unsuspecting Internet surfers. I think this is a good thing, but how far can the US government truly influence shady internet practices? Should it even try?
posted by thewittyname at 11:27 AM PST - 18 comments (2 new)- Post a Comment
posted by hotdoughnutsnow at 6:46 PM on October 1, 2001

Hey neat, hotdoughnutsnow, what an elegant way of putting it! (Howdya do it?)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:49 PM on October 1, 2001

looks like someone forgot to tell them that this was normal on the internet . Next headline "this just in, thousands of britney spears 'fan pages' on web"
posted by rabbit at 6:54 PM on October 1, 2001

Miguel - in order pull that off just view the front page source and clip out the needed code. As you may have noticed some of the formatting is correct because the CSS code is lost but that can also be rectified with a bit of work.
posted by RevGreg at 6:58 PM on October 1, 2001

As you may have noticed some of the formatting is correct because the CSS code is lost

RevGreg, you've made my day. I've never been addressed in this techie-brotherhood way and never will again. I'm such an imbecile(wot CSS code?)certain saintly MeFi members email me to help me - wow! - be able to listen to music or actually create links...

But it felt great, thanks. :D
posted by MiguelCardoso at 7:08 PM on October 1, 2001

i wonder if he has yet to make his money back from all those domain registrations.
posted by jcterminal at 7:31 PM on October 1, 2001

I just gotta say thank god...
posted by Darke at 7:32 PM on October 1, 2001

Hopefully closing italics... This = bad, I reckon. MeTa thread here. Matt's going to fix it, apparently.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:43 PM on October 1, 2001

Part of the problem is that web browsers are too responsive to the code they come across. Your web browser shouldn't throw allow more than one new window to pop-up without your consent, and it should always let you hit the back button. Was there ever any legitimate use for "open on exit" type windows? Same for the ones that stretch the page to the full corners of the desktop so there's no close button. If browsers were more responsive to their users, rather than the web pages, this problem wouldn't wouldn't be so bad.
posted by Loudmax at 8:29 PM on October 1, 2001

"Run this code when the user closes the window" is handy for web-based applications so you can put up a "Exit without saving changes?" dialog or to tell the server that you're finished so it can release the resources it was using to track your session.

Being able to go full screen is handy for presentations or slideshows. (I've done it myself.)

Like many things, the power can be used both for good and for evil...
posted by raymondc at 8:35 PM on October 1, 2001

RevGreg, you've made my day.

Não há de que! It was a hell of a lot easier than making my girlfriend's mother's day on Saturday, which required pushing her around a crowded fair (118,000+ people) in a wheelchair!

I'm such an imbecile(wot CSS code?)

CSS = Cascading Style Sheets

Which of course means absolutely nothing to you! Let's just say it's a method for controlling the appearance of a items on a webpage. On MeFi it is mostly used to control text attributes, which is why the byline (the last line with the posters name and comment links) in the referenced piece above is not the correct size.

Go out and spend $20 on a good HTML primer or e-mail me and I'll send you links to some good info online - it really isn't as hard as it may seem!
posted by RevGreg at 11:48 PM on October 1, 2001

Done, Gregory! Triple Brian and reverential thanks all round! Your text attributes are impressive even to an HTML simpleton like me.
Ah but that brief moment of glory, when you actually thought I knew what you were talking about...that no $20 can ever recapture.
(Sigh)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 12:21 AM on October 2, 2001

Ah but that brief moment of glory, when you actually thought I knew what you were talking about...that no $20 can ever recapture.

And that you were humble enough to admit ignorance and ask for assistance is a priceless attribute that $20 could never purchase for you. Most around here would fear the rath of the übers which seems to descend whenever someone claims to not understand something said around here. Amazingly quiet this time around, that's a good sign!
posted by RevGreg at 2:05 PM on October 2, 2001

A year or so ago I asked a friend to pick up a book I had ordered on CSS. Except that they asked for a book on "Cascading star sheets" apparently causing great hilarity to ensue....

Ah, the poetry.
posted by lucien at 11:32 PM on October 2, 2001