This link is already gone
January 9, 2018 5:51 PM Subscribe
Permanent Redirect is a new piece of art by Donald Hansen, who previously created Shybot, a bot that fled through the desert to avoid people. The trick to Permanent Redirect is that it moves URLs every time it is seen. If you want to chase it down, it was here a few days ago.
Because you have no chance of seeing it by honest clicking alone, someone made a Glitch app to get you within striking distance.
posted by waninggibbon at 6:04 PM on January 9, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by waninggibbon at 6:04 PM on January 9, 2018 [5 favorites]
I found it. It has a [redacted]ing green 3D rendered [redacted] GIF in the center top and as a border at the bottom of the page. It's not that hard, the URLs aren't all that random.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 6:18 PM on January 9, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 6:18 PM on January 9, 2018 [2 favorites]
was here a minute ago https://permanent-redirect.xyz/pages/1515551773
posted by signalnine at 6:37 PM on January 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by signalnine at 6:37 PM on January 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
Heh, great project. I love stuff like this.
If anyone wants to see it, I wrote some python code which accepts a URL where the art was recently spotted and will keep following the chain until it finds the art, then it will open the page. You need to supply a relatively recent URL, though, or else the code won't be able to catch up. If I use the URL that signalnine supplied above, the art loads in about 5 seconds.
save the code and run with
posted by So You're Saying These Are Pants? at 6:47 PM on January 9, 2018 [3 favorites]
If anyone wants to see it, I wrote some python code which accepts a URL where the art was recently spotted and will keep following the chain until it finds the art, then it will open the page. You need to supply a relatively recent URL, though, or else the code won't be able to catch up. If I use the URL that signalnine supplied above, the art loads in about 5 seconds.
save the code and run with
python3 find_art.py https://permanent-redirect.xyz/pages/1515551773posted by So You're Saying These Are Pants? at 6:47 PM on January 9, 2018 [3 favorites]
already gone
Great. now I've got the Eagles singing in my head.
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:48 PM on January 9, 2018 [2 favorites]
Great. now I've got the Eagles singing in my head.
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:48 PM on January 9, 2018 [2 favorites]
You can't get there from here.
Or you can't get here from there.
Whatever.
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:48 PM on January 9, 2018
Or you can't get here from there.
Whatever.
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:48 PM on January 9, 2018
hint: the urls are not random, the number is the epoch time that the art was found.
posted by namewithoutwords at 6:48 PM on January 9, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by namewithoutwords at 6:48 PM on January 9, 2018 [2 favorites]
I have never wanted to beat a stranger's ass like this for a web project before, so there's that.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 6:50 PM on January 9, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by Ogre Lawless at 6:50 PM on January 9, 2018 [5 favorites]
So it's art!
posted by So You're Saying These Are Pants? at 6:51 PM on January 9, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by So You're Saying These Are Pants? at 6:51 PM on January 9, 2018 [2 favorites]
yeah, Art... like Art Bell.
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:55 PM on January 9, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:55 PM on January 9, 2018 [2 favorites]
oh, and if you want a quickly-whipped-up copy-pasteable oneliner....
posted by namewithoutwords at 6:56 PM on January 9, 2018 [3 favorites]
id=1515552647; while true; do set -o pipefail; id=$(curl -s -L "https://permanent-redirect.xyz/pages/${id}" | grep pages | awk -F\/ '{ print $(NF-1) }' | tr -d \<) || break; echo "https://permanent-redirect.xyz/pages/${id}"; done
posted by namewithoutwords at 6:56 PM on January 9, 2018 [3 favorites]
This is clever, but I feel obligated to point something out. Anything is possible at ZomboCom.
posted by davebush at 7:08 PM on January 9, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by davebush at 7:08 PM on January 9, 2018 [9 favorites]
It seems that the number after the `/pages/` component of the URL is just the unix epoch at which the redirect was created, so you can sort of estimate how far off you are.
posted by kenko at 7:10 PM on January 9, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by kenko at 7:10 PM on January 9, 2018 [2 favorites]
Dude, if I could estimate how far off I am I’d be there by now.
posted by valkane at 7:53 PM on January 9, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by valkane at 7:53 PM on January 9, 2018 [3 favorites]
I love stuff like this.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 8:44 PM on January 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 8:44 PM on January 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
I found it using the look to the Glitch all posted above. I do feel special, indeed.
posted by numaner at 8:48 PM on January 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by numaner at 8:48 PM on January 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
Glitch ftw. Only 82.66% of visitors have been able to view it. I feel so special.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:03 PM on January 9, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:03 PM on January 9, 2018 [3 favorites]
I found that you can reload the page and quickly click on the redirect to get it again. I have single-handedly incremented the counter at least a dozen times. FEAR ME, ALEX JONES
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:07 PM on January 9, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:07 PM on January 9, 2018 [2 favorites]
I was at Desert X for opening day last year, all the while desperately hoping that I would somehow see ShyBot scurrying through the chaparral in the far distance. Alas, things ended badly. I still laugh and laugh just thinking about that project. I like this as an iteration of the same idea, but I admit to having a stronger preference for anthropomorphic robots fleeing through the desert.
posted by mykescipark at 9:37 PM on January 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by mykescipark at 9:37 PM on January 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
Just enter the current Unix epoch; with how many people are hitting it right now, it's likely a URL is being generated every second.
posted by airmail at 9:37 PM on January 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by airmail at 9:37 PM on January 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
Found it!
The article says this will challenge the way my brain thinks about the internet. Is that the trick? Does my brain think differently about the internet than I do now?
posted by BlackBox at 11:31 PM on January 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
The article says this will challenge the way my brain thinks about the internet. Is that the trick? Does my brain think differently about the internet than I do now?
posted by BlackBox at 11:31 PM on January 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
No, it does not. But artists are required to provide these sorts of enigmatic and deep descriptions of their work if they want them to appear to have gravitas.
posted by Meatbomb at 11:59 PM on January 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Meatbomb at 11:59 PM on January 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
Well, that was underwhelming...
posted by trif at 3:26 AM on January 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by trif at 3:26 AM on January 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
You could do something more interesting I think by recording what links were clicked, or if you just jumped in at the end, or if you tried guessing numbers.
There could be a nice diagram, with loops and stuff.
Also obviously the code should be randomised.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 4:39 AM on January 10, 2018
There could be a nice diagram, with loops and stuff.
Also obviously the code should be randomised.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 4:39 AM on January 10, 2018
it was here at 07:40est https://permanent-redirect.xyz/pages/1515587963
posted by james33 at 4:40 AM on January 10, 2018
posted by james33 at 4:40 AM on January 10, 2018
The real art was the friends we made while clicking.
posted by chavenet at 4:44 AM on January 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by chavenet at 4:44 AM on January 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
Got there with the Glitch app linked above. I dunno... conceptually that's neat, but what if the piece of art was actually worth the effort? What if the journey wasn't the only reward?
posted by skullhead at 7:00 AM on January 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by skullhead at 7:00 AM on January 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
This reminds me of the box that sold itself on eBay...
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 7:14 AM on January 10, 2018
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 7:14 AM on January 10, 2018
I too used the Glitch app to find my way. Four clicks and I'm there and I immediately felt cheated and empty. Partly because the actual destination art is really stupid (spoiler link to animated GIF) and partly because, well, I'd cheated to get there and subverted the artist's stated intent.
And I didn't even cheat by exploiting the fact the URL is just a timestamp. In 40 minutes the page will be here. Or at least it will be if someone looks that exact second, it's 404 right now. I wonder if the artist did consider all these attacks and think of them as part of the art. I could imagine building a much more secure version of this.
Personally I'm reminded of troubled game designer Peter Molyneux and his Curiosity app. What's in the box? An ad for another Molyneux fraud, that's what.
posted by Nelson at 7:21 AM on January 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
And I didn't even cheat by exploiting the fact the URL is just a timestamp. In 40 minutes the page will be here. Or at least it will be if someone looks that exact second, it's 404 right now. I wonder if the artist did consider all these attacks and think of them as part of the art. I could imagine building a much more secure version of this.
Personally I'm reminded of troubled game designer Peter Molyneux and his Curiosity app. What's in the box? An ad for another Molyneux fraud, that's what.
posted by Nelson at 7:21 AM on January 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
I just caught up to it here: https://permanent-redirect.xyz/pages/1515598379
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:34 AM on January 10, 2018
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:34 AM on January 10, 2018
Caught it. And realized that the time is PST, not EST. I thought I had three hours of redirects to get through and then found it.
Neat idea, kind of a let down when you find it.
posted by Hactar at 9:35 AM on January 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
Neat idea, kind of a let down when you find it.
posted by Hactar at 9:35 AM on January 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
I kinda liked the dancing green little alien guy...
posted by Grither at 10:01 AM on January 10, 2018
posted by Grither at 10:01 AM on January 10, 2018
Caught it using a form of triangulation: take the current number in the URL, add an arbitrary amount to it, then repeatedly increment by 1 until you find a redirected link. See how close you are to the current (PST) time; repeat.
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 10:38 AM on January 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 10:38 AM on January 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
Finding the current date and adding twenty seconds to the URL took three tries and fifteen reload clicks to get to page. I'm not sure how to feel about that. The concept is kind of neat, but the implementation seems designed to make cheating trivially easy. Is there a meta-artist's-statement coming later that explains that this was the real point of the thing? Or did the idea of hashing the URL really not occur to the artist?
Shybot, on the other hand, is unambiguously great and I'm very happy to have learned about it. Mini urban shybots would be quite interesting as well.
posted by eotvos at 10:41 AM on January 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
Shybot, on the other hand, is unambiguously great and I'm very happy to have learned about it. Mini urban shybots would be quite interesting as well.
posted by eotvos at 10:41 AM on January 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
Previously, a different project that did have hashed URLs.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 1:55 PM on January 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 1:55 PM on January 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
Found it here: https://permanent-redirect.xyz/pages/1515654711
posted by colin.jaquiery at 11:14 PM on January 10, 2018
posted by colin.jaquiery at 11:14 PM on January 10, 2018
A couple minutes ago: https://permanent-redirect.xyz/pages/1515657532
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 12:00 AM on January 11, 2018
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 12:00 AM on January 11, 2018
I triangulated to the current URL as well.
"So far, -13462 people visited the website but did not see the art.
Only 154.76% of visitors were able to view it. You are indeed very special."
Somehow that statistic doesn't make me feel special.
I do like the concept, probably because it feels (and looks) like a Web 1.0 student art project, visit counter and all. A similar concept of artificial digital uniqueness was also explored in Jason Rohrer's "Chain World"
I don't often say this, but it could be improved with a captcha. I'm guessing a lot of those visits were generated by bots.
posted by subocoyne at 12:37 PM on January 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
"So far, -13462 people visited the website but did not see the art.
Only 154.76% of visitors were able to view it. You are indeed very special."
Somehow that statistic doesn't make me feel special.
I do like the concept, probably because it feels (and looks) like a Web 1.0 student art project, visit counter and all. A similar concept of artificial digital uniqueness was also explored in Jason Rohrer's "Chain World"
I don't often say this, but it could be improved with a captcha. I'm guessing a lot of those visits were generated by bots.
posted by subocoyne at 12:37 PM on January 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
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posted by The demon that lives in the air at 6:02 PM on January 9, 2018 [10 favorites]