https://www.howtogeek.com/google-link-shortener-breaking

Google used to run one of the most popular link shortening services, allowing people to create
smaller links and track clicks. Now, though, Google is fully killing off its link shortener, and all
the shortened links it generated.

Starting next month, people clicking on goo.gl links will likely see a warning page before being
redirected to their desired website. This marks the beginning of the end for Google's URL shortener
service, which will be completely shut down by August 2025. Google originally discontinued goo.gl
for new users back in 2018, but existing shortened links remained functional. However, the company
has now decided to fully retire the service and kill off all of the shortened links it generated.
--
Linux Mint 21.3, Cinnamon 6.0.4, Kernel 5.15.0-116-generic
Al

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Big Al <alan@invalid.com> wrote:

https://www.howtogeek.com/google-link-shortener-breaking

Google used to run one of the most popular link shortening services, allowing people to create
smaller links and track clicks. Now, though, Google is fully killing off its link shortener, and all
the shortened links it generated.

Starting next month, people clicking on goo.gl links will likely see a warning page before being
redirected to their desired website. This marks the beginning of the end for Google's URL shortener
service, which will be completely shut down by August 2025. Google originally discontinued goo.gl
for new users back in 2018, but existing shortened links remained functional. However, the company
has now decided to fully retire the service and kill off all of the shortened links it generated.

And why you should never just publish a shortened URL. You should show
both the long (original) and shortened URL. The shortened URL may be
more convenient, but link rot occurs when the redirection service gets discontinued. For example, if I show a shortened link using TinyURL,
I'll include, say:

Long URL: https://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-UH720-7-Port-Smart-Charging/dp/B00SCX6I8A/ref=sr_1_3?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.a45Wa-wI1_ifnqQN_aQk0UkBgh7t8Tywgo8Hapj36PmQ7jyX8ZgkX66iVaewT8ahFqxdfCYBFV4aTWYPm0JefiUvQ7N-y_iJCtjmjuBo3hwFUuwdFRRDND9i_bKVfpXZQf6x1FnPQ_
7wUX9VB9x2WVxFCjeIO2aZcTzw6Wmz5aS9bixnLGYXnSRth_6oVQTVXmqn2TR8hGLk6o0QMAR0FdjIts_ly5PIXIrgY9ZS4-E.ctPMnPANttw2NShETuFTJSUVdf-jShw_Wuo8bHXxCIg&dib_tag=se&keywords=powered%2Busb%2Bhub&sr=8-3&th=1
Short URL: https://tinyurl.com/usbhubpowered

This isn't just a problem with Google. There are many redirection
services, and ALL of them are susceptible to discontinuance. *Anyone*
using a shortened URL should include the long version figuring the
redirection service goes dead, or may be unusable temporarily. No
server has 100% up time, and sometimes they go down for various reasons,
like maintenance.

Also, there are other redirection services that embed themselves into
various communication venues. For example, Microsoft adds their Safe
Links, part of their Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), to their e-mail
services (Hotmail, Outlook.com, Live.com). When an e-mail goes into
your MS e-mail account, Microsoft modifies hyperlinks in the e-mail to
point to MS servers. When clicking on the modified hyperlink, the
connection first goes to Microsoft who checks if the link points to a
malicious destination. After the check, and if not in a blacklist, the connection gets redirected to the original target. Because of this redirection, anyone reporting spam would be pointing their report at
their own e-mail provider (Microsoft) instead of the one used by the
spammer. When, not if, Microsoft discontinues their ATP service, all
those hyperlinks in old e-mails become useless. There is no original
version of the hyperlink since MS modified the e-mail hyperlinks. If
you have a corporate or school account with MS e-mail, the admin can enable/disable ATP, or just the Safe Links function of ATP, on your
account. For the freeloaders, like me, you have to use feedback to have
them contact you, and try 3 times to get ETP disabled (because it gets reenabled once or twice). To see if Safe Links actually got disabled in
your MS e-mail account, you have to review hyperlinks in your e-mails to
make sure they don't point to:

https://<varhostname>.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/<args>

The problem with ALL redirection services is that they eventually fade
away, so all the redirections become dead aka link rot. There are easy workarounds to Safe Links used by spammers, like the URL redirection
services, by using Punycode in the URL, or by using arguments in the URL
that include the "<" character which confuses MS' parser that modifies hyperlinks in received e-mails.

Instead of one DNS lookup on a URL for a hyperlink, there are two: one
for the MS Safe Links target, and then another if the redirection is not blocked. The privacy issue is Microsoft knows when you click on a Safe
Links hyperlink (since the connection first goes to their server), and
also to where the original hyperlink pointed (since MS is doing the redirection). EVERY redirection service can track to where anyone uses
a redirection hyperlink. Everyone that uses your shortened URL can get
tracked going to the original target. Everyone that clicks on a Safe
Links hyperlink in an e-mail can be track by Microsoft to where the user eventually gets connected to the original target.

If a hyperlink fails, was it caused by the redirection service or is the original target unavailable or unreachable to the redirection service?
Adding more jumps into a link path makes the chain weaker.

I'm sure there are lots of other redirection services employed under the
claim of convenience or protection, but they all can suffer link rot,
and have privacy issues. And some redirection services are covert: you
may not know they are employed in your communications.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 7/23/2024 11:57 AM, Big Al wrote:

https://www.howtogeek.com/google-link-shortener-breaking

Google used to run one of the most popular link shortening services, allowing people to create smaller links and track clicks. Now, though, Google is fully killing off its link shortener, and all the shortened links it generated.

Starting next month, people clicking on goo.gl links will likely see a warning page before being redirected to their desired website. This marks the beginning of the end for Google's URL shortener service, which will be completely shut down by August

2025. Google originally discontinued goo.gl for new users back in 2018, but existing shortened links remained functional. However, the company has now decided to fully retire the service and kill off all of the shortened links it generated.

Where would that be popular ?

I've likely seen a link like that, but I couldn't
estimate how popular that shortener is.

I had an image site I used to use, and they decided to go all Facebook
and all the images were lost (the pre-Facebook images were thrown away).
You cannot depend on anything in the Cloud. That should be obvious by now.

Paul

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Tue, 23 Jul 2024 11:38:09 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

For example, Microsoft adds their Safe
Links, part of their Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), to their e-mail services (Hotmail, Outlook.com, Live.com). When an e-mail goes into
your MS e-mail account, Microsoft modifies hyperlinks in the e-mail to
point to MS servers. When clicking on the modified hyperlink, the
connection first goes to Microsoft who checks if the link points to a malicious destination.

That is not happening here.

I checked my outlook.com email in Thunderbird. The links are _NOT_
modified to point to MS servers.

Just in case the above was only for webmail, I logged on to outlook.com
webmail checked there too. The links are also _NOT_ modified there.


At some previous ${DAYJOB}s, links in emails to my ${COMPANY} email
address have been modified similar to this. I presume that is a service ${COMPANY} paid for. And ${COMPANY}'s risk should the modified links
go AWOL.


--
Kind regards
Ralph Fox
🦊

A skabbit sheep fyles all the flock.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Ralph Fox <-rf-nz-@-.invalid> wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

For example, Microsoft adds their Safe
Links, part of their Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), to their e-mail
services (Hotmail, Outlook.com, Live.com). When an e-mail goes into
your MS e-mail account, Microsoft modifies hyperlinks in the e-mail to
point to MS servers. When clicking on the modified hyperlink, the
connection first goes to Microsoft who checks if the link points to a
malicious destination.

That is not happening here.

I checked my outlook.com email in Thunderbird. The links are _NOT_
modified to point to MS servers.

Just in case the above was only for webmail, I logged on to outlook.com webmail checked there too. The links are also _NOT_ modified there.

At some previous ${DAYJOB}s, links in emails to my ${COMPANY} email
address have been modified similar to this. I presume that is a service ${COMPANY} paid for. And ${COMPANY}'s risk should the modified links
go AWOL.

No, not a paid-for service. Microsoft implemented their ATP function on
their e-mail service of which Safe Links was a component. Do you use a corporate, paid, or school account at Microsoft for e-mail? Those
provide a server-side admin option to enable/disable Safe Links. Free
accounts don't get the option.

I have a free MS e-mail account, and eventually discovered the hyperlink alternation by Microsoft. I used to report spam to Spamcop and
Spamhaus. Besides parsing the Received headers to track to the sending
mail server (after ignoring internal host routing, eliminate bogus
Received headers added by spammers, and checking linkage between
Received headers to track the actual routing), I would also report based
on the spammy hyperlinks in an e-mail. That meant I needed to get MS to disable their Spam Links function on my Hotmail account. As I recall,
it was possible to de-obfuscate the embedded real target of the
redirection URL, but it required more work, like having to undo all the
escaped (percent-signed) characters not allowed in URL arguments to
convert back to their allowed characters in the original URL. It was
very similar to de-obfuscating Google's search URLs that use the same
trick to track on which redirection URLs you click in their searches.

After discovering the Safe Links redirection that MS foisted upon me,
and because there was no server-side account option to disable it for a
free Hotmail account (nor for my separate Outlook.com account), all I
could do was report the issue using the feedback form in their webmail
client. I selected to let me contact me regarding the feedback. In
about a week (actually I didn't expect a response, so was pleasantly
surprised they responded to it), they said they disabled Safe Links in
my MS account noting the enable/disable option is not available in the server-side settings, and feedback was the only way to change the
setting. Took a few days before I noticed the hyperlinks were no longer getting modified to point at outlook.com for their Safe Links
redirection service. About a couple months later, I noticed the
hyperlinks were getting modified again, and had to use their webmail
client's feedback to request again to have Safe Links disabled. I think
there was a 3rd time I had to repeat the feedback to get Safe Links
disabled. That was a few years ago, and they have not [accidentally]
reenabled Safe Links on my MS account.

Since it is deemed time-of-click protection (obviously the redirection
doesn't happen until you click on the hyperlink), and often mentions it
as part of a Defender feature, maybe MS afflicted only Windows users.
When viewing an e-mail, you have to look at its raw source to see the
HTML code to see to where the <A> actually points, not what an e-mail
client may present as a hint for a hyperlink.

I've had a Hotmail account since about 2002. Actually I had Hotmail
back in 1998 when it was owned by Hotmail. Then Microsoft acquired
Hotmail instead of starting from scratch. They do that a lot with
services or products. I remember getting a Gmail account back around
2004 when you had to submit a request for a beta account, and had to
wait until you got an invite from their lottery. Google also
implemented a redirection service on externally linked images in
e-mails. The image links were modified to point to Gmail secure proxy
servers, and when Google changed the default of users having to approve
viewing external images to defaulting to showing the external images
since they thought the redirection through their proxy servers made them
safe to appear in e-mails. That was around 2013. The first effect was
web beacons got killed; however, since clients that show external images
by default had Gmail make a callback connect to the originating image
source, tracking on message open was still doable.

In Hotmail and Outlook, and in Gmail, I have server-side settings
configured to never display sender images by default in received
messages displayed in their webmail clients. I also similar configure
my local e-mail client to never show externally linked images (unless I
choose otherwise as a per-message option). I don't care how safe
Microsoft or Google think is an externally linked image. Since I got
Microsoft (after repeated attempts) to disable Safe Links, there is no
way I could temporarily reenable Safe Links to see if Microsoft is still altering hyperlinks in e-mails to point back to the MS Safe Links proxy servers.

Microsoft launched ATP back in 2015. That was the MS response in
presenting MS as helping to thwart malware since the most common vector
for infection was via e-mail as hyperlinks or attachments. Since there
are still MS articles on ATP and Safe Links, it appears MS is still
providing that handholding to its users, but some users with admin privs
at the server can disable Safe Links. However, it is possible that it
was during MS 365 (then MS Office) subscription that ATP was deployed
onto my MS account. Most ATP articles refer to it (now) as Office 365
Advanced Threat Protection. For example, see:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/advanced-outlook-com-security-for-microsoft-365-subscribers-882d2243-eab9-4545-a58a-b36fee4a46e2

So, maybe it's just the MS 365 users that get screwed; however, I don't
recall there was a server-side enable/disable setting in my MS account
while I had the MS 365 subscription, and why I got stuck having to use
feedback (which had to use their webmail's feedback process, not the
feedback in the MS Outlook local client). Could be Microsoft used its customerbase as involuntary guinea pigs when they first came out with
ATP foisting Safe Links on all users, but ATP later became a premium
feature. The above article mentions disabling Safe Links by going
online to the account to Settings > Premium > Security. Nope, never
such a nav path in account-side settings in free Hotmail/Outlook.com
accounts, only for corporate, paid, or school accounts.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Tue, 23 Jul 2024 17:02:16 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

Ralph Fox <-rf-nz-@-.invalid> wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

For example, Microsoft adds their Safe
Links, part of their Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), to their e-mail
services (Hotmail, Outlook.com, Live.com). When an e-mail goes into
your MS e-mail account, Microsoft modifies hyperlinks in the e-mail to
point to MS servers. When clicking on the modified hyperlink, the
connection first goes to Microsoft who checks if the link points to a
malicious destination.

That is not happening here.

I checked my outlook.com email in Thunderbird. The links are _NOT_
modified to point to MS servers.

Just in case the above was only for webmail, I logged on to outlook.com
webmail checked there too. The links are also _NOT_ modified there.

At some previous ${DAYJOB}s, links in emails to my ${COMPANY} email
address have been modified similar to this. I presume that is a service
${COMPANY} paid for. And ${COMPANY}'s risk should the modified links
go AWOL.

No, not a paid-for service. Microsoft implemented their ATP function on their e-mail service of which Safe Links was a component. Do you use a corporate, paid, or school account at Microsoft for e-mail? Those
provide a server-side admin option to enable/disable Safe Links. Free accounts don't get the option.

I have a free outlook.com account. Links do not get modified.

[...snip 14 lines...]

After discovering the Safe Links redirection that MS foisted upon me,
and because there was no server-side account option to disable it for a
free Hotmail account (nor for my separate Outlook.com account), all I
could do was report the issue using the feedback form in their webmail client. I selected to let me contact me regarding the feedback. In
about a week (actually I didn't expect a response, so was pleasantly surprised they responded to it), they said they disabled Safe Links in
my MS account noting the enable/disable option is not available in the server-side settings, and feedback was the only way to change the
setting.

I have never contacted outlook.com support to request that they disable
"Safe Links". Links still do not get modified.

[...snip 8 lines...]

Since it is deemed time-of-click protection (obviously the redirection doesn't happen until you click on the hyperlink), and often mentions it
as part of a Defender feature, maybe MS afflicted only Windows users.

I use Windows.

I doubt MS modify links server-side (at outlook.com) for Windows users
only. I doubt outlook.com sees what OS my email client is running on.

I also doubt MS modify links client-side (inside my Thunderbird) for
Windows users only. That would be possible with web browsers running JavaScript in a webmail page, but Thunderbird does not run JavaScript
in email messages.

When viewing an e-mail, you have to look at its raw source to see the
HTML code to see to where the <A> actually points, not what an e-mail
client may present as a hint for a hyperlink.

In Thunderbird, when I hover the mouse over the hyperlink I can see
in the status bar where the link actually points.

My other email client works the same way.

No need to look at the raw source. And it is not uncommon for the
HTML body to be base64 encoded -- which will totally obfuscate its
raw source.

[...snip 34 lines...]

Most ATP articles refer to it (now) as Office 365
Advanced Threat Protection. For example, see:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/advanced-outlook-com-security-for-microsoft-365-subscribers-882d2243-eab9-4545-a58a-b36fee4a46e2

So, maybe it's just the MS 365 users that get screwed

I have a free outlook.com account, not a MS 365 subscription.

[...snip 10 lines...]


--
Kind regards
Ralph Fox
🦊

Mony words wald have meikle drink.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Tue, 23 Jul 2024 11:57:46 -0400, Big Al <alan@invalid.com> wrote:

https://www.howtogeek.com/google-link-shortener-breaking

Google used to run one of the most popular link shortening services, allowing people to create
smaller links and track clicks. Now, though, Google is fully killing off its link shortener, and all
the shortened links it generated.

It's happened with other such link-shortening services too, Stumble
Upon, for example.


--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

"...winston" <winstonmvp@gmail.com> wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

Microsoft launched ATP back in 2015...<snip> it is possible that it
was during MS 365 (then MS Office) subscription that ATP was deployed
onto my MS account. Most ATP articles refer to it (now) as Office 365
Advanced Threat Protection. For example, see:

Correct, it did not exist in M365 Home/Personal prior.

Back in May 2026, I paid for a Microsoft Office 365 Personal
subscription to include the Outlook program. I bought three 1-year subscriptions (at eBay for $32 apiece instead much higher price charged
by Microsoft) which I registered at the same time to get an aggregate of
3 years for the subscription (instead of waiting at 1-year renewals to
use the next subscription card). When the subscription came due in
2019, I decided not to renew.

So was it only because I had the MS 365 subscription starting in 2016
and after Microsoft introduced ATP back in 2016 that got me screwed with
their Safe Links "feature"? There was never a server-side account
setting as mentioned in various online articles, and even MS articles,
on how to disable Safe Links. Back then, they said you needed more
expensive subscriptions or licenses that had sysadmin controls. They
mentioned corporate and school accounts to see the setting exposed in
the webmail client's settings or some admin dashboard.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/advanced-outlook-com-security-for-microsoft-365-subscribers-882d2243-eab9-4545-a58a-b36fee4a46e2

So, maybe it's just the MS 365 users that get screwed; however, I
don't recall there was a server-side enable/disable setting in my MS
account while I had the MS 365 subscription, and why I got stuck
having to use feedback (which had to use their webmail's feedback
process, not the feedback in the MS Outlook local client).

Also correct, never was a server-side enable/disable setting in the
web UI.

Online articles, and MS articles, say otherwise. They told me to go to
online into their webmail client to navigate to Settings > Premium >
Security where there was a toggle option under an Advanced Security
subsection. Well, not even the Security section was available. I was
told the only way to get that was to pay more for a premium account
(above the cost already for the MS 365 subscription), or be the admin
for a corporate or school account.

There was never an ATP setting in the local Outlook client. For
corporate or school accounts they had a settings section or dashboard
they'd visit online to set policies. Despite what they described for
getting at the setting using their webmail client, it was never there
for me. I wasn't paying more for more seats, premium extras, or corporate/school admin features just to get them to disable their Safe
Links feature that modified hyperlinks in received e-mails. I had to
use the feedback link in their webmail client, not in the Outlook
program on my computer.

Back then, the webmail client's feedback link was in a rightside pane
(probably after clicking on Help). Nowadays the feedback link is still
under the Help menu, but in a toolbar. Back then, the Help pane tried
to get you do searches to find relevant articles (which were rarely
relevant to my queries). You had to do a search first, and then scroll
down all the way to bottom of the help pane to see the feedback link.
Nowadays the Help -> Feedback is more directly accessed, but still opens
a rightside pane.

Also, for M365 Personal/Family the Feedback is not a feature.

Back then, you didn't use the feedback link in the local programs.
Those got you to tech support on those programs, not for their services.
You had to use the feedback link in their webmail client. Feedback was
and still is a feature of their webmail client before, during, and after
(and today) my MS 365 subscription.

Since all M365 is subscription based(i.e a MSFT Account)
- mutliple choices for Feedaback
1. Use the Feedback option in the M365 email addy in the outlook.com UI.

That's why I couldn't figure out why you made the above claim about
feedback was not a feature.

The webmail feedback is what I used. Thereafter they contacted me by
e-mail, so ensuing discussions were via e-mail. When submitting
feedback, you have to enable the option "Can we contact you about this feedback".

Back then, as I recall, you had to view the rightside Help pane, and a
feedback link was at the bottom (after they first tried to get you to
waste time searching for help articles). Now I cannot find a feedback
link in their current webmail client. They have changed the webmail
client a couple times since then.

2. Use the Feedback option in the Win8/10/11 mail app

When I used the feedback menu entry in the local Outlook client, those
folks told me I had contacted the wrong tech support. That feedback was
for support on the local apps, not on their webmail client nor on their
web apps. They told me to use the feedback entry in the webmail client.

3. Use Microsoft Feedback Portal

Never used that. I was still back on Windows 7 back then. The feedback
hub app was added in Windows 10. I have never visited nor used https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/ to submit feedback. Just as I was
told not to use feedback in the local programs for problems with their
e-mail service, you have to be careful at that portal to use their
Outlook.com forum instead of their Outlook forum.

You sure that was available back in 2016? No one that contacted me
about disabling ATP ever mentioned that web site for a feedback portal.
Looks like this is the web site version of their Feedback Hub app that
showed up in Windows 10. None of the Feedback Hub app or this feedback
portal web site was known nor told to me back in 2016 when I needed to
get Safe Links disabled. For example, when I visit the Outlook forum at
the feedback portal site, the oldest feedback is 2 years old, not 8
years ago (or 9 years ago when ATP arrived). The oldest Outlook.com
forum post is 1 year ago. Perhaps they trim out old submissions.

The entire feedback portal web site and the feedback hub app are a mess,
and I don't recall those were available back when Microsoft screwed me
with their Safe Links "feature".

4. Use the feedback option in the iOs/Android app

Again, the problem was with the server-side "feature" of Safe Links,
part of ATP, not with the mobile app. When I used the feedback link in
the Outlook app, I was told I had reached the wrong tech support group.
That was for feedback on the app. To submit feedback on their e-mail
service, I was told to use the feedback link in their webmail client.

Finally, as Ralph noted.
Links do not get modified.

That is the whole point of Microsoft's Safe Links feature: modify
hyperlinks in received e-mails. The hyperlinks got modified to point to <varhost>.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/<args> instead of the
original hyperlink string. The original (target) URL was encoded as an argument in the redirection URL. ATP would scan incoming e-mail, and
rewrite the href attribute in the <A> tag to point to Microsoft's proxy
server. Most users employing an HTML rendering of e-mails didn't know
about the redirections. Those viewing in text-only mode questioned what
they hell were all these <varhost>.safelinks.protection.outlook.com URLs
in the body of their e-mails.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/defender-office-365/safe-links-about

Not to be confused with emails(including listservers) where a clickable
link prefixes with safelink protection which is ATP.
e.g.
https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=<snipped, the url not important, just the prefix as an example>

Links don't get modified. Links get modified. Make a choice, please.

Note: ATP only applies in Outlook(365) for outlook.com type accounts(outlook/live/hotmail/msn.com) - i.e. Outlook.com web server
based accounts.

Safe Links was not a problem until I paid for an MS 365 Personal
subscription. Apparently Microsoft afflicted just their paying users
with ATP which was not configurable in non-corporate or non-school
accounts. I got the Safe Links policy disabled on my Hotmail account,
and likewise on my Outlook.com account. Apparently ATP is a premium
level affliction: you need a premium, corporate, or school account to
have the Safe Links feature, and let you disable it. I got Safe Links
disabled back when I had an MS 365 subscription. I haven't had that for
about 5 years now. However, because I got Safe Links disabled before
means I cannot see with the now non-premium (free) account if Safe Links
is not applied to that account. It got turned off, and is still off.

If the Safe Links affliction was just foisted on premium accounts, then
I'll update my notes about it. Those that always have a free MS account
aren't afflicted. For those with premium accounts (MS 365, corporate,
school), and by your statements, Safe Links is foisted only at some
minimal subscription level of MS 365.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

winston <winstonmvp@gmail.com> wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

Big Al <alan@invalid.com> wrote:

https://www.howtogeek.com/google-link-shortener-breaking

I'm sure there are lots of other redirection services employed under the
claim of convenience or protection, but they all can suffer link rot,
and have privacy issues. And some redirection services are covert: you
may not know they are employed in your communications.

Link rot and disappearing short-link providers has been the norm for
some time.

Yep, an old problem, but still having immediate impact on loss of a
redirection service. Neither Microsoft or Google promise to always
provide free e-mail services, but shutting them down would have a lot of immediate impact on a LOT of users. I remember when ISPs started
discontinuing Usenet service resulting in a outcry of many users and
them having to scramble to find alternate providers. As I recall,
Comcast announced dropping Usenet 2 years before, but there was still a
lot of complaints when it actually happened. The lead announcement
didn't eliminate the pain at the time of the event.

Not to be confused with online cloud services that provide a link to a
web stored file.

Link rot applies to online/cloud file storage, too. They might provide
public storage, but then remove it later, so any URLs to files there are
no longer usable. They might employ an invite scheme where to make a
file public has you send a link via e-mail to the recipient granted
access. You could publish a URL to a public file at onlien storage in a
Usenet post or in an e-mail. Years later the cloud service changes, or
it dies, or they close your account making those old URLs useless hence
link rot.

I've since moved to other cloud storage services, but I don't rely on
them for permanent storage. I always keep a local copy. The online
copy is just a backup, or to share, but I consider the service as
temporary which could be temporary for my use or temporary for a few
years while the service survives.

I could upload a file with code to online storage. The service might
provide easy-to-use public folders to store files to which I can give
direct URLs to the files. Later they change to e-mailed invites to
specific recipients. Later they decide to charge for what was
previously a free service. They go belly up. All those old URLs I
doled out go dead. Link rot to online cloud services.

I'm not sure me deleting the online copy of a file is considered link
rot, but, just like link rot, the absence of the file then makes all
those old published URLs go dead. That's what is link rot: old
published URLs become invalid. Of course, even non-redirecting URLs
suffer link rot, too. How many times has someone published a URL to a Microsoft web page to only find out it later disappeared (e.g., all
those Windows XP web pages that Microsoft removed). That's when a web
site changes. Link rot caused by a redirection service destroys all
those old redirection links all at once. Pow!

Link rot isn't just about the loss of a redirection service. If the
service goes down, has DNS problems, or other issues, the URL to their
site that redirects to the original target doesn't work. Link rot could
be temporary, too. It happened with Microsoft's ATP servers: there was
a short period when all those Safe Links would fail, because users
clicking on those hyperlinks could connect to the MS servers. I don't
know how many Safe Link outages there have been mostly because I got
Safe Links policy disabled in my MS account, but a search finds there
have been outages. They're servers, so no such thing as always 100%
uptime and never any network issues reaching the servers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_rot

Worse is link rot occurs when the target still exists, and that's caused
by redirection. Not all online file storage providers give you a direct
URL to an online copy of a file. It's a redirect or obtuse URL.

Another reason to include the long (original) URL along with a shortened
URL is the use of URL shorteners by spammers and phishers. Some URL
shortener services provide an option to see to where the redirection
points BEFORE visiting the target (e.g., TinyURL with the "preview"
hostname). Most don't, so the user is left blind as to where the
redirection points. Did goo.gl ever have the option to show the target
before visiting there? You have to find an unshortener site or some
trick to determine to where the redirection URL points before connecting
to the target site. When I see shortened URLs in e-mail, on web sites,
or anywhere the long URL is absent, I get suspicious. I shouldn't be
blinded as to what is the real target. Redirects are too easily misused
or are malicious. I've even seen boobs that create a redirection link
that saved all of 1 or 2 characters from the original URL. Oh, gee,
what a huge savings in string length ... not.

Yes, link rot is an old phenomenom, but not to those that still expect
to use the redirection service, or try to click on those old published
but dead links. To them, it happened "all of a sudden". Typically you
don't discover link rot until you happen to try a dead link. Someone
noting here goo.gl is dying doesn't touch much of the population of
users of goo.gl. If you visit goo.gl, you get, ahem, redirected to a
blog page about the dying service. However, I don't think you need to
visit goo.gl to create a redirection URL using goo.gl, but I've never
used goo.gl to create redirection URLs.

Google announce deprecation of their goo.gl service back in 2018. The
blog page you hit when now visiting goo.gl is dated a year ago. Yet I
see forum posts only 14 days old where users are still wondering how to
use Google redirect at their web site. Back in 2018, supposedly goo.gl
went dead in that you could no longer create new redirection links using goo.gl. Google replace goo.gl with Firebase Dynamic Links (FDLs), but https://firebase.google.com/products/dynamic-links/ went dead, but I
found https://firebase.google.com/docs/dynamic-links which says that
service also got deprecated and dies on April 25, 2025, the same
expiration as goo.gl.

From what I've read, goo.gl went dead back in 2018, so it dying is old
news. It's Google killing off the proxy servers that is new. No one
has been able to create a goo.gl redirection URL in 6 years. All those
ancient or archive web pages, and e-mails with goo.gl URLs will puke in
about another year. I doubt, for example, web.archive.org is going
through all its archived web pages to replace goo.gl URLs with
unshortened URLs. While I use TinyURL, I don't expect them to survive
forever. It's the Internet. Everything is temporary. Not even web
sites live forever nor are always up or reachable.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)