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Comment by sangnoir | Hacker News Reader

...or sending that image[1] jwz sends back upon detecting HN in the referer. I bet they'll find the app in a matter of hours, or at least reduce the traffic drastically.

1. https://www.jwz.org NSFW!

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Just learned that this person owns DNA Lounge (and pizza?), and is a founder (early contributor?) of Netscape and Mozilla.org. I've lived and worked in that particular area of SF for years and haven't known this.

One of my company's clients has a beautiful office right above DNA Lounge (well, across the street or just adjacent - it's been a while and I've only been there once). They told me they can hear sound checks from their rooftop patio.

there used to be linux based public terminals in DNA lounge too, IIRC

netscape used to display a spinning compass when you put about:jwz in the title bar

other good ones were about:1994 and about:mozilla

hey, about:mozilla still works in firefox

about:robots also works in Firefox, I know it's been there for a long time but I have no idea if it was ever in Netscape.

about:robots is from the early Firefox releases. Pretty sure it is from Firefox 3.0 development as you can find the same robot in images when searching for Firefox Gran Paridiso Robot.

https://www.google.com/search?q=firefox+gran+paradiso+robot&...

Also, jwz is responsible for xscreensaver.

This makes me wonder why the hell referer headers are still sent by major browsers, especially to third parties. I can’t think of a single reason that benefits the user.

Originally it probably just sounded like a cool feature to see what blog linked to you. Now its been around for so long that so much has been programmed to actually use it. If you turn it off you get every anti bot script blowing up on you.

I think browsers did drop the path from it at least.

For one thing, examining referer is a common way that a server determines a request is not a hotlink. Sure you can do something more complicated with cookies or whatever, but lots of sites are just using referer and they'll break if the client doesn't send it.

But for that it's enough to send it for same-origin requests. No need to send it cross-origin, except for tracking purposes.

That'd still break the distinction between hotlinking and the user using a bookmark or copy/paste to directly open the URL in question.

Letting the sites distinguish between the two does not seem to be in the interest of the user.

Well, it'd mean that any site blocking hotlinking would also automatically block direct bookmarks/URL entry, too, which isn't really in the "interest of the user" either, I'd say.

If Chrome suddenly stopped sending referrer headers, let's be real here, 99% of websites would be fixed within a couple of days at most.

if you are making any sort of content or running a website, it is really useful to know how people found you.

All I get is a scrolling hex editor looking thing. Maybe that redirect has been disabled?

Yep, jwz has had a change of heart and sees today's HN as a born again breath of fresh air.

I’m seeing the nut sundae on iOS mobile so I wouldn’t get too happy yet...

Try from a new profile or incognito.

I saw the described image but after I visited the site directly I couldn't see it any more when redirectly via hacker news. Saw it again when I opened an incognito tab.

You aren't sending a referrer header (a good thing).

For those reticent to click on their work computers but morbidly curious, can someone describe the image?

It's a motivational-poster-type image with a white egg holder in the foreground, but instead of an egg, it's holding one exquisitely detailed hairy, caucasian ball[1]. At the top, the title is "HACKER NEWS" and the bottom text is "A DDoS OF FINANCE-OBSESSED MAN-CHILDREN AND BROGRAMMERS"

1. Is there a collective biological term for scrotum and it's contents that is not general like "genitals" is?

I think he's the only one that uses that? Barely even worth mentioning in comparison.

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