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Comment by marshray | Hacker News Reader

Everyone these days is so polite.

OK, that was a bit of an exaggeration. But back in my day the web had a whole site high-bandwidth site specifically for educating careless webmasters about the dangers of hotlinking: g o a t s e . c x.

It was used to great effect on things like auction sites where the original page html was not allowed to be changed after listing.

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I'm not sure if politeness is the motivator. Imagine if you had done that, for all hotlinks to your script. Then, it turns out a children's website is hotlinking your script.

Some idiot at Company X decides that it's actually your fault, since its your script that did it. To save face, they get an expensive lawyer to sue you. Next thing you know, you're a registered sex offender.

Well that escalated quickly.

> To save face, they get an expensive lawyer to sue you. Next thing you know, you're a registered sex offender.

Please learn the difference between civil and criminal law.

Back in the 90's it wouldn't be unthinkable for someone to be criminally prosecuted for a goatse-ing a minor in Snookelatchee County, Kentucky.

Please learn the difference between hyperbole and literal statements.

That was exactly what I had in mind when I wrote that.

I once hotlinked an image posted on a forum, and they served the same link you provided.

I never did a hotlink again.

There was a post on reddit to a site that had hotlinked an image for it's background who suddenly found itself with a pornographic background.

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