Beware of Clicking on Shortened URLs

It seems like there’s always something new to beware of on the web. Although not new, spammers and others are using shortened URLs to their advantage.

About Shortened URLs
Shortened URLs can be created by using services such as TinyURL. They’re especially convenient for providing links to URLs that are exceptionally long. The service shortens a long URL, such as 100 characters, into something as short as 15 characters, making it fit on one line and short enough to  fit in messages, such as Twitter, that limit the amount of characters in a post.

The Problem
For example, if the URL points to Amazon.com, instead of being able to see that it really does point to a page on Amazon all you see is this.

http://tinyurl.com/n93tvz

The “http://amazon.com/” part of the URL is hidden and you don’t know if it really takes you to Amazon’s website.

A Solution?
TinyURL offers a preview option. Instead of taking you directly to the site the URL points to, the preview option takes you to TinyURL to view the original. Here’s the preview URL for the same page on Amazon.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/n93tvz

First it takes the surfer to TinyURL to view the original URL and provides a link to “proceed to this site.” It looks like a safer option but I imagine spammers will find a way to get around this.

Visit:
TinyURL.com
Information Week

Read More:
Information Week’s article Web Link Shrinkage Powers Spam Surge by Thomas Claburn .

Wikipedia, Journalism, and Misinformation

Shane Fitzgerald a UCD student studying sociology and economics purposely posted incorrect information on French composer, Maurice Jarre’s, Wikipedia page.

After learning of Jarre’s death through Sky News on March 30th, Fitzgerald posted a completely made up quote on Wikipedia. His goal was to “show the potential dangers that arise” from journalists’ heavy reliance on the World Wide Web for their news sources.

Shortly after Fitzgerald posted the information Wikipedia administrators removed it and he put it back again. Along came some legitimate newspaper journalists who picked up the information and printed it in their newspapers. These newspapers didn’t know they printed inaccurate information until Fitzgerald informed them.

It is common knowledge that misinformation is posted on Wikipedia. Call me naive but I didn’t realize respected journalists use Wikipedia as their one and only information source.

Why didn’t the journalists do their research? Has getting the news out before competitors come before the goal of quality journalism? Did this story have lower priority than others and as a result was given less time for research and writing? Do consumers demand immediacy over quality?

Hmmm, I think I’ll follow my English teacher’s advice and get my information from more than one source.

Read Shane Fitzgerald’s Lazy Journalism Exposed by Online Hoax at the IrishTimes.com

Read Shane Hegarty’s IrishTimes.com article, Unrealiably Informed, about the problems journalists face in finding reliable information.

Urban Legends

Have you heard about the recent Postcard / Greeting Card virus or the UPS virus? Or maybe you’ve heard some crazy story about President-Elect Barack Obama. To learn about the truthfulness of those bizarre stories you hear check out Snopes.com. It’s an interesting and informative site about urban legends.

Bogus Online News

Do you believe all the news you read online? It’s not just novices who fall prey to online misinformation, it’s also professional journalists who succumb to bad information.

Check out Noam Cohen’s October 12, 2008 article, “Spinning a Web of Lies at Digital Speed” in The New York Times. He reports that sites such as the Drudge Report and ireport.com have succumbed to reporting misinformation.

For example:

“Apple stock fell as much as 5 percent after a CNN-sponsored citizen-journalism site, ireport.com, published a false item from a user reporting that Steve Jobs, the company’s chief executive whose health has been a public preoccupation, had been rushed to the emergency room.”

How does this happen? The rapid pace at which news travels online is a major component of the problem. Information is picked up from one unverified source, reported by a legitimate source, and from there it snowballs into a web of deceit.

To address the problem Fabrice Florin founded News Trust. Check out the “experimental” news site at newstrust.net.

Evaluating Websites

When you need reliable information finding it on the web can be difficult. Websites don’t always reveal themselves for who they really are. Sometimes it’s blatantly obvious the site contains misinformation and other times it’s not so obvious. For example, WikipediA, The Free Encyclopedia has had problems with contributors posting inaccurate information. Even more insidious is the problem of deceptive sites also known as hoax sites.

So how do you evaluate a site? For starters, check out Jim Kapoun’s Five criteria for evaluating web pages on the Cornell University Library site.

For more information go to Cornell Library’s Evaluating Web Sites: Criteria and Tools page.

Check out the site about Jacopo di Poggibonsi. Is it real or is it a hoax?