What The Hell? Security

Copyright © 2009 What The Hell? Security

If you believe that Bit.ly is going to solve their shortened URL problem the way they intend to, have I got a story for you.

[Sidebar:  Be aware that it's completely safe to click on the links in the previous paragraph.  If you don't believe me, select View -> Source in your browser's menu bar and read the HTML for yourself.  Line 237, give or take.  Where it says <A HREF ... well, never mind.  It's too complicated.]

I had this great money-making idea the other day.  It required an accomplice, so I recruited my good friend Felonious Link. You may have heard of him — the heir apparent of the Anchor Tag fortune.  He obviously doesn’t need the money, but what the hell, he owed me a favor.

Link and I make a good team.  Whereas I’m a pathological liar, Link is one crafty sonofabitch.  First off, he’s a real mealymouth.  Ask him a complicated question and he’ll usually do something lame like point here.  And while you can usually count on him to tell enough of the truth that it qualifies, from time to time he’ll slip you a real mickey.  The kind, by the time he’s done, that makes canceling your 30% APR Visa seem more compelling than it already is.

The scam was absurdly simple.  Like shooting phish over at barrel.com.  All I did was have Link draw up a bunch of signs and hang them on busy street corners.  They read “Brand new shortcut to your bank!  Follow this arrow!”

Here’s where it gets tricky.  The arrows <snigger> all pointed to the drive-up window at the abandoned Fraudburger restaurant, which I’d tricked out to look like just like a real bank’s drive-up window.  I’m talking complete with  lollipops and dog biscuits.  The cars lined up for blocks to do business with me.

Wait — if you think that’s funny, wait until you hear how the banks responded.  Instead of hiring companies to hang truthful signs around town, they hired ones that go around scribbling “We warn against following this arrow!” on top of mine!  Can you believe it?  Yeah, so can I.  Those sign-scribbling companies have freaking amazing marketing departments.

But lucky for me nobody has caught on yet.  I mean, think about it.  Each day they focus my bad directions is a day they don’t focus on their good directions.  I’m pretty sure I can keep them distracted for years.  Hell, if the sign scribblers keep at it, I just might pull off another fifteen!   Gawd forbid they ever figure out that the Web needs a way to publish truthful links…