8 ms·

Non-Libyan URL Shortener

180 points by pitdesi 16y ago

hendavid 16y ago
First post!
- random42 16y ago
  You are being downvoted, because your comment does not add anything worthwhile to the discuss/topic. Kindly read the the community guidelines at http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html You may also find http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html by Paul Graham useful.
  - burgerbrain 16y ago
    He crated that account about a minute before making that post, and likely never had any intention of using it again. (Or in other words, don't worry about it, and let moderation do its thing ;)
    - random42 16y ago
      May be so. However, Because of the fact that he is a newbie in the community, and not a spammer/troll, I'd like to give him the benefit of doubt. Having a barrage of downvotes, just because you dint know the rules when you are new, without any explanation is not helpful (and slightly unfair and discouraging).
      - burgerbrain 16y ago
        Fair enough, but as I recall HN barrages you with the rules as you join.
        random42 16y ago
        Oh.. I remember the opposite actually. (No mention of guidelines), when you join.
- joshfinnie 16y ago
  Karma is currently at -18... lesson learned. <edit> Touchy tonight are we? I was just pointing out that it might not be in the best interest to downvote someone into oblivion on one of their first posts to Hacker News. With the green names indicating new people, we have the ability to show them the right way without killing his karma and motivation to post here. Random42 pointed him in the right direction...
  - biot 16y ago
    > it might not be in the best interest to downvote someone > into oblivion on one of their first posts to Hacker News I disagree. If someone doesn't have the courtesy to try and understand the community they are participating in before they participate, lowering an arbitrary number associated with their username is hardly any kind of punishment. The only impact it has on the user is that they now have to earn back points on their arbitrary number. If it also bans them from posting for a while, even better.
    - joshfinnie 16y ago
      Thank you for being the first person who downvoted me (assuming) and writing why you disagree. I come from idea that this person wanted to join Hacker News; didn't understand the community; didn't find the rules and regulations right away; and has been scared away from the community by crazy downvotes. How many downvotes does it take to kill a comment? This person is forever lost to Hacker News...
ares2012 16y ago
Both funny and poignant. It is interesting to consider how many popular web services use .ly domain names and are hence tied to Libya (albeit far removed).
thushan 16y ago
I tip my hat to the genius who came up with this.
- gaius 16y ago
  He's nothing compared to the genius behind http://arseh.at/ http://arseh.at/
5l 16y ago
Hate to nit pick but isn't it Gaddafi, or Qaddafi? Edit: So it is, although the correct spelling is already taken.
- leftnode 16y ago
  http://blogs.abcnews.com/theworldnewser/2009/09/how-many-different-ways-can-you-spell-gaddafi.html http://blogs.abcnews.com/theworldnewser/2009/09/how-many-dif... or any of those! :)
  - pluies 16y ago
    And the corresponding regexp ;) http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5365283/regular-expression-to-search-for-gadaffi http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5365283/regular-expressio...
- pitdesi 16y ago
  I like the spelling Gadaffi, but here are atleast 112 different ways to spell his full name: http://blogs.abcnews.com/theworldnewser/2009/09/how-many-different-ways-can-you-spell-gaddafi.html http://blogs.abcnews.com/theworldnewser/2009/09/how-many-dif...
  - 5l 16y ago
    Yes well. Looking at that list there seems to be something of a consensus on the -afi. Also just because 112 different spellings have been used, doesn't mean all 112 spellings are correct. Anyway it's a fun idea and I'm just nit picking.
    - sid0 16y ago
      Define correctness in this context.
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
rkon 16y ago
Now, if only we could stop getting our tv from Tuvalu. Stop reliance on foreign domains! America needs Internet independence! /palin rhetoric
guynamedloren 16y ago
I tried 5 different URLS, then I realized that it only works if you include http or https.
soult 16y ago
While it is a funny play on all those .ly domains and the fact that vb.ly got seized by the Libyan government, it is my opinion that yet another URL shortener is a stupid way of protest. Let me explain: I work with the Urlteam, a group of people that saves shorturl->longurl mappings for a bunch of shorteners. The typical life cycle of small shorteners is this: - URL shortener opens, gets some praise for weird feature that bit.ly doesn't have. - People actually don't care about feature and continue to use bit.ly. - Spammers discover the shortener and abuse it. - Owner closes the shortener because he can't deal with the spam. All that remains are some non-functional links.
- prawn 16y ago
  I created a shortener (for personal control, tracking, etc) and can really, really identify with #3 and #4. I was blocking loads of nonsensical domains each day for weeks before the hosting company pulled the pin and I just gave up and pointed my domain to bit.ly.
  - yuhong 16y ago
    FYI, you can prevent new entries from being added to the shortener database without shutting down the shortener altogether.
    - prawn 16y ago
      Yes, that's true and I should've done that but I wanted to keep the service running quickly through that domain and bit.ly pro did that very easily, it "just" meant losing historical links. Easy to make the wrong decision when you, well-intentioned, set something up with no view to profiting from your time and then get slammed by spammers mercilessly, get no love from your host, etc. I don't know that I'd be the only one who loses a fair swag of their time and money (work, side projects, etc) either dealing with spam or trying to protect against it. So frustrating.
      - vog 16y ago
        > it "just" meant losing historical links. Note that this in a bad idea in general, not just for URL shorteners but also for your personal website and even more for a project or company webseite. There is a classic article by Tim Berners-Lee on that topic, written in 1998: "Cool URIs don't change" (http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI)
d0m 16y ago
I think it should add http:// http:// if it's missing.. I wasn't sure what wasn't working at first when trying www.google.com. Also, I find gadaf.fi really hard to remember.
- blackguardx 16y ago
  Just pick up a newspaper any day for the next few months and the name is bound to be in there.
InclinedPlane 16y ago
Or just use j.mp, it's the same as bit.ly just without the dependence on the Libya TLD.
- RyanKearney 16y ago
  And it's shorter! Although I've started using goo.gl since they offer similar analytic data on your shortlinks and, well, it's powered by Google's infrastructure.
  - InclinedPlane 16y ago
    Oh, nice! I didn't know that google's shortener had been launched for general use (it used to be google reader specific).
csomar 16y ago
I don't consider this a nice move. I actually hate it. It's like Gaddafi is going to stand longer than that and that we should only boycott him. We ought better supporting the rebellion or the people who are under the fire. -- Misrata (24 April): http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.10150168031801915.297670.349930726914 http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.101501680318019...
RobIsIT 16y ago
Why not host your own? I've been using Yourls (http://yourls.org/ http://yourls.org/) for a while now. It works very well. I bought a short domain, installed Yourls in under 5 min and have been happily using it ever since. It even works with Tweetdeck to auto shorten URL's and has a couple of bookmarklets to make things easy. It's locked down for private / non-spammer use and is under my full control.
- NameNickHN 16y ago
  > Why not host your own? I second that. Here is an alternative to yourls.org. http://www.gentlesource.com/short-url-script/ http://www.gentlesource.com/short-url-script/
Xk 16y ago
You should block me from redirecting a link to itself. http://gadaf.fi/5j http://gadaf.fi/5j And probably block cycles too.
- staktrace 16y ago
  Isn't that impossible? You can redirect to a page (under your control) that redirects to itself, if your goal is to get the user stuck in a redirect loop. Until their browser decides enough is enough, that is.
  - wahnfrieden 16y ago
    You can have the service test the link for redirects (using HEAD requests), and have a max depth to be safe. Then if a URL occurs twice, or the max depth is reached, mark as invalid.
  - ay 16y ago
    "browser decides enough is enough" IIRC from reading the sources, both FF and Chrome had a limit of 30 hardcoded - after this many redirects they would give up and say "uh, it's a redirect loop".
- surat 16y ago
  Nice try, but Chrome is smarter than that. "This webpage has a redirect loop. The webpage at http://gadaf.fi/5j http://gadaf.fi/5j has resulted in too many redirects..."
ballard 16y ago
Dictators don't just come out with their own line of cars anymore. http://goo.gl/PqQTK http://goo.gl/PqQTK
jschuur 16y ago
Slightly unrelated, but given the current sanctions, you can't renew a .ly domain name right now as a US business, correct? Bit.ly's domain name expires early next year, last time I checked.
- dmor 16y ago
  do you have a source? i have some .ly domains to renew and have been considering what to do with them
  - jschuur 16y ago
    I'll confess, I hadn't looked into my assumption further until now. Details of the US sanctions against Libya can be found here (look for the Executive Order 13566 PDF): http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/pages/libya.aspx http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/p... The .ly registrar Libyan Spider has been fairly communicative and open with its customers. Their CEO Hadi Naser says they are a 'private company run by ordinary citizens that have no affiliation with the government' and that 'purchasing the .ly domains supports Libyan citizens, not the government'. A 10 percent fee goes to a nongovernmental organization in Libya that mantains the .ly network: http://www.businessinsider.com/ly-registrar-our-servers-haver-been-shut-down-2011-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/ly-registrar-our-servers-have... http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-libyan-connection-behind-ly-url-shorteners/2011/04/11/AFCo8xjD_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-libyan-con... There was some prior disruption of service when Softlayer, their ISP outside of Libya raised some sanction related concerns, but that appears to have been resolved later: http://libyanspider.com/m/announcements.php?id=20 http://libyanspider.com/m/announcements.php?id=20
Locke1689 16y ago
One minor problem being that it takes the "short" out of "URL shortener." Decent for making a point, but those characters are a precious commodity on Twitter.
westicle 16y ago
I was simultaneously impressed by the clean, informative presentation and horrified by the assault of grammatical errors. May I suggest having a native english-speaker review your copy? Otherwise nice site.
iuguy 16y ago
While it's a great pun, it's not exactly short, though is it?
yaix 16y ago
Cool idea! Best URL shortener name of the year.
sjs382 16y ago
I know this is kind of a joke, kind of a way to bring publicity to whats happening in Lybia, but if the bit.ly domain disappears you can always just rewrite "bit.ly" to "j.mp" and the short URLs will keep working. Then again, this presumes that the company is still running (which we can't really put a ton of faith in), which is why i use http://isshort.com http://isshort.com (shameless plug) to find publisher-provided short URLs where possible.

180 points by pitdesi 16y ago

hendavid 16y ago

First post!

random42 16y ago
You are being downvoted, because your comment does not add anything worthwhile to the discuss/topic. Kindly read the the community guidelines at http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html You may also find http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html by Paul Graham useful.
- burgerbrain 16y ago
  He crated that account about a minute before making that post, and likely never had any intention of using it again. (Or in other words, don't worry about it, and let moderation do its thing ;)
  - random42 16y ago
    May be so. However, Because of the fact that he is a newbie in the community, and not a spammer/troll, I'd like to give him the benefit of doubt. Having a barrage of downvotes, just because you dint know the rules when you are new, without any explanation is not helpful (and slightly unfair and discouraging).
    - burgerbrain 16y ago
      Fair enough, but as I recall HN barrages you with the rules as you join.
      - random42 16y ago
        Oh.. I remember the opposite actually. (No mention of guidelines), when you join.
joshfinnie 16y ago
Karma is currently at -18... lesson learned. <edit> Touchy tonight are we? I was just pointing out that it might not be in the best interest to downvote someone into oblivion on one of their first posts to Hacker News. With the green names indicating new people, we have the ability to show them the right way without killing his karma and motivation to post here. Random42 pointed him in the right direction...
- biot 16y ago
  > it might not be in the best interest to downvote someone > into oblivion on one of their first posts to Hacker News I disagree. If someone doesn't have the courtesy to try and understand the community they are participating in before they participate, lowering an arbitrary number associated with their username is hardly any kind of punishment. The only impact it has on the user is that they now have to earn back points on their arbitrary number. If it also bans them from posting for a while, even better.
  - joshfinnie 16y ago
    Thank you for being the first person who downvoted me (assuming) and writing why you disagree. I come from idea that this person wanted to join Hacker News; didn't understand the community; didn't find the rules and regulations right away; and has been scared away from the community by crazy downvotes. How many downvotes does it take to kill a comment? This person is forever lost to Hacker News...

ares2012 16y ago

Both funny and poignant. It is interesting to consider how many popular web services use .ly domain names and are hence tied to Libya (albeit far removed).

thushan 16y ago

I tip my hat to the genius who came up with this.

gaius 16y ago
He's nothing compared to the genius behind http://arseh.at/ http://arseh.at/

5l 16y ago

Hate to nit pick but isn't it Gaddafi, or Qaddafi? Edit: So it is, although the correct spelling is already taken.

leftnode 16y ago
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theworldnewser/2009/09/how-many-different-ways-can-you-spell-gaddafi.html http://blogs.abcnews.com/theworldnewser/2009/09/how-many-dif... or any of those! :)
- pluies 16y ago
  And the corresponding regexp ;) http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5365283/regular-expression-to-search-for-gadaffi http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5365283/regular-expressio...
pitdesi 16y ago
I like the spelling Gadaffi, but here are atleast 112 different ways to spell his full name: http://blogs.abcnews.com/theworldnewser/2009/09/how-many-different-ways-can-you-spell-gaddafi.html http://blogs.abcnews.com/theworldnewser/2009/09/how-many-dif...
- 5l 16y ago
  Yes well. Looking at that list there seems to be something of a consensus on the -afi. Also just because 112 different spellings have been used, doesn't mean all 112 spellings are correct. Anyway it's a fun idea and I'm just nit picking.
  - sid0 16y ago
    Define correctness in this context.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]

rkon 16y ago

Now, if only we could stop getting our tv from Tuvalu. Stop reliance on foreign domains! America needs Internet independence! /palin rhetoric

guynamedloren 16y ago

I tried 5 different URLS, then I realized that it only works if you include http or https.

soult 16y ago

While it is a funny play on all those .ly domains and the fact that vb.ly got seized by the Libyan government, it is my opinion that yet another URL shortener is a stupid way of protest. Let me explain: I work with the Urlteam, a group of people that saves shorturl->longurl mappings for a bunch of shorteners. The typical life cycle of small shorteners is this: - URL shortener opens, gets some praise for weird feature that bit.ly doesn't have. - People actually don't care about feature and continue to use bit.ly. - Spammers discover the shortener and abuse it. - Owner closes the shortener because he can't deal with the spam. All that remains are some non-functional links.

prawn 16y ago
I created a shortener (for personal control, tracking, etc) and can really, really identify with #3 and #4. I was blocking loads of nonsensical domains each day for weeks before the hosting company pulled the pin and I just gave up and pointed my domain to bit.ly.
- yuhong 16y ago
  FYI, you can prevent new entries from being added to the shortener database without shutting down the shortener altogether.
  - prawn 16y ago
    Yes, that's true and I should've done that but I wanted to keep the service running quickly through that domain and bit.ly pro did that very easily, it "just" meant losing historical links. Easy to make the wrong decision when you, well-intentioned, set something up with no view to profiting from your time and then get slammed by spammers mercilessly, get no love from your host, etc. I don't know that I'd be the only one who loses a fair swag of their time and money (work, side projects, etc) either dealing with spam or trying to protect against it. So frustrating.
    - vog 16y ago
      > it "just" meant losing historical links. Note that this in a bad idea in general, not just for URL shorteners but also for your personal website and even more for a project or company webseite. There is a classic article by Tim Berners-Lee on that topic, written in 1998: "Cool URIs don't change" (http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI)

d0m 16y ago

I think it should add http:// http:// if it's missing.. I wasn't sure what wasn't working at first when trying www.google.com. Also, I find gadaf.fi really hard to remember.

blackguardx 16y ago
Just pick up a newspaper any day for the next few months and the name is bound to be in there.

InclinedPlane 16y ago

Or just use j.mp, it's the same as bit.ly just without the dependence on the Libya TLD.

RyanKearney 16y ago
And it's shorter! Although I've started using goo.gl since they offer similar analytic data on your shortlinks and, well, it's powered by Google's infrastructure.
- InclinedPlane 16y ago
  Oh, nice! I didn't know that google's shortener had been launched for general use (it used to be google reader specific).

csomar 16y ago

I don't consider this a nice move. I actually hate it. It's like Gaddafi is going to stand longer than that and that we should only boycott him. We ought better supporting the rebellion or the people who are under the fire. -- Misrata (24 April): http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.10150168031801915.297670.349930726914 http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.101501680318019...

RobIsIT 16y ago

Why not host your own? I've been using Yourls (http://yourls.org/ http://yourls.org/) for a while now. It works very well. I bought a short domain, installed Yourls in under 5 min and have been happily using it ever since. It even works with Tweetdeck to auto shorten URL's and has a couple of bookmarklets to make things easy. It's locked down for private / non-spammer use and is under my full control.

NameNickHN 16y ago
> Why not host your own? I second that. Here is an alternative to yourls.org. http://www.gentlesource.com/short-url-script/ http://www.gentlesource.com/short-url-script/

Xk 16y ago

You should block me from redirecting a link to itself. http://gadaf.fi/5j http://gadaf.fi/5j And probably block cycles too.

staktrace 16y ago
Isn't that impossible? You can redirect to a page (under your control) that redirects to itself, if your goal is to get the user stuck in a redirect loop. Until their browser decides enough is enough, that is.
- wahnfrieden 16y ago
  You can have the service test the link for redirects (using HEAD requests), and have a max depth to be safe. Then if a URL occurs twice, or the max depth is reached, mark as invalid.
- ay 16y ago
  "browser decides enough is enough" IIRC from reading the sources, both FF and Chrome had a limit of 30 hardcoded - after this many redirects they would give up and say "uh, it's a redirect loop".
surat 16y ago
Nice try, but Chrome is smarter than that. "This webpage has a redirect loop. The webpage at http://gadaf.fi/5j http://gadaf.fi/5j has resulted in too many redirects..."

ballard 16y ago

Dictators don't just come out with their own line of cars anymore. http://goo.gl/PqQTK http://goo.gl/PqQTK

jschuur 16y ago

Slightly unrelated, but given the current sanctions, you can't renew a .ly domain name right now as a US business, correct? Bit.ly's domain name expires early next year, last time I checked.

dmor 16y ago
do you have a source? i have some .ly domains to renew and have been considering what to do with them
- jschuur 16y ago
  I'll confess, I hadn't looked into my assumption further until now. Details of the US sanctions against Libya can be found here (look for the Executive Order 13566 PDF): http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/pages/libya.aspx http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/p... The .ly registrar Libyan Spider has been fairly communicative and open with its customers. Their CEO Hadi Naser says they are a 'private company run by ordinary citizens that have no affiliation with the government' and that 'purchasing the .ly domains supports Libyan citizens, not the government'. A 10 percent fee goes to a nongovernmental organization in Libya that mantains the .ly network: http://www.businessinsider.com/ly-registrar-our-servers-haver-been-shut-down-2011-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/ly-registrar-our-servers-have... http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-libyan-connection-behind-ly-url-shorteners/2011/04/11/AFCo8xjD_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-libyan-con... There was some prior disruption of service when Softlayer, their ISP outside of Libya raised some sanction related concerns, but that appears to have been resolved later: http://libyanspider.com/m/announcements.php?id=20 http://libyanspider.com/m/announcements.php?id=20

Locke1689 16y ago

One minor problem being that it takes the "short" out of "URL shortener." Decent for making a point, but those characters are a precious commodity on Twitter.

westicle 16y ago

I was simultaneously impressed by the clean, informative presentation and horrified by the assault of grammatical errors. May I suggest having a native english-speaker review your copy? Otherwise nice site.

iuguy 16y ago

While it's a great pun, it's not exactly short, though is it?

yaix 16y ago

Cool idea! Best URL shortener name of the year.

sjs382 16y ago

I know this is kind of a joke, kind of a way to bring publicity to whats happening in Lybia, but if the bit.ly domain disappears you can always just rewrite "bit.ly" to "j.mp" and the short URLs will keep working. Then again, this presumes that the company is still running (which we can't really put a ton of faith in), which is why i use http://isshort.com http://isshort.com (shameless plug) to find publisher-provided short URLs where possible.