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How the INTERNET Broke my content, and what to do about it

RSX11M+

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 14, 2011
Messages
1,075
First, I'd like to thank all the participants who have kept the Virtual Key Repository and Microfiche Underground alive and for their work in support of those topics. I hope this documentation Lives on and Prospers in the Digital (pun?) form it now occupies as a result of that work.

Second - My reason for resurfacing to make this post is not to explain my absence, but to offer an explanation of why my links in this and previous thread posts now appear dead, when in fact they are still available to anyone under the right conditions,

That explanation requires you to understand that back in the beginning, when I first registered in these forums, there was no provision in a membership to store even photos, let alone the other digital content we needed to share. I had no relationship with those who ran other archives. Not knowing if my content would be suitable for such archiving by others, it seemed simpler to instead Serve it myself using my own resources, which I did.

That Server is still online as I type this and it's content is in tact. What has broken in the interim to prevent it's access is the internet itself.

In the last few years the "Gods of the Internet" or specifically those who write internet browsers, decided that the internet should be hardened against spying and surveilance. One of the steps they included was to STOP providing the REFERRER header when a request was not in the SAME DOMAIN as the page containing the original link. (My posts)

So, being that my server is not a sub-domain of VCfed (or it's previous incarnations) the misguided wisdom of the Gods deprives my server of knowing it's resources are being used as I intended.

Hacking and other internet malfeasance being the norm these days, I quite some time ago had to put in place safeguards to prevent abuse of my resources (mostly bandwidth). Part of that was to check that the request was associated with a link here on VCfed or another venue who's members I intended (and still do) to serve. The HTTP REFERRER header provided that information.

Consequently:

If you wish to, you can still view and download any of the content I've posted - provided you either use an older browser that still processes REFERRER information, or you instruct your browser to do so anyway by a setting change or adding my site to a list-mechanism your browser provides for such exceptions you wish to make.

Caution - I don not mean to reccomend the mechanism be disabled generally. That would undoubtedly have risks while using the browser to visit other internet domains.

Please share this information if you feel it helped you.

I may continue to stop by if life permits, but please know I still "support" you, in spirit and in deed.


Best Regards to all
 
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