can you people help me: Trying to mask a url
I figured that all of you well heeled IT and H@x0rs out in genius land could help me.
I am trying to tie a url to my .mac homepage. The only thing is that I don't want the url of one domain to show up in the browser window when someone clicks on the link and that page loads. I would prefer a third url to show up not the original.
any help? is this a straightforward affair?
Thanks
I am trying to tie a url to my .mac homepage. The only thing is that I don't want the url of one domain to show up in the browser window when someone clicks on the link and that page loads. I would prefer a third url to show up not the original.
any help? is this a straightforward affair?
Thanks
Comments
This is called domain forwarding, I believe. AFA as generating URLs of pages, obviously the page must exist on your .mac site or the page can't possibly load. So somesite.com/blather/etc/me/info.html would show up on blah.com as blah.com/info.html. But you can't have blah.com/random.html forward to somesite's page as random.html doesn't exist on somesite. Capiche?
Sorry if I misunderstand.
Two things I wonder about.
Is it a specially configured web server that does the proper domain forwarding 1337_5L4Xx0R is talking about? (I think it must be, it can't be DNS because that is on lower level.)
And how do you manage to keep the URL correct (blah.com) while browsing to different pages inside the site? Once the domain forwarding is set up, absolute pathnames would do it, but that's really ugly and unmaintainable, obviously there is some better way. I'm thinking a simple automatic script that fills in the absolute URLs at upload time, no user intervention required, but is there a better way still?
new's frame trick sounds like no end of trouble.
Unless I'm mistaken, then you'll have the blah.com address, no individual page addresses, on the address bar all the time while browsing the site -> bad news for bookmarks and deep linking. A long time ago I thought it might be positive to disallow deep linking, but now I've come to realize that a webpage that doesn't work on the viewer's terms is handicapped. Going with the frame trick, I think you would also have to mark in every link whether it opens in the frame (still your site) or in full browser window (other links).
my trouble stems from:
being a n00b on this point.
- aside from that, I have a web site that streams security netcam footage. and I want the end user to not be able to see the originating url of the netcam host site.
using .mac I would then be able to password protect the .mac site and thus cloak the originating url of the netcam host site. I could then be able to manage the password protection with a great degree of ease.
hope this helps. I am still a bit confused.
<html>
<head>
<title>put title here</title>
</head>
<frameset cols="*">
<frame src="http://othersite.com/path/to/stuff">;
</frameset>
</html>
example:
<html>
<head>
<title>Google Rules</title>
</head>
<frameset cols="*">
<frame src="http://google.com">;
</frameset>
</html>
Okay, so now that we have more detail from TednDi, the problem is far more limited than masking a whole site. I gather there will be a single webcam page and no links out of the page.
Then it seems like Slughead's solution works for simple hiding.
This is also identical to what "URL hiding" does at least at the three first commercial domain forwarders I found with Google. For a whole site, it's a poor idea IMO because like I said it screws up deep links, bookmarks, and other things that people should be able to take as a given on the Web.
Note though that anyone who cares can always check out the real address right from their web browser: View->Page Source in Firefox, equally simple in other browsers. As long as the viewer gets his data from the actual location, it's impossible to hide the actual address if he goes looking for it. You would have to set up the in-between system so that all data actually goes through it, effectively doubling your web traffic, even though HD space would still be consumed on only one machine.. and it would be slow, unless the two machines are right next to each other. I think this is how webstores and other "real" sites do things.
The whole site problem (without hiding) is tough. I have a project this summer where I plan to do a personal homepage, so I have a strong interest in how to do this "right" and allow deep links, bookmarks, unique page titles in title bars etc. I'm thinking it might take some small CGI scripting to fix the frame trick's shortcomings.
The url will still be visible within the page data and there isn't any effective means of stripping this data away.
Originally posted by TednDi
ok so for all intents and purposes it isn't feasable right.
The url will still be visible within the page data and there isn't any effective means of stripping this data away.
So is the problem that the security camera does not offer a "viewing only" interface but only administrator interface, or is the location of the server itself a secret?
Yes, even if you managed to obfuscate the data in the page, the browser would still have to put it back together for viewing. All it takes to find that address is to use a browser that lets you get to the addresses of visible objects on the page. Or install a web proxy and looking at the log there.
That is why I want to mask the url of the feed.
Are there any commercially available services that would do this?
Originally posted by TednDi
it offers a viewing only option but I want to be able to password protect the feed and if I link to the viewing only part then the feeds original url is open to snooping.
That is why I want to mask the url of the feed.
I don't understand. If there is a view only option then can't you protect/unprotect that completely separate from the admin interface? If you can't, there is not much point to the view only interface...
And if it's locked down, there's nothing people will gain from knowing the address of the admin interface. You should never completely rely on obfuscation (in this case, no one knowing the address) for security anyway. IP scans and the like can still find it even if you don't publish it. Everything should have a password of some sort.