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Author Topic: Hidden links embedded in signatures and in posts ...  (Read 5952 times)

Offline Niteblade

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Hidden links embedded in signatures and in posts ...
« on: December 12, 2006, 11:07:07 PM »
By making the font size zero, a person can embed many, many links ... and no one would be able to tell unless they looked at the page's source.

**** LOOK AFTER THIS IN THE PAGE'S SOURCE ****
[size=0pt]SMFoogle : You can't see this !!! Spiders can !!!
SMFoogle : You can't see this !!! Spiders can !!!
SMFoogle : You can't see this !!! Spiders can !!!
SMFoogle : You can't see this !!! Spiders can !!!
SMFoogle : You can't see this !!! Spiders can !!!
SMFoogle : You can't see this !!! Spiders can !!!
Yeah, that's a shameless plug for the directory, but hey ... you know ...
[/size]


Although humans won't see it in the post, spiders will see it in the source ... and the spiders will follow the links.
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Offline Daniel Marquard

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Re: Hidden links embedded in signatures and in posts ...
« Reply #1 on: December 13, 2006, 12:01:09 AM »
I can see the links in Opera.


Offline Daniel15

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Re: Hidden links embedded in signatures and in posts ...
« Reply #2 on: December 13, 2006, 12:06:21 AM »
They're not "hidden" as such, just the size is reduced (I can still see it, but in a very small font). This can happen with all forum systems.
I guess what you're asking is to not allow font sizes smaller than a particular value?

EDIT: I'm using Opera as well
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Offline Daniel Marquard

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Re: Hidden links embedded in signatures and in posts ...
« Reply #3 on: December 13, 2006, 12:16:49 AM »
They're not "hidden" as such, just the size is reduced (I can still see it, but in a very small font). This can happen with all forum systems.
I guess what you're asking is to not allow font sizes smaller than a particular value?

EDIT: I'm using Opera as well

If I remember correctly, there's a minimum point size for a font being used in a post, even if the user sets the size to 0.  I believe that either 4 or 5 is the minimum font size, but I could be mistaken.

Testing...
Testing...
Testing...
Testing...
Testing...
Testing...
Testing...
Testing...
Testing...
Testing...
[size=0pt]Testing...[/size]

Edit: It would appear as if a 7pt font is the smallest possible font size that can be used in a post with the [size] tag.
« Last Edit: December 13, 2006, 12:21:05 AM by Marlon »

Offline SleePy

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Re: Hidden links embedded in signatures and in posts ...
« Reply #4 on: December 13, 2006, 12:21:01 AM »
A user could on most browser set a minimum value for text size.
SMF could as easily add some checks to make sure the size doesn't go below X where X is a number choosen either by SMF default or Admin setting
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Offline Niteblade

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Re: Hidden links embedded in signatures and in posts ...
« Reply #5 on: December 13, 2006, 09:14:26 AM »
Opera, eh? I'm using FireFox, and cannot see them in the post.
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Offline Skhilled

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Re: Hidden links embedded in signatures and in posts ...
« Reply #6 on: December 13, 2006, 10:16:04 AM »
I can see them with Opera as well but not with FF. I can see VERY tiny, unreadable text using IE7 with clear type on or off. Almost like a line with a few bumps on it.

Hmmm, being able to set the text within a certain range would help. At least, until FF and IE can come up with a fix. :)

Offline Gobo

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Re: Hidden links embedded in signatures and in posts ...
« Reply #7 on: December 24, 2006, 05:14:20 AM »
yea this topic needs to be adresses because for all u know ur board could contain 1000's of links to illegle sites and other sites which could result in ur google ranking and stuff goin down the drain

Offline Dannii

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Re: Hidden links embedded in signatures and in posts ...
« Reply #8 on: December 24, 2006, 05:23:13 AM »
I've never seen any bots smart enough to do that. In any case, it wouldn't change your sites ranking.
"Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise."

Offline Gobo

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Re: Hidden links embedded in signatures and in posts ...
« Reply #9 on: December 24, 2006, 06:26:55 AM »
yea actually most search engines dont even index SMF styled topics so no biggie really

Offline Dannii

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Re: Hidden links embedded in signatures and in posts ...
« Reply #10 on: December 24, 2006, 06:39:22 AM »
They do but that's not the point. Outbound links don't impact on your page's ranking. Only inbound links do.
"Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise."

Offline Gobo

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Re: Hidden links embedded in signatures and in posts ...
« Reply #11 on: December 24, 2006, 07:07:31 AM »
well i dont really know much about much
but i do know that if i catch people on my forum with hidden links they are gona get the spanking of their lives!

Offline Daniel15

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Re: Hidden links embedded in signatures and in posts ...
« Reply #12 on: December 25, 2006, 04:43:18 AM »
I've been trying to figure out how to only allow sizes above 7 to be used. I've been playing around with the regular expression (PCRE) used to validate the size used, and I can't seem to get it to work as I'd like it to.
Here's the line in question, from Subs.php:
Code: [Select]
'test' => '([\d]{1,2}p[xt]|(?:x-)?small(?:er)?|(?:x-)?large[r]?)\]',

Basically, it says "Allow sizes if they're one or two digits followed by px or pt, or if they're small, smaller, large, or larger. It's fairly easy to only allow 2-digit sizes to be used (this is still a viable solution if you don't use small font sizes:
Code: [Select]
'test' => '([\d]{2}p[xt]|(?:x-)?small(?:er)?|(?:x-)?large[r]?)\]',

I was trying this, but it didn't work:
Code: [Select]
'test' => '([7-9]|[\d]{1,2}p[xt]|(?:x-)?small(?:er)?|(?:x-)?large[r]?)\]',

Anyone know what I'm doing wrong? (I am guessing all this as well as using information from past experience, I couldn't really find a good PCRE tutorial)

Quote
Outbound links don't impact on your page's ranking. Only inbound links do.
Unless you're running a link farm with 100,000's of links going out from heaps of pages on your site ;)
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Offline Sockratease

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Re: Hidden links embedded in signatures and in posts ...
« Reply #13 on: December 25, 2006, 07:26:25 AM »
Would this work?


Quick Fix - Use the Censored Word List to change "[size=0pt" to  "FORBIDDEN TAG" and this will reveal all!

[size=0pt]MOO!![/size]

Offline Dannii

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Re: Hidden links embedded in signatures and in posts ...
« Reply #14 on: December 25, 2006, 07:46:51 AM »
Code: [Select]
[7-9]|[\d]
That says "7 to 9, or any number". Remove the "[\d]" and it would probably work. However thats a very small size range.... and it would also allow 77, 78 etc :P
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Offline Thantos

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Re: Hidden links embedded in signatures and in posts ...
« Reply #15 on: December 25, 2006, 08:02:40 AM »
 ! Do not allow 0, 0px, or 0pt to be used in size tags. (Subs.php)
« Last Edit: December 25, 2006, 08:10:14 AM by Thantos »

Offline Daniel15

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Re: Hidden links embedded in signatures and in posts ...
« Reply #16 on: December 26, 2006, 01:09:29 AM »
Code: [Select]
[7-9]|[\d]
That says "7 to 9, or any number". Remove the "[\d]" and it would probably work.
Well, I was trying to make it something like "Allow 7-9, or any 2-digit number" :)
Quote
However thats a very small size range.... and it would also allow 77, 78 etc :P
By default it allows all 2-digit numbers anyways ;)
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Offline Dannii

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Re: Hidden links embedded in signatures and in posts ...
« Reply #17 on: December 26, 2006, 01:12:09 AM »
Code: [Select]
'test' => '([7-9]p[xt]|[\d]{2}p[xt]|(?:x-)?small(?:er)?|(?:x-)?large[r]?)\]',
Try that.
"Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise."