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General discussion

How to trip up the NT in a post..

Aug 9, 2004 7:24AM PDT

Discussion is locked

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Here's the code that tripped it up.
Aug 9, 2004 7:27AM PDT

(url=i.i.com.com) (/url)

Any url will do, and the space from the (url=) and the (/url) is what seems to hide it and you don't see anywhere to click.

To me, its a nit, but someone asked how I did that.

Bob

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(NT) (NT) A real NT,
Aug 9, 2004 7:28AM PDT
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A right (NT)
Aug 9, 2004 7:29AM PDT
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[b] [/b]
Aug 9, 2004 7:30AM PDT
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And how to write absolutely nothing.
Aug 9, 2004 7:31AM PDT

Same bug.

Let's see who figures out how I did that.

Bob

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Re: And how to write absolutely nothing.
Aug 9, 2004 8:13AM PDT

OK. Did that at 'Test', but I am refused a duplicate here. Let's see whether anyone can trip that !

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Bumb machine !
Aug 9, 2004 8:25AM PDT

That's not a bug. The dumb machine is doing exactly what it is told to do.

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[b] [/b]
Aug 9, 2004 8:16AM PDT

By just replying to your "{b} {/b}" (braces substituted for brackets to show their presence) shows me what I think was how you entered the "blank" Subject.

Again, an interesting trick, but how useful is it?

What I found annoying was that I could not click on the listed subject, since there was none, to view your message.

But I was able to view the message by going to the prior message and clicking on the NEXT MESSAGE link.

Cute, but more annoying than useful.

To expend the effort to prevent these curiosities is probably more effort than they are worth.

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[b] [/b]
Aug 9, 2004 8:19AM PDT

Ah, CORRECTION!
I found that you can click on the "blank" Subject. There is a space character, small that it is, that will permit the reader to click on the "blank" Subject line.

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ahh, but Bob!
Aug 9, 2004 8:07AM PDT

Sure, I can see now that you can make the automatic "(NT)" NOT appear even when there is no text appearing in the body, but ...
you are going out of your way to not have the "(NT)" appear by having what is essentially no text in the body. That is you've entered an URL with a nothing text title, a space.

That is curious, and obviously something that sometime in the future might be corrected for, but it doesn't change the point I made to LarryD; that he does not need to add a "(nt)" in the Subject, and a requisite character in the body.

By doing that "blank" URL trick, and that is all it is, is it really useful? what do you accomplish in doing so?
That the reader of the message will click on a non-NT denoted message to see . . . nothing? (or apparently nothing).
What use is that? So you possibly made a reader click where they didn't have to. So what?

Your effort to add in the "blank" URL is more effort than what the reader is going to expend to get to the next valid message, don't you think?

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Here's the rub ChuckT.
Aug 9, 2004 12:58PM PDT

Such anomilies may make for mischief. If you recall the opening shots of help.com forums, allowing html met a hasty death after a few safe demos of what could happen were posted.

We are now boring, but safer.

After I tripped over the blank subject trick, then I found that is easier than abusing the URL tag.

Remember that I'm the friendly type and if I see an exploit, then I report it before it can be used badly.

I haven't had time to think too much about it, but I bet there is a way to exploit what HTML that is tossed in by the forum and we'll see if it dawns on me what that is. Again, at least they don't shoot the messenger here, but scurry to drop in a new bandaid.

Bob

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Re: Here's the code that tripped it up.
Aug 10, 2004 6:41AM PDT

Found you can minimize that even further by just using:
{url=} {/url}

So, you don't need to enter any characters for a web location.

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Even Microsoft has abandoned NT
Aug 10, 2004 1:01PM PDT