posted by
cmn32480
on Sunday May 21 2017, @07:21AM
from the trying-to-get-paid-for-what-they-do dept.
from the trying-to-get-paid-for-what-they-do dept.
The Boston Globe website is closing off a hole in its paywall by preventing visitors who aren't logged in from reading articles in a browser's private mode.
"You're using a browser set to private or incognito mode" is the message given to BostonGlobe.com visitors who click on articles in private mode. "To continue reading articles in this mode, please log in to your Globe account." People who aren't already Globe subscribers are urged to subscribe.
Like other news sites, the Globe limits the number of articles people can read without a subscription. Until the recent change, Globe website visitors could read more articles for free by switching to private or incognito mode.
Source: ArsTechnica
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BostonGlobe.Com Disables Articles When Your Browser's in Private Mode
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(1)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @07:29AM (13 children)
"You're trying to be anonymous. Big Brother demands that you stop."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @07:38AM
works for me in tor browser.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Sunday May 21 2017, @07:40AM (10 children)
Maybe the Globe isn't vying for the most eyeballs on their site.
Just type what you are looking for into your favorite search engine... I am sure a lot of other people have the same thing.
Remember when Yahoo was the go-to place for the internet, and they did not seem to want that much publicity? Or when MySpace was the social hotspot?
Some sites just don't want the visits. This is their business way of telling their visitor to go somewhere else. Its their right to do so.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @11:42PM (9 children)
I figure that the MBAs paid attention to the graphics[1] when their instructors were teaching asymptotes.
...but completely missed the context.
Apparently, when the Readership line has flattened out near zero, that will be "success".
[1] The word is that Trump likes really short text documents with lots of pictures.
I wonder if he (like Dubya) is dyslexic and simply has great difficulty with reading.
Boy, USAians have really picked some winners.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by anubi on Monday May 22 2017, @04:45AM (8 children)
Having actually experienced what happens when MBA's take over a company and implement the things taught in business seminars, I guess I have to say there is nothing, no matter how preposterous it may sound, that should surprise me.
If men come from Mars, and women come from Venus, then engineers have to come from one planet, and MBA's from another.
( As far as Trump's liking of few words and lots of pictures, I am exactly the same way. I love graphs. A spec-sheet without graphs is like a day without sunshine.)
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @06:53AM (7 children)
...but you demonstrate on a regular basis that you can consume text at a reasonable rate and comprehend that.
With Trump[1] constantly in Transmit mode on Twitter, it seems obvious that he can -write-.
The question is "Can he read?"
Lots of folks have noted that his emotional development stalled at an early age (~7 years old).
Did his reading skills freeze there too?
He did an interview that's priceless.
Tucker Carlson asks President Trump what he reads [bustle.com]
...and I'm not the only one to think he's dyslexic. [google.com]
[1] ...or is that a proxy/stenographer?
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by anubi on Monday May 22 2017, @10:24AM (6 children)
I know I can get so involved in detail that I lose sight of the big picture....
Trump seems to be a big-picture guy, not a detail guy like me.
Here's hoping Trump will go through our government and clean house.
I saw how fast a team of MBA's cleaned the techie-types out of our workplace. All that was left were building-fulls of hand-shaking suit men. They did not need to know a thing about coding or circuit design. What they claimed to be good at was their ability to get someone else to design and build stuff. I questioned their ability to back that up.
Now, I would like to see if Trump can clean the bloatware out of our government the same way. Even if he can't read, its no big deal if he gets the job done.
At least, nobody owns him. All these other guys we have had in that office have made things worse for us, and better for the ones who owned the Congressmen.
Trump has shown over and over he does not mind rocking the boat.
Whatever he does, I do not think he can do a worse job than those before him, some of which have been more crooked than a snake.
I did not have the option on the ballot that I wanted: Power-On-Reset.
So, I withhold any hating on Trump until I see more of what he's up to.
One thing in particular I have concerns over is climate change, which I get the idea he does not take very seriously. I am quite concerned over it, even though my dog in this fight is quite old. I don't want my generation leaving that kind of mess in our wake.
I feel I am one of many people that could offer insight on energy management, yet we are not "in the system", instead we are out to pasture. At this point in my life, it would cost me more to go to work than I would be paid.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @06:43PM (5 children)
He picked a VP whose chief characteristics is his bigotry and his fundamentalist religious zealotry.
He picked a guy for SCOTUS who was the only 1 out of 7 appellate judges who is so anti-worker that thought that the "frozen trucker" should have allowed himself to die.
He picked an Education Secretary whose life's work has been to destroy public education.
He picked a HUD Secretary who knows nothing about housing.
He picked an Energy Secretary who had said he wanted to cut 3 cabinet-level departments. (He couldn't remember the name of the 3rd--which was Energy.)
Every single appointment Trump has made has come with no experience in the area and/or massive conflicts of interest.
Trump himself is a giant violation of the Constitution's emoluments clause(s).
Not only has he not cleaned house, he's set new records for doing the opposite.
Expecting good things from this administration is putting on a blindfold and proceeding into a minefield.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by anubi on Monday May 22 2017, @10:59PM (4 children)
Thanks for the post. I had not been following the guy all that close - I have my own dogs in another fight.
I was not aware of several of the points you brought up. He looks more and more like the MBA crowd who did a lot of us in.
I am thinking he'll crash the system so much it has to be reset.
To me, our government seems like a Windows box in sore need of a reboot. Memory is maxxed out. CPU railing. Lots of stray processes still running. While the machine, despite all its resources, is doing very little.
So far, we have seemed to kick the can down the road, using "extend the debt ceiling" legislation to pay for it, which I feel is coming back to bite us in a big way.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @12:43AM (3 children)
Thanks for the post.
No sweat.
I had not been following the guy all that close
I figured as much.
The frozen trucker case [mprnews.org] is particularly indicative of the direction things are headed.
The temperature in the cab was 17F and the heater didn't work with the truck idling.
He was back to the trailer within 30 minutes.
The fix-it guy had arrived within minutes of the trucker driving off and was still there upon the trucker's return.
It appears that Judge Gorsuch crafted his inhuman opinion in an effort to improve his chances for appointment by a Reactionary to a higher court.
our government seems like a Windows box [...] Lots of stray processes still running
...and, with this guy as admin, most of those are malicious.
Hoping all your projects work out.
Have a good one.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday May 23 2017, @02:18AM (2 children)
Yes... that "frozen trucker" case. Thanks for putting that one in quotes. That clued me in to google it.
That was a new one for me. You are absolutely right that I have not followed him all that close.
Anyway, when I fed the "frozen trucker" quote into Google, and was quite disgusted at what it returned... I read the NPR ( Democracy NOW ) writeup on it.
Your reply has had a huge negative influence on my impression of Trump.
I agree with the trucker and find minor fault in how he handled things. I am sure the trucker has had "phone promises" just as all of us have, and had no proof that the fixit guy was on his way ( so he could warm up in the fixit guy's truck ), but he KNEW he was freezing to death. Given the circumstances, I would have probably done the same thing. Isn't it against the law to order someone to kill themselves?
I got this snippet from your link:
If one cannot discern the letter of the law from the spirit of the law, I question why delegate that man as much authority as a dog-catcher?
I remember there is some phrase in law where one's intent is major thing that one is judged on. From Wikipedia:
Now, how in the hell could Gorsuch pull that one off? The trucker had a guilty mind? He caused this whole thing with the brakes frozen up?
I now question whether or not Gorsuch is human - this sounds like something right out of a Hitler-era concentration camp story. I wonder how Gorsuch himself would have handled it had HE been the trucker? The fact Trump is putting him in a powerful position, knowing this, to me is a huge negative reflection on Trump.
In my understanding, the trucker provided due stewardship of that which was entrusted to him. I am sad stuff like this happens, I am glad it got reported, and feel negligent that it went under my radar.
Sorry for another long rant, but I admit I got pretty steamed reading the links you sent me, and those found on Google.
Seems I learn more from you guys on this site than anywhere else. Not all of it is pleasant though, but stuff that needs to be known about.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @04:07AM (1 child)
Hey, this is important stuff.
If I got you aware of/interested in things, my work is done.
{Dusts off hands} 8-)
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday May 24 2017, @12:17AM
Thanks for the "heads up! Incoming!". And pointing me to the stinking piles I had not seen.
People like you are *exactly* what I find so important in reading Soylent News.
Like you say, this IS important stuff. Ignorance leads to poor decisions.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Sunday May 21 2017, @08:42AM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by rleigh on Sunday May 21 2017, @07:40AM (5 children)
Is this a flaw in the Private/Incognito mode sandbox? Surely to be effective the fact that something is inside a sandbox should be undetectable? How are they detecting the sandbox?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bradley13 on Sunday May 21 2017, @08:16AM (3 children)
Apparently they can somehow tell that they cannot save permanent data on the local machine. Which is indeed a flaw in the sandbox, as it should not be visible that the data will be deleted when the tab closes. Then again: Just how much trust do you have in the authors of your browser? Why, exactly, do we trust the browser manufacturer's to get this right, when their financial interests are diametrically opposed to doing so?
Update: Apparently the Boston Globe has reversed their policy? I am now looking at their site in three different browsers, all in incognito mode, with no problems at all.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @09:11AM
I am now looking at their site
Mission accomplished!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by kaszz on Sunday May 21 2017, @04:56PM
Yeah, obviously the sandbox is flawed. Let them save or set whatever they want. It will be gone anyway later. As for browser trust. It's likely a convenience thing. It works good enough. Do bad enough and it goes the Internet Exploder v6.0 way. But there is a way to not only sandbox a specific visit but sandbox it all by running the whole thing inside a VM box which is reset as often as needed.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @01:33AM
I don't trust my browser maker. That's why I use firejail --private --overlay-tmpfs
Which creates a new private home directory in a ram disk and then overlays a tmpfs layer on top of the entire system. Nothing that gets written to disk should actually go to disk unless the overlay mount is flawed. Sandboxie can do the same on Windows IIRC and MacOS has a similar capability in its sandbox but it's a bit harder to configure because I haven't found any good tools to automate the process.
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Monday May 22 2017, @09:52AM
I imagine it is a process very similar to a Warrant Canary. No cookie detected? They must be a new user, so display them "You must join up or log in to view this page".
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @08:40AM (8 children)
just brieftly looked at the sites setup... it reminds me of theinquirer.net, and it looks to be defeated by turning off javascript.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @01:16PM (2 children)
I used to do this with seattletimes.com, until they adjusted their website such that viewing content required javascript. Without it, you see no articles, headlines, images, etc.
I assume they want javascript enabled so that they can absorb income from advertising and marketing. I disable javascript for privacy. Since they clearly don't want people like me viewing their website's content, I decided to remove any temptation by adding seattletimes.com 127.0.0.1 in my hosts file. Now, when friends/family send me links to seattletimes.com, I can't waste that corporation's limited electrical resources by leeching from their website for free and perhaps seeing even static image ads. No sir...a leech like me doesn't deserve the honor of seeing their paid advertisements and generating income for them, and they should be happy I'm no longer doing so! Am I a good citizen, or what?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @03:08PM
I quit reading seattletimes.com when I found out I was a person of interest to the FBI.
(Score: 2) by nethead on Sunday May 21 2017, @06:46PM
I just pay $5/month to The Seattle Times and use an ad blocker. Works great for me and I get to support local news reporting. I do the same for my more local paper in Everett.
How did my SN UID end up over 3 times my /. UID?
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Sunday May 21 2017, @02:17PM (3 children)
The lamest part isn't the technical details of the subscription or paywall, and whether it is easily beaten by turning off Javascript or using private mode or whatever. It's the business model. It's wishing that there is a technological way to make DRM work. Attempting to create a DRM scheme that works is a waste of effort, as it can't be done, any more than a perpetual motion machine can be built. They can annoy and nag, and that's about it.
What's to stop people from sharing subscriptions? Even if they detect a hundred people logged in to the same account and block that, how do they stop web site scraping and a few subscribers spreading their news stories around that way? They don't. No one can stop that. Might as well try to shut down the grapevine.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday May 21 2017, @02:53PM (1 child)
I don't know if this is a viable business model going forward, but I think the efficacy of DRM can vary significantly depending on the application.
DRM doesn't work well in preventing stuff like music or movie piracy, because these are sort of "durable goods" that people will want to access over extended periods of time. If it takes days or weeks or even months for someone to bother to make a hacked copy and upload to a torrent site or whatever, there may still be an audience interested in downloading it. If you can't find it one week, try again next week or find a link on a different site.
News? Not so much. Tomorrow, nobody cares much about reading 90% of today's headlines. So, sharing of content has to be fast and predictable to be an effective alternate news source for the DRM content. But if it's too predictable, it's easier to target and shut down or slam with notices that delink it from search engines and make it "invisible."
Couple that with the fact that the majority of news in even a paper like the Boston Globe can be found elsewhere. Lots of AP/Reuters stories, etc., and even the ones that are written by Globe reporters that cover national/international events are likely to be told elsewhere. The main "unique" content is local news. So not only do you need to set up a dependable fast pirate site as a mirror, but which magically isn't shut down or made invisible to search engines -- you also need someone out of a few million people in the Boston region to actually care enough to do this and maintain it.
It all sounds like too much trouble, compared to other places where DRM is ineffective.
And yes, people can share news stories with friends. High-profile news feature stories from specific news outlets often end up with online mirrors of those particular stories. But the Globe isn't interested in 100% effectiveness or with banning the casual reader from getting free content. (You already get X stories per month free or whatever.) They're trying to get dedicated local readers to pay for a subscription.
I don't know that it will work as an effective strategy now, and I can't imagine this will be what the news business looks like in 20 years or whatever. But for the immediate future, any "DRM" attempt doesn't need to be 100% effective or handle every edge case. It just needs to make it hard enough or at least obscure enough to circumvent that a significant number of people will still pay for the service.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @04:28PM
DRM on news articles has got to be the wet dream of every propagandist. You can spread whatever fake news you want, and by the time reality comes knocking, you can be sure no single trace of your fabrications remains.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @11:24PM
Beyond that it's as if people couldn't adjust their linking preferences to favour some 9 bazillion other news sites instead.
The whole point of "five pages for free" is to bait people into reading their stuff and perhaps possibly convert some day into a paying subscriber. They are doing that because it works better than shutting passers-by out altogether. When they start implementing more effective paywalling they are going to lose some of those juicy viral social media links. I wonder if they understand that this isn't necessarily the best possible tradeoff. Putting some of their better and less viral articles behind a harder paywall (with some freemium ways to occasionally showcase the paying user experience) while not limiting the other stuff could be a lot better tactic.
I don't mind paying for quality content that I keep consuming. I just have to feel like I actually want to support that and overcome my laziness to subscribe. Saying "fuck off, we don't like your browser settings" is one way of making me not feel like that. Masquerading adverts of articles that I can't view as content (that I supposedly should) on googlebookdotnewster is another.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @06:41PM
This is a good thing evolutionarily, silly peeps who are bravehearts* and browse with JS enabled don't get news.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javascript#Security [wikipedia.org]