Copy & paste some text from this article. Notice anything funny?

http://www.techvibes.com/blog/just-the-bill-turns-receipt-photos-into-expenses

by nickmolnar2 • 16 years ago

76 53 16 years ago

techvibes.com

vColin• 16 years ago

37Signals covered this or something similar: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2087-smart-pasting-at-the-new....

Tynt (http://www.tynt.com/) was the "culprit" in that case and looks so here.

bmelton• 16 years ago

In case anybody else doesn't see it immediately (it took me a couple of tries) -- the 'funny' bit is that it automagically appends "Read More: <link>" to your selection.

I haven't pored through their code, but I already know that my initial suspicion (binding CTRL+C with JS) isn't accurate, as right-clicking -> copy also appends it.

It's interesting at the very least, and I don't know how they're doing it. Anybody have an idea?

sounddust• 16 years ago

In fact, your initial suspicion seems to be correct after a (very quick) glance at the code. They are handling both of those cases separately.

http://tcr.tynt.com/javascripts/Tracer.js

steveklabnik• 16 years ago

I didn't notice because I highlighted + middle clicked.

roc• 16 years ago

Nope. Thanks NoScript!

tyrelb• 16 years ago

Using NoScript, do you block ALL .js files, or just selected ones?

Doesn't NoScript / using no .js break many web 2.0 ajax sites?

Seiwynn• 16 years ago

It initially blocks all, and you can choose to allow js from domains on a case by case basis.

For example, on the Hacker News main page, i allow js from ycombinator.com and forbid js from co2stats.com

coderdude2• 16 years ago

How quaint.

jrockway3• 16 years ago

NoScript is a whitelisting system, not a "I never use JavaScript" system. You load a page and if it doesn't work, then you enable its JavaScript content through a convenient menu. (It even bolds the scripts that are likely to cause problems when not enabled.)

In this case, the site works fine without the clipboard-hacking JavaScript running, so it just stays disabled and the OP doesn't get random data from a website written to his clipboard. If he wants that functionality, though, it's one click away.

What's quaint is trusting websites to run arbitrary code on your machine, as your regular user.

dminio• 16 years ago

Didn't notice anything. NoScript is my friend, I guess.

aphyr• 16 years ago

Nope. I use select/middle-click to copy/paste. :)

est• 16 years ago

I am drag & drop

twopoint718• 16 years ago

Yeah I didn't notice what people were talking about for a bit. I almost always use highlight + middle-click. This:

http://www.jwz.org/doc/x-cut-and-paste.html

is an interesting article about the different avenues that text can take under X.

vais• 16 years ago

Does not do anything funny on the iPhone (tried both the mobile and regular version of the site).

ronnier• 16 years ago

Politico.com does the same thing: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/32217.html

ComputerGuru• 16 years ago

Nothing happening here with select + ctrl+C on Chrome/Mac.

andre• 16 years ago

If you're interested, here's how to do it: http://brooknovak.wordpress.com/2009/07/28/accessing-the-sys...

cduruk• 16 years ago

I think they do it by adding a div right under the selected text.

decklin• 16 years ago

Nope; I'm using https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/epieehnpcepgfiil....

gnoupi• 16 years ago

Nope, I use Opera ;)

headShrinker• 16 years ago

I noticed that the article tried to make a call to ads.techvibes.com:80, but Little Snitch reported it and I denied it.

adamse• 16 years ago

Well, it is probably for ads and doesn't have anything to do with this item.

callmeed• 16 years ago

The Chronicle does this too. Copy from any article inside www.sfgate.com and it does the same.

FYI, works in Chrome/Mac for me.

chrischen• 16 years ago

Nothing on the iPhone!

Goladus• 16 years ago

This is actually pretty handy. On the one hand, javascript that messes with the user like this strikes me as unethical (it really angers me when basic functionality is usurped like this), this one would actually save me time in the long run. Usually when I copy/paste text from an article on one tab to a form on another, I also copy and paste the link as well. Usually that involves two trips to the article's tab. I wouldn't have to do that with this article.

Groxx• 16 years ago

I agree, I typically despise this sort of thing, though not as much as right-click hijacking (with a few exceptions). This one is useful, though, and it makes a LOT of sense to have on a news-like website (lots of people don't include attribution, this makes including it the easiest option, thus more will include it).

tyntguy• 16 years ago

Yes, that is us, Tynt (www.tynt.com) on all the sites mentioned. Our analytics are tracking hundreds of thousands of sites worldwide. The attribution link feature is something that individual site owners can turn on and off. Also note that we don't track any personally identifiable information. We track content and help publishers learn what content of theirs people are finding most engaging.

What if I don’t want this behavior? We are currently working on a global opt out for users who would rather not have Tynt monitor their actions when they visit a site. In the interim you can opt out on a site by site basis (i.e. the opt out for the SF Gate is here: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/faq.shtml#faq1.5#ixzz0bxLIAb...

More info on Tynt is available in our FAQs here: http://www1.tynt.com/faq-technical-topics#ixzz0bxGzIgPZ

ryanwaggoner2• 16 years ago

Just curious...how did you find this story on HN so quickly?

sucuri2• 16 years ago

He replied 2 hours after... Not so quickly.

tdmackey• 16 years ago

I imagine a surge of users from news.yc set off a few flags considering their product is intended to monitor this sort of thing.

mahmud• 16 years ago

Google Alerts, my man. Excellent for putting out fires, btw.

blhack• 16 years ago

Huffington post does the same thing with their article headlines. Users are always copy/pasting them into the story submission fields on a website I run.

It's very very annoying.

jayair• 16 years ago

I've noticed this behavior on quite a few sites recently. It was annoying since I was trying to quote a bunch of sites and I had to remove the links at the end every time.

Now it makes me double check every time I copy and paste. At first thought this might not seem too bad but modifying basic user behavior should be frowned upon.

keefe• 16 years ago

nothing special happened for me

barrkel• 16 years ago

I didn't notice anything. Then again, I have tynt adblocked.

Luyt• 16 years ago

Nothing unusual observed. I browse with Javascript off, btw.

mtarnovan• 16 years ago

I was expecting to see an attribution link, but it didn't work. I don't block JS or anything; turns out this doesn't work if you copy-paste via drag-drop.