NY Times shuts down a paywall bypass in just 68 minutes

http://thenextweb.com/media/2011/03/28/ny-times-shuts-down-a-paywall-bypass-in-just-68-minutes/

by choogi • 15 years ago

13 13 15 years ago

ruycer• 15 years ago

I think that in this prank there is hidden an interesting experiment, which shows alternative ways to create micropayments. I wonder if you can build a bookmarklet was built it would become less cumbersome to use.

kuahyeow• 15 years ago

I'm curious too about how the 600 odd people were willing to use micropayments. Turns out it was a stunt/demo for https://www.minno.co/

citricsquid• 15 years ago

I considered a similar idea like this back when the paywalls were first introduced across some of the larger news sites. Simply register 1 account and then funnel all requests through it for free. It did however conflict with my own idea of what should and shouldn't be done, so I never made it.

mikeklaas• 15 years ago

It might also conflict with the reality that it would be detected trivially and shut down immediately.

Andrenid• 15 years ago

A single account the does daily archives of any new articles, and mirrors them for people, would not be easily detected. It would just look like someone browsing all the new articles each day. Spread it across 2 accounts, and have each one just browse half the new articles each.

Not that i'd endorse this sort of idea, hence i'm not making it, just speculating.

jedsmith• 15 years ago

For next headline, choose one:

Arms race escalates, NYT paywall defeated again in 4.3 hours

DMCA takedown issued to $host over paywall hack in 12 hours

Paywall hacker fights back, issues counter-notice and restores access in 10 days

The NYT Paywall and Color: Unexpected connection revealed in weekend hack

Introducing paywal.ly (YC S'11), developed in just 14 days

corin_• 15 years ago

I read the title expecting to read about how their technical team modified the system to stop a bypass from working, not that they contacted someone to get him to stop offering a bypass service.

donohoe• 15 years ago

Yeah - me too.

noaharc• 15 years ago

Yeah, that's not how the NYT rolls. We got around the paywall pretty easily -- getting around the legal wall though... It's a shame, because we really want to work with partners to help them build their businesses. In due time! :-)

Vivtek• 15 years ago

Me too - I figured maybe that justified the $40mil price tag or something, if it included a crack team of counterhackers.

gallerytungsten• 15 years ago

Now if the Times had some smart person on their staff, they'd call off the hounds and instead sell him content on a wholesale basis. Then let everybody sell NYT stories, just as anyone who wants to can sell for Amazon.

moe• 15 years ago

Then let everybody sell NYT stories, just as anyone who wants to can sell for Amazon.

Except the infrastructure for that would probably take 40MM or so to build...

jarin• 15 years ago

If you are serious about wanting to bypass the paywall, you should probably wait until their entire server admin force isn't hovering over the console and server logs monitoring the launch. Just saying.

NY Times shuts down a paywall bypass in just 68 minutes

Related Stories