The URL shortener that makes your links look as suspicious as possible • Hacker News Board

Re: The URL shortener that makes your links look as suspicious as possible

#21

Post by aussieguy1234 » Thu, Jan 15, 2026, 5:03 AM UTC

pabs3 wrote: post #19

Please don't make any more URL shorteners, they are just a bad idea. https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/URLTeam

I always end up making my own, they're so simple to write.

Saves using one of the "free" ones which looks like its free but you're actually on a free trial, then you can't access your links after that trial expires.

Re: The URL shortener that makes your links look as suspicious as possible

#22

Post by koakuma-chan » Thu, Jan 15, 2026, 5:04 AM UTC

4k93n2 wrote: post #20

koakuma-chan wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't appreciate how AI generated this website looks.

which bit are you getting an AI smell from?

gradient background, card, button

Re: The URL shortener that makes your links look as suspicious as possible

#23

Post by postalcoder » Thu, Jan 15, 2026, 5:05 AM UTC

There may actually be some utility here. LLM agents refuse to traverse the links. Tested with gemini-3-pro, gpt-5.2, and opus 4.5.

edit: gpt-oss 20B & 120B both eagerly visit it.

Re: The URL shortener that makes your links look as suspicious as possible

#24

Post by caminanteblanco » Thu, Jan 15, 2026, 5:10 AM UTC

I'm not sure what the use case for this is, but I've been using it as a inefficient messaging service with my girlfriend, ie:

https://c1ic.link/campaign_WxjLdF_login_page_2.bat

You seem to be able to encode arbitrary text, so long as it follows [A-Za-z0-9]+\.[A-Za-z0-9]+

Re: The URL shortener that makes your links look as suspicious as possible

#25

Post by Alupis » Thu, Jan 15, 2026, 5:18 AM UTC

koakuma-chan wrote: post #22

4k93n2 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which bit are you getting an AI smell from?

gradient background, card, button

Perhaps, but nearly every tutorial in all the modern frameworks demonstrate this exact style.

Re: The URL shortener that makes your links look as suspicious as possible

#26

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 15, 2026, 5:24 AM UTC

arjvik wrote: post #18

My favorite link of all time: https://jpmorgan.c1ic.link/logger_zcGFC2_bank_xss.docm Definitely not meta

[deleted]

Re: The URL shortener that makes your links look as suspicious as possible

#27

Post by reincarnate0x14 » Thu, Jan 15, 2026, 5:29 AM UTC

champagnepapi wrote: post #9

https://jpmorgan.c1ic.link/G4JQKX_money_request.dll

https://jpmorgan.web-safe.link/flash_7KzCZd_money_request

I love this version and I hope you do too.

Re: The URL shortener that makes your links look as suspicious as possible

#28

Post by nomel » Thu, Jan 15, 2026, 5:29 AM UTC

bityard wrote: post #16

IIRC, shadyurl was the original version of this. Doesn't seem to be around anymore, though.

shadyurl a whole bunch of different incredibly shady domains that were used at random. it was beautiful.

Re: The URL shortener that makes your links look as suspicious as possible

#29

Post by trollbridge » Thu, Jan 15, 2026, 5:37 AM UTC

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #15

fancychancy wrote: post #11

Haha, it's fun. Just thinking, is there some place where creepy links would be better ?

I've been at a company that internally sends out fake links that log the user and links to an educational page on internet safety. I honestly don't mind too much since it's a once a year thing (hacktober) and honestly companies should be trying to catch out employees who click any and all links.

We used to have fun hammering millions of requests to such URLs from a VPS when they would send such emails to role mailboxes.

Eventually we got asked to please make it stop. I asked them to please stop sending fake phishing emails to robots.

Re: The URL shortener that makes your links look as suspicious as possible

#30

Post by fuddle » Thu, Jan 15, 2026, 5:41 AM UTC

lol, I'm not clicking a .vbs link