Horror at the root: a dizzying routing error

An underappreciated aspect of our shared Web life is the reliable association of Web content with addresses, or URLs*.  So when we click on a link and get something wrong, the experience can be disorienting.  Depending on the resulting contents, it can even be scary.

For example, what if you click on your Facebook page, and get instead a batch of other user's data?

A Georgia mother and her two daughters logged onto Facebook from mobile phones last weekend and wound up in a startling place: strangers' accounts with full access to troves of private information.

There are many ways online information — from mundane data to dark secrets — can go awry.

Note that this involves not computers, but cell phones.  And note, too, AT+T continuing to look bad in public.

This is perhaps too technical, too geeky to hit the cultural mainstream.  But we'll keep an eye on it.  Here at Infocult, we're all about the internet that isn't the internet you think it is.

(thanks to Paul Davis!)

*URL: yes, "URI" is a better term.  I agree.  Let me know when it's used widely?

Comments

[refurbished computers]

This is perhaps too technical, too geeky to hit the cultural mainstream.