Deviance
Not wanting to pay for "premium archives" on the NY Times website, I figured out that it's actually pretty easy to hack the URLs for old articles. You need to know the date and the section. The tricky part is guessing the 4-letter combination they use to designate the article, which is usually the first four letters of the most descriptive word. Here's the deconstructed URL for an article about a potluck run by a fascist woman who handed out the recipes everyone was expected to bring (I went searching for it for Buddha). http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/30/dining/30POTL.html BASE: DATE: SECTION: (look at other URLs in the section to get this) ARTICLE: (day of month + 4-letter descriptor + .html) I'm surprised they don't have better security on this, actually. You just can't get to the articles via the search results, but they're all still publicly available (perhaps to keep old bookmarks working?).
http://www.nytimes.com/
2002/01/30/
dining/
30POTL.html
Comments
It's a cost-benefit thing. Someone would have to go update some ACLs or fix the code or something, and there's probably only a very small number of people who are going to hack NYtimes URLs to read articles about potluck dinners. ;)
Says Josh
24 Apr 2002 at 04:48 PM
Oh, but not just about potlucks: about dinosaurs and the color of the universe. About science -- you know, the real moneymaking stories. I'm gonna break their bank singlehandedly...
Says Xy
25 Apr 2002 at 08:53 AM
all that work on my behalf? thanks! the article was cool, by the way. and now i know how to hack the NYT, which is invaluable.
Says buddha
1 May 2002 at 02:10 AM
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