
Hosting files in url minifiers - merrier
https://fulmicoton.com/posts/urlminifier/
======
yefim
Reminds me of
[itty.bitty.site]([https://itty.bitty.site/#About/XQAAAAI9BwAAAAAAAAAeHMqHyTY4P...](https://itty.bitty.site/#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))

------
TheDong
There are many places where you can store infinite data "in the cracks" so to
speak.

Someone created a wiki-based filesystem that stored data as random wiki pages
(wikipedia and other wikis).

They automated account creation, and then created pages with large chunks of
base64 encoded encrypted content.

Doing this stuff doesn't make you clever, it just makes you an asshole.

There are also places where you can store large amounts of data for free, not
even in the cracks.

For example, dockerhub lets you upload large bundles of data (gigabytes of
data with no issue) for free. It's s3 backed, so effectively it's free s3
storage.

Image storage sites, like imgur, let you upload tons of images, and you could
easily store data steganographically (edit, typo fixed).

~~~
nerflad
Google Drive, for example, re-encodes in place every video file you upload
(!). So I wouldn't be surprised if imgur was doing something similar to combat
steganography.

~~~
saagarjha
Well, you could give them really annoying video formats that they don’t have
hardware decoding for…

~~~
TheDong
I mean, in the case of google drive you could also just upload .tar.gz files
containing whatever.

It's not like google drive only lets you upload videos.

------
nikeee
I heard about someone circumventing disk quota by encoding the data in the
file names, having only empty files.

~~~
maw
Could be a different story, but I have this vague recollection of someone who,
by taking advantage of sloppy wording, won a bet against someone else who said
he couldn't compress random data.

This was a long time ago, maybe as long as twenty years ago. I'd love to find
it again, though.

~~~
abhgh
Do you mean this - [1]? Yes, this was pretty cool! I esp liked how Mike, the
person initiating the bet, initially was super-confident he'd win:

 _It would be very easy to point out to him the impossibility of his task, but
far more interesting to see how long he will struggle with the problem before
realizing it for himself._

[1]
[http://www.patrickcraig.co.uk/other/compression.php](http://www.patrickcraig.co.uk/other/compression.php)

~~~
maw
Yes, that's it. Thanks, and thanks too to pianom4n.

And, yeah, Mike ought to have paid.

------
wilsonrocks
I made [https://spectre-writer.herokuapp.com](https://spectre-
writer.herokuapp.com) to let people store text forever online for free. source
here [https://github.com/wilsonrocks/spectre-
writer](https://github.com/wilsonrocks/spectre-writer) fwiw

------
lucb1e
Similarly, I made this a few years ago, initially meant to show more info on
mouseover in a 140-char tweet: because.a.tweet.doesnt.fit.lucb1e.com

More info using itself as demo:
[http://because.a.tweet.doesnt.fit.lucb1e.com/?text=Useful+fo...](http://because.a.tweet.doesnt.fit.lucb1e.com/?text=Useful+for+adding+footnotes+if+the+platform+does+not+support+footnotes%2C+or+on+Twitter+if+you+want+to+share+a+few+kilobytes+in+a+tweet+instead+of+140%2C+240+or+%28in+a+few+years%2C+probably%29+480+characters.+Ideally%2C+we+would+standardise+this+and+have+URLs+like+data%3Atext%2Fplain%2Cyour%2Btext%2Bhere+shortened+so+that+you+don%27t+have+to+rely+on+a+%28third+party%29+service%2C+but+that+is+currently+not+supported).

~~~
lifthrasiir
Your service badly needs `<meta charset=utf-8>`.

~~~
lucb1e
Ah, I usually add that but apparently forgot, thanks for the tip!

------
martin-adams
Reminds me of being able to store files in DNS.

[https://blog.benjojo.co.uk/post/dns-filesystem-true-cloud-
st...](https://blog.benjojo.co.uk/post/dns-filesystem-true-cloud-storage-
dnsfs)

------
hernantz
Reminded me of this: [https://ralsina.me/weblog/posts/locche-the-untouchable-
paste...](https://ralsina.me/weblog/posts/locche-the-untouchable-
pastebin.html)

------
umvi
> One can really store 4KB of arbitrary data with a url minifier system and
> share it for free.

Free for you, not free for the minifier service.

That's like saying "One day while I was at Chick-Fil-A I had an epiphany while
putting honey on my biscuit. I thought: 'Chick-Fil-A is really nice to provide
all this honey for free.' And then it struck me... One can really take all the
honey they want and use it to refill their bottles at home one honey packet at
a time."

~~~
zuttton
If you think your getting some great deal by going into fast food places and
taking all the packets of condiments you can get then your playing yourself.
That food chain already won by getting your feet in there. I doubt these
companies fret of such things including the url minifier service.

~~~
misterbwong
Doesn't mean that said companies are OK with this. The difference is scale.
Companies don't care until these tactics get popular enough to affect the
bottom line. Chick-fil-a doesn't care about the honey because the "hack" isn't
popular and hasn't been done at scale (yet). If it does get popular, you can
bet that it will get banned.

See also: Salad towers in China [https://kotaku.com/how-chinese-ingenuity-
destroyed-salad-bar...](https://kotaku.com/how-chinese-ingenuity-destroyed-
salad-bars-at-pizza-hut-834835079)

