Shortened URLs

TinyURL and Bit.ly are commonly used application interfaces that redirect a long URL with a shortened URL. This shortened URL can then be used in various kinds of mobile computing, and where smaller content is needed, such as Twitter. This smaller URL is subject to abuse because the user can’t see the actual URL. The shortened URL redirects the user to the original site using the longer URL stored at the “mother” site. Malware is already using the shortened URL to redirect “trusted users” to malicious sites. When a friend sends you a link to a site, you are essentially trusting that they are sending you to a safe site. Bad people are stealing Twitter logins, for example, and then sending bad links to all the people in their “friends” list. Firefox has a plug-in called longURL that will show you the long URL when you hoover your mouse over the short URL. Or, you can go to the longURL site – www.longURL.org – type in the TinyURL and it will give you the full URL. LongURL supports URLs from tinyurl.com, is.gd, ping.fm, ur1.ca, bit.ly, snipurl.com, tweetburner.com, metamark.net, url.ie, x.se, 6url.com, yep.it, piurl.com, and others. It is also good to note that LongURL has a web developer plug-in as well.