Bypassing the protection on the NY Times website in three lines
Developing a system for paid access to content cost the New York Times around $ 40–50 million , according to Bloomberg sources.
No matter how sad it is to admit, protection can be circumvented with the help of three lines in JavaScript.
Now you can read for free on the site only 20 articles per month. After that, the page is loaded, but a pop-up window immediately appears asking for payment for access. Subscription prices range from $ 15 to $ 35 per month.
')
At the same time, you can open the page code - and there will still be the text of the article.
It is easy to guess that in order to circumvent such a “protection”, it is enough to remove the lines that cause this pop-up window from the page code. Everyone can do this with the Greasemonkey script. Or simply install the NYTClean bookmarklet that Canadian programmer David Hayes just published.
The nyt.js script written by him consists of only three lines.
Moreover, to get access to the "paid" article, you can even without any script, if you go to the NY Times website not directly, but from a social network, for example, via a link from Twitter. NY Times columnists advise readers to do so in order not to spend money on paid access.
As we see, it turned out to be quite easy to open the defense. In general, this method of protection, coupled with a very mild restriction of 20 free articles per month, suggests that the NY Times did not aim to firmly protect their content.
Judge for yourself: none of the existing paid content access systems, including the WSJ, FT or The Economist, provides for loading articles into the user's browser before asking for payment. And here it is exactly so, and certainly not by chance.
In the NY Times, it was understood that it was impossible to completely close free access to articles, so they implemented a system that actually works as “payment on request”. Who wants to - will continue to read articles for free, and who is too lazy to produce extra gestures or shame - he will pay a subscription. Such “vulnerabilities” are actually part of the defense of the NY Times, so as not to turn a loyal audience against them.
Among the paid subscribers will be only regular readers of the NY Times - people who come to the site every day and open a few articles. Let's see how effective this approach will be.
No matter how sad it is to admit, protection can be circumvented with the help of three lines in JavaScript.
Now you can read for free on the site only 20 articles per month. After that, the page is loaded, but a pop-up window immediately appears asking for payment for access. Subscription prices range from $ 15 to $ 35 per month.
')
At the same time, you can open the page code - and there will still be the text of the article.
It is easy to guess that in order to circumvent such a “protection”, it is enough to remove the lines that cause this pop-up window from the page code. Everyone can do this with the Greasemonkey script. Or simply install the NYTClean bookmarklet that Canadian programmer David Hayes just published.
The nyt.js script written by him consists of only three lines.
//Prototype is already installed on NYTimes pages, so I'll use that:
$('overlay').hide();
$('gatewayCreative').hide();
$(document.body).setStyle( { overflow:'scroll' } );Moreover, to get access to the "paid" article, you can even without any script, if you go to the NY Times website not directly, but from a social network, for example, via a link from Twitter. NY Times columnists advise readers to do so in order not to spend money on paid access.
As we see, it turned out to be quite easy to open the defense. In general, this method of protection, coupled with a very mild restriction of 20 free articles per month, suggests that the NY Times did not aim to firmly protect their content.
Judge for yourself: none of the existing paid content access systems, including the WSJ, FT or The Economist, provides for loading articles into the user's browser before asking for payment. And here it is exactly so, and certainly not by chance.
In the NY Times, it was understood that it was impossible to completely close free access to articles, so they implemented a system that actually works as “payment on request”. Who wants to - will continue to read articles for free, and who is too lazy to produce extra gestures or shame - he will pay a subscription. Such “vulnerabilities” are actually part of the defense of the NY Times, so as not to turn a loyal audience against them.
Among the paid subscribers will be only regular readers of the NY Times - people who come to the site every day and open a few articles. Let's see how effective this approach will be.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/288852/
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