https://shkspr.mobi/blog Regular nonsense about tech and its effects 🙃 Tue, 29 Apr 2025 07:28:54 +0000 en-GB © Terence Eden. 🄯 CC BY-SA. See https://shkspr.mobi/blog/copyright-and-copyleft/ hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1.4 https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/cropped-avatar-32x32.jpeg https://shkspr.mobi/blog 32 32 https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2011/04/dear-nokia/ https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2011/04/dear-nokia/#comments Fri, 29 Apr 2011 10:53:08 +0000 http://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=4015 <p>Nokia's marketing team are idiots. They've used URL over which they have no control on an advert for one of their premium handsets.</p> <p>This is the story of how I <del datetime="2011-04-29T08:46:02+00:00">hijacked</del> <del datetime="2011-04-29T08:46:02+00:00">stole</del> <del datetime="2011-04-29T08:46:02+00:00">hacked</del> <em>recycled</em> it and, in doing so, prevented Nokia from having a serious PR problem.</p> <h2 id="e7-poster"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2011/04/dear-nokia/#e7-poster">E7 Poster</a></h2> <p>This is advert for the new Nokia E7. It really emphasises the tweeting capabilities of the handset. <img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Nokia-E7-Poster.jpg" alt="Nokia E7 Poster" title="Nokia E7 Poster" width="600" height="450" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-4018"></p> <p>Nokia's marketing team have illustrated this by showing off a couple of tweets on the handset. One of which contains a Bit.ly short URL. <img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Nokia-Tweet-300x248.jpg" alt="Nokia Tweet" title="Nokia Tweet" width="300" height="248" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-4017"></p> <p>Here's the close up... it points to <a href="http://bit.ly/CYRWP">http://bit.ly/CYRWP</a> <a href="http://bit.ly/CYRWP"><img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Nokia-Bitly.jpg" alt="Nokia Bitly" title="Nokia Bitly" width="319" height="84" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-4016"></a></p> <p>Being the curious chap that I am, I thought "Ooooh! I wonder where that'll take me? To some awesome Nokia competition page perhaps?"</p> <p>So I typed it into my phone. <img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/bit.ly-404-page.jpg" alt="bit.ly 404 page" title="bit.ly 404 page" width="300" height="348" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-4019"> Yup - the idiots in Nokia's marketing team <strong>didn't register the bit.ly link!</strong></p> <p>So, it was a simple matter for me to pop over to bit.ly, create a short URL pointing to this site, then customise it to say CYRWP.</p> <h2 id="malicious-use"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2011/04/dear-nokia/#malicious-use">Malicious Use</a></h2> <p>If I were a scallywag, I'd have pointed the URL to an Android website, or perhaps one of the <a href="https://www.cnet.com/reviews/nokia-e7-review/">less-than-stellar E7 reviews</a>.</p> <p>If I were nasty, I'd have pointed it to a malware page.</p> <p>If I were a criminal genius (which I am not) I would have pointed it to a page which asked for credit-card number, email addresses, phone numbers, etc of people intetersted in buying / winning the handset.</p> <p>I'm closer to scallywag than evil mastermind - so I pointed the URL to this blog post. Hopefully this page will serve as a reminder to Nokia's marketing team that you should....</p> <h1 id="always-check-urls-before-printing-them-on-an-advert"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2011/04/dear-nokia/#always-check-urls-before-printing-them-on-an-advert">Always check URLs before printing them on an advert!</a></h1> <h2 id="bootnote"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2011/04/dear-nokia/#bootnote">Bootnote</a></h2> <p>Two other interesting things to note.</p> <ul> <li>The #hashtag in the pictured tweet isn't hyperlinked. Tsk</li> <li>The URL "CYRWP" is an anagram of "CRY WP". Are the Nokians in floods of tears over the death of Symbian and the coming rise of Windows Phone 7?</li> </ul> <img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/themes/edent-wordpress-theme/info/okgo.php?ID=4015&amp;HTTP_REFERER=RSS" alt="" width="1" height="1" loading="eager"> https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2011/04/dear-nokia/feed/ 1