The Wallstreet Journal [link] is one of those online magazines that has a subscription service that protects some of its stories from being read by users that have no subscription. Only an excerpt of the story is available for free while the rest can only be read by subscribers, or so we though.
Apparently though the Wallstreet Journal website is making referrer checks to see if a user is coming from either Digg or Google News and will present the user the full story if the check is successful. Everyone else coming from different websites or opening the Wallstreet Journal page manually will only see the excerpt.
A referrer check is one of the weakest protections because referrers can easily be spoofed. The Firefox add-on refspoof provides users with an easy way of spoofing the referrer. Read on to find out how you can read all Wallstreet Journal articles in full length for free.
Install the refspoof Firefox extension or any other utility that is able to spoof the referrer. The refspoof toolbar becomes available after restarting Firefox, enable it under View > Toolbars > Refspoof Toolbar.
Now enter digg.com in the spoof filed and select static referrer by clicking on the R icon on the right end of the toolbar. Visit the Wallstreet Journal and surf around. You will notice that all articles are available. If you disable it many articles will only display an excerpt of the story.
Is it ethical to do so ? That’s honestly not my decision to make, it is yours. I think that the Wallstreet Journal wants that traffic, wants their stories to hit the frontpage of Digg and Digg would surely ban their website if their users were only to see an excerpt of the story.
Update: The Wallstreet Journal recently changed the way their website is accessed. The workaround no longer appears to be working.
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Reference spoofing has been around for a few years. Mainly for horny geeks in search of free access to porn. The porn industry learned, I’m just surprised WSJ is so dumb. I guess those print guys are still clueless when it comes to electronic publication.
Didn’t understood the last part :s could you explain better please?