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Microsoft Censoring .info domains in MSN Messenger

joostdevalk.nl — Now, not only can't you send certain filenames with queries (e.g. “download.php?”) over MSN, you can't even send *any URL with a .info domain*. This affects all clients, including Adium and Pidgin, because it's done by the MSN server.

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  • jdevalk, on 10/10/2007, -22/+12exactly... I found out when I wanted to copy paste a URL on my domain css3.info. I own the .net for that too...
    • skelterskelter, on 10/10/2007, -3/+25did you just manage to post your website in a worthless comment without anyone noticing?
      • deviouster, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8atleast its' a helpful..ish site
      • TenebrousX, on 10/10/2007, -2/+8he's the one who wrote the article, which you would have known if you had bothered to read it
  • Aleks, on 10/10/2007, -9/+94Can we all please censor MSN?
    • NikoKun, on 10/10/2007, -4/+15Yeah, just get a greasemonkey script that changes the word MSN into the comical microsoft equivalent of your choice.
      • stalefries, on 10/10/2007, -4/+6M$N, while old, is always an easy jab.
    • chriskeyes, on 10/10/2007, -13/+2MSN Messenger? I'll definitely censor that. Compared to other IM programs, it does kind of suck by today's standards. I think Yahoo! or Windows Live Messenger are way better.

      But MSN.com? And their content sites? They seem pretty interesting to me. If I'm bored, I'll just surf by MSN.com and see if there are any good articles. I've even learned some helpful tips from them. It is kind of interesting if you've got free time on your hand. So it's not that bad.

      It's just MSN Messenger that sucks.
      • chriskeyes, on 10/10/2007, -6/+3Ok, I know this is also going to get buried down eventually too, but could someone care to explain as to why I'm getting buried?

        I want to know, so I could prevent my comments from getting buried again. I don't think it's fair to bury me if you don't offer a reason. I thought I gave out a pretty good comment there. I didn't put spam, I didn't put an obviously stupid comment that would get buried, or anything like that.

        So could someone please explain. I just want to make it right.
        • thailand1972, on 10/10/2007, -4/+3Why do you want to 'make it right'? Digg isn't quality control. It doesn' t mean your comment is bad, or you're wrong. You just got Dugg down. It's meaningless.

          OTOH, it's because you said you enjoy reading MSN.com. Loser.
      • crazybrit, on 10/10/2007, -2/+13Windows live messenger = MSN, for one thing. And I don't see how Yahoo! is any better.
      • bjweeks, on 10/10/2007, -2/+4Lurk more.
      • richardiscool, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3Windows Live is the new version of MSN.
  • boredzo, on 10/10/2007, -4/+28I've added to the Adium wiki a list of strings that will cause a message to be dropped:

    http://adiumx.com/faq/MSNCensorship

    It's probably not complete yet, though I imagine most of them are filenames of the sort “something.php” or “something.php?”. (OTOH, not just *any* .php filename will do it. It only filters certain ones.)
    • ChrisJP, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5you just have gallery.php on there, but other similar ones are
      gal=
      gallery=
      are not sent. Also download= too.
    • ChrisJP, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5uhh... missed out: staff.php

      Tried to link someone to a staff page on a website to show them some peoples contact details and realised he wasn't getting the link :/
  • ddorent, on 10/10/2007, -24/+4its for your safety STUPIDS!
    • bjweeks, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2Must not feed the troll...
    • realnebby, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3How does blocking a TLD provide safety exactly?
    • LIJI, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0Our safety? It's for stupid people who get these messages and thought-lessly click them and it opens in their stupid and dangerous browser called IE:
      "hi i went fishing these are the results
      http://freeviruses.com"
      These people shouldn't use the internet anyway!
      Microsuck should remove this thing or everyone will move to GTalk.
  • CyberPhoenix, on 10/10/2007, -25/+32MS products should be avoided.
    • thailand1972, on 10/10/2007, -12/+1*yawn* - jump off the bandwagon.
    • thailand1972, on 10/10/2007, -17/+1*yawn* - jump off the bandwagon.
    • quikboy, on 10/10/2007, -16/+6Not all of their stuff is that bad. Office 2007 is pretty much the best featured office suite there is. Xbox 360 is the best all-around game console, with many uses. Windows Vista is ok (or great, depends) if you're running a nice computer.

      They're not that bad.
      • bjweeks, on 10/10/2007, -7/+3Stopped reading at 'great'.
        • TheOther1, on 10/10/2007, -5/+4stopped reading at 'Not all of their stuff is that bad'
          • richardiscool, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Well that's because you're a bigoted idiot, who's never going to amount to a anything.
    • jabberwolf, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0Yes I'd rather be spamed on an Apple with tons of Hype as well.

      Martardation, isnt there some charity foundation to help them?
  • rappermas, on 10/10/2007, -5/+50All the while, ASP still goes happily right on through...
    • thailand1972, on 10/10/2007, -7/+2I don't get it. Care to elaborate?
      • ricodued, on 10/10/2007, -0/+10ASP is a Microsoft server-side scripting product, much like PHP, although ASP has been replaced by ASP.NET.
      • stalefries, on 10/10/2007, -0/+11certain URLs with ".php" in them get blocked. ASP is Microsoft's competitor with PHP. Both are server-side scripting languages.
        • thailand1972, on 10/10/2007, -3/+4Yeah, I realise what ASP is, but I didn't read anywhere that all server side scripting that isn't ASP is blocked by MSN Messenger. In fact, it seems to be the submitter, and not the article, that is mentioning just 'download.php' that is blocked (with accompanying '?'....????). Seriously, I don't get it. Why would Microsoft ban people sharing .php files? I know ASP is Microsoft's language, but what would they gain from banning people sharing .php files? Do they think : 'Ha! If we block users sharing .php files, they'll move over to ASP / ASP.NET? Seems like FUD to me from the article submitter....
          • boredzo, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3The article is not about sharing .php *files*—I haven't tried file transfers, so I don't know whether they'd be blocked or not. It's about sending *links* (in instant messages) to *webpages* with the .php extension. There are a lot of those.

            It's not all .php filenames, either, which suggests that it's not an ASP-vs-PHP thing. They only block certain filenames, and some of them are only blocked when a query string is present (“download.php?”, where the ‘?’ is the start of the query string).
    • xkhaozx, on 10/10/2007, -4/+1I think your confused with "domains" and "file extensions". A domain is a reference to what kind of website it is (ie, ".com" menas commerical). The file extension describes the type of file. MSN is censoring the .info domain, not the .info extension. So, the ASP extension really has nothing to do with this.
      .
  • Subterfug, on 10/10/2007, -11/+1Umm .info domains work fine for me over Pidgin...

    ???
    • s1mph0ny, on 10/10/2007, -0/+11send the link to one of you msn friends?
    • wikityler, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Not for me. I get "(23:52:25) Message could not be sent because a connection error occurred:
      notalota.info"
  • TremorX, on 10/10/2007, -1/+14Not MSN Messenger, specifically, but using Microsoft's crappy MySpace-like MSN Profile pages or whatever they call them, you can't say (for example) the following: "January and February." I'll give you three guesses as to why (it's incredibly stupid).
    • ThreeDee912, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7Probably they did that to try and prevent some type code interjection? Except they probably could have did that another way.
      • TremorX, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4No, nothing that complicated. Think stupid.
    • swrlyhrly, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5Ok, im intrigued. Why?
    • TremorX, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5"Be wary and alert." "We'll watch this documentary another night." Those would be rejected for the same reason.
    • deathscythe, on 10/10/2007, -1/+26januARY ANd february
      • TremorX, on 10/10/2007, -3/+8WINNER!!! Oh, Microsoft, you lovable little scamps. So, as you see, they have a history of retarded censorship!
      • swrlyhrly, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4HAHA! That's awesome. Kinda
      • codeman38, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I guess MS has a grudge against anyone named Mary Ann too, then?
    • Fenrok, on 10/10/2007, -3/+1http://xs218.xs.to/xs218/07310/censorship.jpg
      • bobthegorilla, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Read the comment you're replying to properly, and then realise what an idiot you are.
  • quikboy, on 10/10/2007, -21/+1Well it's a good thing I don't use MSN Messenger anymore - I use Windows Live Messenger (or WLM).
    • ThreeDee912, on 10/10/2007, -1/+14I hope that was sarcasm...
      • quikboy, on 10/10/2007, -8/+1It wasn't. Really. Why is everyone burying me down?

        MSN and WLM are two different things. Like Mac OS 9 and OS X. Completely different. No kidding.
        • manitoba98xp, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Mac OS 9 and OS X share the owner, but are based on different cores. Windows Live Messenger is a rebranded version of MSN Messenger. Same network, same protocol, mostly same features, mostly same client.
    • sammykeyes, on 10/10/2007, -9/+0What's wrong? WLM is practically the best IM program in terms of features there is. I'm not a MS fan at all, but even I can admit when they actually do something right.
      • bjweeks, on 10/10/2007, -4/+7WLM uses the exact same network we are talking about. THE STORY IS ABOUT WLM.
        • quikboy, on 10/10/2007, -9/+1Uh, it's about MSN Messenger. Not WLM.

          That's like talking about Mac OS 9 and OS X. Two completely different things.
          • richardiscool, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1NO IT'S NOT. Stop being such a ***** idiot, they use the same network.
        • jonlee, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1censoring is server side regardless of what IM you're using.
    • boredzo, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7MSN Messenger and Windows Live Messenger are the same service. They simply changed the name.

      http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/may06/05-08WLMessengerOpenPR.mspx

      “The beta of Windows Live Messenger, which is **the next generation of MSN® Messenger**…”
    • eddieroger, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Its a good thing you didn't read the article.
  • simra, on 10/10/2007, -2/+17I suspect they are actually filtering .inf file extensions. The curse of three-character file extensions- in ms-land all the rest are redundant.
  • flawlessjess, on 10/10/2007, -3/+9is anyone shocked by this at all
    • ChrisJP, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2What I am shocked by is how long it's taken for articles to appear about it. I've been having problems with WLM filtering URLs for months. I had to get around it by copy and pasting all what I had said into a txt fle and send it to my friend so he could visit some websites I wanted to show him.
  • bairy, on 10/10/2007, -2/+27Messenger is a pain. I can't send certain filetypes because msn assumes it's a virus, and if I recieve them and try and open them from messenger it deletes them from my system.
    I don't mind the safety concern, but there needs to be a "stop interfering I'm competent" option.
    • t3soro, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4rename files it sees as spam/a virus/whatever from something.exe to sometihng.asdf, send it, and rename if back after you've received it. works like a charm.
    • timestar, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1If you're competent enough not to open a file called picture.exe I would assume you are competent enough to use a real IM service, e.g. Jabber.
  • chriskeyes, on 10/10/2007, -13/+1Who even use MSN Messenger anymore? Most people have upgraded too Windows Live Messenger by this point. In terms of features, WLM is probably the best IM program there is. Or at least close to Yahoo!.

    So this MSN Messenger sucks post, is kind of irrelevant. Since most people have stopped using it.
    • ChrisJP, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5If that was sarcasm then it's already been done on this comments page. If serious then this article is true for WLM as well as the old MSN.
      • chriskeyes, on 10/10/2007, -8/+2This isn't sarcasm. Why do people always assume that it's sarcasm?

        I really mean it. Not many people use MSN Messenger anymore, so is it that relevant to post on Digg?

        WLM is pretty much top-notch there is. If you want to talk about Mac OS 9, or Win 98, go ahead. But the times are using MSN Messenger anymore.
    • Kazenodeku, on 10/10/2007, -2/+10WLM is just a rebranding of MSNIM. Lurk moar.
      • quikboy, on 10/10/2007, -6/+2True, but they offered a whole lot more new features and tons of stuff that pretty much didn't exist in MSN before.

        WLM is a rebranded MSN, but they fixed it up. This guy talks about MSN only. If he really knew anything, and if WLM was also affected, he would have said so too.
        • srg13, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3Of course it's affected - they use the same servers
    • fmorel90, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5Yeah, but the censoring is server-side, so it affects WLM as well.
  • drgmdp, on 10/10/2007, -0/+28that's what tinyurl was made for
  • maybeway36, on 10/10/2007, -10/+5It's called Windows Live Messenger now. Get with the times. :P
    • timestar, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0"WLM is just a rebranding of MSNIM. Lurk moar."

      "Yeah, but the censoring is server-side, so it affects WLM as well."
  • Stonekeeper, on 10/10/2007, -4/+1These idiots are digging their own grave. And not before time....
  • darkfate, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8Hmm. I just sent a .info domain url to someone and it went through fine. Unless it hasn't been implemented across all servers.
  • joe90210, on 10/10/2007, -3/+9do people know what censorship actually means?
    • michaelschade, on 10/10/2007, -2/+8cen·sor·ship /ˈsɛnsərˌʃ
      1. the act or practice of censoring.
      2. the office or power of a censor.
      3. the time during which a censor holds office.
      4. the inhibiting and distorting activity of the Freudian censor.
      [Origin: 1585–95; censor + -ship]

      Citation: dictionary.com

      (Sadly I had to look up half of the words in the definition to find out what the definition truly meant. Finding "sɛnsər" is tough.)
    • sirhomer, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Do you?
  • DigitalJester, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6oooohh this is why I couldn't send 'whatsmyip.info' to a friend. I kept getting switchboard errors.

    TIP: type an address like so, for it to get through: http://whatsmyip .info
  • joltjake, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2this is literally from at least a year ago, come on people.
    • boredzo, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4Microsoft dropping messages is pretty old, but doing it on “.info” is new (or at least I hadn't heard about it before). Blocking an entire TLD is a much bigger inconvenience than blocking certain filenames, although, of course, all unexplained message-blocking is bad.
  • liukingbird, on 10/10/2007, -5/+0Damn, M$. my friend and I had a lot of trouble because we didn't know this.
  • totorototoro, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4Are you sure its censoring, and not just a glitch?
    Yahoo Messenger over the years has had an issue off and on with sending URLS as messages...sometimes they just didn't show up. My friends and I tried several combinations, but never found out the reasons..and then the issue would disappear for a few months. It may just be some filter that is misbehaving.
  • habbofresh, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1in before technical statement reiterating how Microsoft can't properly filter regular expressions.
  • michaelschade, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1The least that they could have done for those choosing to use their service in the first place was have an error message pop up explaining their stance on blocking messages and such.
  • thanhado, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0Yeah, that's going to be a problem considering my MSN login is on a .info domain.
  • quikboy, on 10/10/2007, -5/+4MSN Messenger sucks. So does Windows Live Messenger or anything Microsoft.
    • quikboy, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1I'm surprised I didn't get ranked higher for saying that Microsoft is bad.

      Compared to my other comment, that gave Microsoft a fair stance, this one isn't buried so bad.

      What does it take to get digged up in the comments?
  • Yareking, on 10/10/2007, -0/+13"To get round the filter and succesfully send your hyperlinks to .info websites through Messenger anyway. Just replace .info with .%69nfo.

    For instance: http://www.flashback.%69nfo"

    mess.be real msn news... Ok bury me im ready
  • microchp, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Just side-step their censorship. Install the leetkey plugin for Firefox. You could use either the ASCII to bin/hex/morse, or to be more private, use AES Encrypt. It is simple enough for most people to use. There are other ways to encrypt your MSN traffic, but it takes a little more effort for some people.

    This is also a decent way to send things around in corporate mail without the boss, IT, engineering snooping on your email.
  • squidy, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1That's why I can't send my blog's URL to my friends...
  • dasunst3r, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3The three protocols I use are AIM, MSN, and Google Talk (Jabber). So far, the one that has not done evil yet is Google Talk. Maybe Google is indeed a "do no evil" company. It is in my eyes.
  • zdiggler, on 10/10/2007, -3/+2every .info site i seen are those pyramid schemes.
  • nubious, on 10/10/2007, -5/+11They Censor MP3's too.. If you receive an MP3 file transfer and then click the link within the chat window, it deletes the file saying it's potentially unsafe, whereas windows media files go through fine...

    Proprietary Monopolization...

    ...Didn't they sign a deal with Digg?
  • icsbase, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Media company DRM is here now. What are you going to do? Use IRC. It's not Censoring anything.
  • cbergeron, on 10/10/2007, -5/+4Simple solution: Dump MSN and use something like Jabber (because it can be privatized). DON'T use GMAIL (marketing harvester), or Yahoo.

    *****, can someone develop a Peer to peer chat client ASAP please?!

    Life like Minority Report == very bad quality of life
    • DOGPARTY, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Doesn't matter what I use its what my friends use.

      ***** idiot
  • Chicken001, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2That's why... Http://www.Pen15.Info is blocked.

    Frick.
  • xkrwlng, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2.info domains are used ALOT by spammers. almost every spam registration on my website was for a .info website.
  • etnu, on 10/10/2007, -3/+2Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence.

    I doubt MS is "censoring" .info domains. I'm more willing to bet that their spam filters simply have a regex which doesn't match anything that doesn't look like [a-z0-9.-]+.[a-z]{2,3}.{0,1}[a-z]{0,3}

    People give MS way too much credit for their evil. They do lots of evil things, to be sure, but quite honestly a lot of their software engineering efforts are woefully bad -- doubly so for anything MSN or Windows Live.
    • crashie, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2And they block gallery.php by accident too?

      Seriously MSN/Live Messenger is used by millions of people so if Microsoft would have overlooked that people might send legitimate messages containing .info and gallery.php, then they must have done very little testing before doing changing stuff in their servers. ANY serious company with a multi-million user network would do weeks of testing before changing something on the live servers.

      Btw, they block non-windows Firefox users from the new Hotmail interface (the non-classic interface), even though there's no difference (except for plugins) between Window, Linux and Mac Firefox.
  • aw93053, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0The reason for this is because of the cheap availability of .info domains. The registry, Afilias, is trying to get their statistics up and offers the .info domains for as low as a dollar a piece. This in turn enables spammers and people trying to make a quick buck from Adsense or similar advertising programs to register large amounts of .info domains for very little money.

    The same goes for .cn domains at the moment (CNNIC even extended the promotional period because it is so successful).
  • geek210, on 10/10/2007, -5/+1who the ***** uses .info domains anyways lol.
    • kyelewis, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4I do, and I'm sick to death of people like yourself who think that just because *you* don't use a particular domain name, that that domain name isn't valid and doesn't exist. In fact, sick to death of censorship in general. Guess what? It is valid, it does exist, and if people want to say that "All .info domains are spam", then I'm happy to say "All people who think their world is their own, are uninformed pricks".

      (To some people's credit, even though a number of sites don't recognise .info email addresses as valid, there are a few people who are really apologetic and go out of their way to fix it.)
    • kyelewis, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4What I meant to say was, "All people who think their world is the only world, are uninformed pricks". Sorry for the logic that lacks logic.
  • osc1882, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3yeah maybe you should... STOP USING IT. Just a idea.
  • richard2, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4Everyone seems to have forgotten that it's not supposed to be possible to send messages through WLM to people who haven't authorised you. I think it's strange that Microsoft have chosen to carelessly filter messages containing certain strings rather than simply correct the authorisation system.
    • kyelewis, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1Article is referring to all messages exchanged between parties that are sent via microsoft's servers, "authorised" or not.
      • richard2, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1…

        My point is that they wouldn't need to filter messages if their authorisation system worked properly.
  • shamess, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Works fine for me...
  • ahpro, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1I just tried it, the guys right.
  • DOGPARTY, on 10/10/2007, -2/+4***** msn, I always thought this was some kind of Pidgin + Adium bug.

    MSN Also used to discriminate if you didn't use hotmail.
    Logging in with passport:"SERVER FULL!" logging in with Hotmail get on fine
    how can an IM server run by such a large company be full for ***** sake

    ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****
    • B3nD0v3r, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0Uhm, You realize hotmail and passport are practically the same thing? And they would descriminate, seeing how they made/own/run both. And now it's just WINDOWS LIVE for people like you who's mental boundries impede on any though process.
  • slapthemonkey, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2THATS S.T.U.P.I.D
  • KataLieb, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1HA! Just use an encryption plugin like Off The Record or gaim-encryption and Pidgin/gaim etc for the client program instead of MSNs own. That way all your messages and file transfers will be encrypted and nothing will be filtered...OR read by the MSN spooks ;)
    • bobthegorilla, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1That's great, except 99% of my friends would never install it because they're not computer literate enough.
    • B3nD0v3r, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0OOORRRRR you can get WLMPlus and just install a script (click, click, done) that removes ALL censoring of .info like you people wanted.
  • amckern, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1404'd
  • llynix, on 10/10/2007, -3/+1Love to slam MS here, but I do the same thing on my website comments. 99.9% of the spam I was getting had one thing in common. All of it pointed to numerous .info websites. Instead of a complicated keyword spam filter I went with a simpler block on the domain. So far I've yet to run across any legit .info sites that would make me change my mind.
  • CHAMELEONDH, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1Ive just sent the following letter to MSNM support.


    Dear MSN Customer Service,

    I was trying to send a friend the URL to my new domain www.noamr.info, and for some reason, he couldn't receive the address. A quick search in google showed me that your servers are filtering out messages with some strings.

    My question is, WHAT THE ***** WERE YOU THINKING?!
    What else were you censoring? What other messages didn't I get because you chose not to deliver it?

    Now that I know that your servers are reading all my messages, I think I should move to some other messaging protocol, one that get me all the messages other people send me. I trust my antiviruse and firewall to protect me, so your help is not, WAS NEVER and WILL NEVER be wanted.

    Don't bother mailing me back unless you've gotten rid of this idiotic idea.

    Flood them with mail to get our messages back!
  • flamebot, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3yet more anti-MS rants by the Teenagers Against Corporations Coalition
    • bobthegorilla, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5Dude, call it Teenagers Against Corporations Organisation, then it has a cool acronym. In fairness, surely you can see this is all pretty silly? The stuff that's blocked is an inconvenience for users, and it's no work at all to get around for spammers.
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