Hulu Munging HTML With JS To Protect Content 281
N!NJA writes "Hulu has started encoding the html that they send to people's browsers, and then decoding it using javascript before rendering it. [...] They then run the character stream through a series of javascript functions to convert it back into plain text before pushing it into your browser using DHTML. That's quite a lot of effort just for fun, so I assume that is to stop screen scrapers from parsing content." I really can't understand all this effort. Boxee displayed the Hulu advertising perfectly. I suspect Alec Baldwin is to blame.
what do you expect? (Score:5, Funny)
they're aliens. that's how they roll.
With apologies to Shakespeare... (Score:5, Funny)
April Fools Day... (Score:5, Funny)
...ended at midday yesterday. Though I have to admit that this is far funnier than the "stories" that Slashdot ran at the time.
Re:Cat & Mouse. (Score:5, Funny)
a marketing major or MBA course. that's what makes them think it'll be more dificult.
Re:Cat & Mouse. (Score:5, Funny)
Shut up! That's why.
Re:what do you expect? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:what do you expect? (Score:3, Funny)
Plan B: CAPTCHA (Score:5, Funny)
Make the viewer fill it in every ~2 minutes to keep watching.
Re:Phase One is Over (Score:5, Funny)
I sure hope not.
If it is, then what's the difference between obfuscated code and horribly written code thats difficult to understand? Or code thats been run through a minifier to make it smaller?
So you mean all Perl!??
Re:what do you expect? (Score:1, Funny)
I for one welcome our HTML munging overlords.
Site modding ponderings ... (Score:4, Funny)
I used to wonder why you cannot mod a Slashdot editor's comment "Funny", but now I see that it would be an unused feature ;-)
Re:Dumb question here (Score:5, Funny)
only if the decoder is american though.
Re:haha (Score:1, Funny)
anal sex wont do anything but make your dick stink
Troll? Srsly? This should be +5 informative!
Fail (Score:5, Funny)
Which, of course, would make the scroll bar an anti-circumvention device.
Re:Cat & Mouse. (Score:3, Funny)
I do that from time to time for PORN too. Curse that 1000 hit limit on images.google.com!
There you go. Fixed that for you.
Re:Cat & Mouse. (Score:2, Funny)
I probably won't regret missing "Zenon and Hypatia making a porno" from that library
Re:Cat & Mouse. (Score:5, Funny)
A month, a friggin month to unplug from a 100mb switch port and plug into a 1gb switch port.
5 minute change if you include the exhaustive checks, and double checks, and tripple checks to make sure there is not a problem.
Change Management at its finest!
Re:Cat & Mouse. (Score:3, Funny)
Obviously discrinatory against Lynx (Score:5, Funny)
This is probably to stop Lynx browsers from properly displaying content. I'm betting this move was backed by bribe money. Clearly this is aimed at reducing compatibility with Lynx. MS is just trying to steal away market share.
Re:I can't understand...Boxee displayed ads perfec (Score:1, Funny)
Yeah, but wiping my arse with a nokia doesn't work too well, the wheetabix isnt' too absorbent, and don't get me started on what happened with the nutella!
Re:Cat & Mouse. (Score:4, Funny)
The XBMC guys already made a plugin [lifehacker.com] after the last hulu change. It'll take a few hours and a new one will be made.
Those slowpokes, I've already configured my videocamera to record my computer screen, the plugin took only 30 seconds (and the only reason it took that long is because I didn't have a flashlight and it was dark under my desk.)
Not only that, but I bet their version won't encode to high-quality VHS tape format.
Re:Cat & Mouse. (Score:2, Funny)
dict book
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
2: physical objects consisting of a number of pages bound together; "he used a large book as a doorstop" [syn: {book}, {volume}]
Ah, an object used to hold doors open, but I fail to see the entertainment value in a doorstop.
Re:April Fools Day... (Score:2, Funny)
Don't worry, just visit Hulu via Internet Explorer 8.1 and you can view all the encoded server-side HTML and JS.
Re:Cat & Mouse. (Score:2, Funny)