Today in this internet savvy world, I guess
almost everybody is familiar with what is an URL or uniform resource locator.
If you see an URL, you can make out that it is nothing but a string of
characters. These characters add up to mark up a reference string which points
to a source from internet. A uniform resource locator was previously known as
uniform resource identifier.
The URLs came in to existence in the year of 1994 along
with the introduction of the World Wide Web by Sir Tim Berners – Lee along with
the contributions from the internet engineering task force.
The format of a
typical URL consists of the domain names along with the file paths and the
forward slashes are used to distinguish between the different file names and
folders. Name of the servers are preceded by a double slash.
Components of URL
Let us now list
the components of a typical URL in the order in which they are lined up in the
URL:
- The scheme name which is usually a protocol.
- The scheme is followed by a colon
- Two slashes
- Name of the domain (if any depending on the
scheme).
- A port number
- CGI (common gateway scripts) scripts
- Query string
- Fragment identifier (optional)
Categories of URL
- The URLs are categorized under two categories
namely relative URLs and absolute URLs.
- The relative URLs are used whenever the
references contained in the resources refer to another resource.
- These relative
URLs are often conceived from the absolute URLs.
- The URLs locate a resource
based on their primary access mechanism.
- There are various issues related to
URLs like URL normalization, URL manipulation etc.
What is meant by URL Manipulation?
- URL manipulation is just another name for URL rewriting.
- As
the term itself suggests it is all about altering the parameters of the URL.
- The URL manipulation is used for good purposes also and for bad ones also.
- It
is a technique that is usually employed by the web server administrator for
convenience and is often used by the hackers for nefarious purposes.
- The original URLs of the resources are quite
complicated and complex.
- Therefore, a purpose of this technique is also to make
it easy for the user to access a web resource by providing a simple URL.
- URL manipulation technique is used so that the
user does not require cutting, copying or pasting long and arcane string of
characters.
- This technique is also employed since remembering complex URLs is a
difficult task and they are quite lengthy which makes it quite a tedious task
for the users to remember or store it and use.
- Therefore, using the technique of
URL manipulation they are modified in to simple and short URLs which are
comparatively easy for the users to remember.
Wrong Use of URL Manipulation
- A nefarious use of URL
manipulation is to use the URL of a legitimate site or web resource without the
prior permission or knowledge of the site owner or administrator to redirect
the users to an illegitimate web site or web resource.
- Such illegitimate sites
then may install malicious code on the hard drive of the user’s system.
- This
may also have an intended purpose of increase the traffic on the attacker’s
illegitimate web site or application.
- There is a term similar to the term URL
manipulation called URL poisoning. These two terms may sound similar in
meaning, though they are not.
What is URL Poisoning?
- URL poisoning is a technique that is employed to
track the activities of the user on the web.
- This technique involves the
addition of an identification number to the current URL of the web browser when
that particular web site is visited by the user.
- This URL with the ID number is
then used for tracking the visits of that user on the sites.
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