https://github.com/captbaritone/hashbin
A paste bin that never sees the contents of its pastes
https://github.com/captbaritone/hashbin
Last synced: 9 months ago
JSON representation
A paste bin that never sees the contents of its pastes
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/captbaritone/hashbin
- Owner: captbaritone
- Created: 2015-02-26T01:21:45.000Z (almost 11 years ago)
- Default Branch: master
- Last Pushed: 2023-11-28T15:30:31.000Z (about 2 years ago)
- Last Synced: 2025-02-15T09:17:23.032Z (11 months ago)
- Language: HTML
- Homepage: http://hashb.in
- Size: 184 KB
- Stars: 77
- Watchers: 7
- Forks: 10
- Open Issues: 1
-
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
Awesome Lists containing this project
README
# HashBin
HashBin is a paste bin that never sees the contents of its pastes.
It takes advantage of some unique properties of the hash portion of a URL to
avoid ever being able to see the content the pastes it helps create.
What is the "hash" of a URL, and why is it special? The hash is the portion of
the URL that follows the `#` symbol. For example:
```python
http://example.com#the-hash
```
Here's what makes it special:
> When an agent (such as a Web browser) requests a web resource from a Web
> server, the agent sends the URI to the server, but does not send the
> [hash].
-- [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragment_identifier)
At first glance that may not seem terribly note-worthy, but it allows for
something very interesting. It allows you to store information in a URL that
the server never sees, but can be read by JavaScript.
You can think about it like this, a URL contains two distinct pieces of
information:
1. A pointer to a location where it can download a web app
2. A piece of data which you want that app to interpret
This is exactly what I have built. When your browser requests `http://hashb.in`
it retrieves a simple JavaScript web app that immediately takes the content of
the hash, uncompresses it, and displays it as text on the page.
*For example:*
Since my server never sees, much less *provides*, the content being displayed
on the page, I posit that I should be immune to takedown notices. Even if
I did receive one, what action could I take? I suppose I could stop hosting the
app, but that hardly seems reasonable.
Say a website offered you a `.doc` file as well as a link to download Microsoft
Word so that you could view that file. If that file was found to contain,
illegal or copyrighted material, we wouldn't say that Microsoft should stop
hosting Microsoft Word would we?
## Credit
This site was inspired by two other very similar sites:
- http://iamnotagoodartist.com/web/an-auto-updating-data-uri-text-editor/
- [Hashify.me](http://bit.ly/dXYxGU)
- [HasteBin](http://hastebin.com/) I pretty much stole their design wholesale