RDnet going slow again for anybody else?

**JDS** · 03-14-2008, 07:05 PM

Tracert is showing a holdup at interwrx.Phoenix3px.savvis.net...I'm getting pages, but they're REALLY slow.

**RW'07** · 03-14-2008, 08:23 PM

Yes, but in my case I think slow are just the threads where I've been posting in, all together something is wrong... again... :!:

**djrams80** · 03-14-2008, 08:33 PM

Not quite as bad as before, but is definitely happening.

**jimbonzzz** · 03-14-2008, 08:36 PM

Originally Posted by RW'07

Yes, but in my case I think slow are just the threads where I've been posting in, all together something is wrong... again... :!:

The problem was the imageshack server hosting the POW image in your sig, so I removed the link. Feel free to re-host the image and add it back...

**RW'07** · 03-14-2008, 08:40 PM

Originally Posted by jimbonzzz

Originally Posted by RW'07

Yes, but in my case I think slow are just the threads where I've been posting in, all together something is wrong... again... :!:

The problem was the imageshack server hosting the POW image in your sig, so I removed the link. Feel free to re-host the image and add it back...

Thank you very much, did not know about this type of malfunctioning :!:

EDIT (11:00pm): re-done the sig and now everything works very smoothly, I'll keep an eye on this issue, thank your very much Jim

**MEM-TEK** · 03-14-2008, 09:08 PM

Well, thanks RW'07 for slowing us all down -- most of us like to speed! Just trying to make sure we all have to wait to be sure that we see your McCain for President avatar, ain't ya!

Just kidding. :wink:

**RW'07** · 03-14-2008, 09:13 PM

NO, was JUST the USPOW link in my sig, Jim saw where the problem came from, removed the link and of course told me so, thank you again Jim, then I uploaded again, is fresh now and everything works smoothly, obviously I am in no control of ImageShack but I will keep a close eye on this issue in the future, I very much apologize if because of me something was going wrong (slower) for everybody

ops:

**jimbonzzz** · 03-14-2008, 09:40 PM

No problem, it happens to different users from time to time on here...

**Esoterica** · 03-15-2008, 07:43 AM

When you notice an actual problem with this server you'll see the bottle neck is going to be on the end (qwest.net) server.

You should have only noticed it happening to specific threads, not all of them. You probably understand, but most likely there are many others who do not. When you "link" to an image file in your post everybody that opens that post gets the data from this server, and it also at the same time pulls the data for that image file from the other server that the link points to. Think of it like three way calling on your phone taking place.

If that image file is huge (file size, not specifically physical visual size) then it takes for ever to grab that image off the other server, your essentially waiting for a download to take place.

What most people likely don't know is when you link to an image on someone else's web site it can tend to pee them off, your actually robbing their bandwidth when you do it and they end up paying for bandwidth usage thats not being used on their site, but instead on a site you linked the image from. Some people can get pretty mad about that, especially if that image is used on a message board where every time someone opens the post it downloads the image off the other persons server. There are simple ways this person could prevent you from being able to do this, so typically if they are overly concerned about it such measures are already in place.

Obviously Jim is well versed and on top of things here, but I've seen people on other message boards just to be a PITA make a avatar image in their profile thats only a single pixel transparent .gif image a couple hundred Mb in actual file size. You don't see the image at all unless you look at the page source code and it drives you nuts trying to figure out why the pages load so slow, your own server logs don't show any apparent problems.

One thing I do see allowed here on this message board are image files with cookies attached to them. I seen someone the other day here embedding a Goecities stored image and I was surprised to see the file opened. Typically I know Geocities requires a stored cookie to view images on their servers. Allowing this to happen here can be dangerous for user privacy and moderator/admin security. If I had an image I linked into a post here on my own server I'd be able to see the actual IP address of every single person who opened that particular post. If they posted themselves I'd be able to match up the time stamps and identify which IP is from which user.

Not a real security risk in itself, however, theres an old school trick that can be used (and don't ask, I'm not going to go into detail, the info is out there though). You can use this ability to grab the stored cookie and obtain the users, the Moderators, or the Administrators password and all they have to do to give you this info is open a post where you have an image file linked thats hosted on your own server where you have control.

Serious problems can result when a message board leaves "HTML" turned on. They shouldn't even make message board software with that available anymore. You can have a field day with that if your a handy HTML coder, you can actually change everything everyone sees when they open a post, right down to individual users posts. You're not changing their actual post, just putting a fake front over the top of it that everyone actually sees, that can make for some funny stuff but sleepless nights for the admin trying to figure out whats going on. I noticed that LEO message board at officer.com has HTML turned on with their message board, oh its so tempting, if only I was still evil like that.

**jdong** · 03-15-2008, 09:15 AM

Originally Posted by Esoterica

You should have only noticed it happening to specific threads, not all of them.

That's not an indication of a page load problem due to a slow loading image. MySQL has hot cached and uncached regions of the database, and when RAM is low and cache for a certain part of the database is evicted, you could see this kind of slowdown on some threads while others are instantaneous.

You probably understand, but most likely there are many others who do not. When you "link" to an image file in your post everybody that opens that post gets the data from this server, and it also at the same time pulls the data for that image file from the other server that the link points to. Think of it like three way calling on your phone taking place.

If that image file is huge (file size, not specifically physical visual size) then it takes for ever to grab that image off the other server, your essentially waiting for a download to take place.

Your browser should be waiting less than 1000ms for such images to arrive before just giving up on it and rendering the page, placing a placeholder of the image on display.

What most people likely don't know is when you link to an image on someone else's web site it can tend to pee them off, your actually robbing their bandwidth when you do it and they end up paying for bandwidth usage thats not being used on their site, but instead on a site you linked the image from. Some people can get pretty mad about that, especially if that image is used on a message board where every time someone opens the post it downloads the image off the other persons server.

This is true. ImageShack is an image hosting service, so it doesn't really matter there, but you shouldn't be displaying images from random servers you find without poking the webmaster first. Bandwidth costs can really add up.

Not a real security risk in itself, however, theres an old school trick that can be used (and don't ask, I'm not going to go into detail, the info is out there though). You can use this ability to grab the stored cookie and obtain the users, the Moderators, or the Administrators password and all they have to do to give you this info is open a post where you have an image file linked thats hosted on your own server where you have control.

If your browser doesn't distinguish between 1st and 3rd party cookies, you probably should be looking towards something else.

Serious problems can result when a message board leaves "HTML" turned on. They shouldn't even make message board software with that available anymore. You can have a field day with that if your a handy HTML coder, you can actually change everything everyone sees when they open a post, right down to individual users posts.

Most boards with HTML mode allow you to specify or come with regular expressions matching the most basic of HTML tags, specifically so that one could not pose such security problems. Especially these days with the JS abilities of browsers, allowing users to post arbitrary HTML is so insanely idiotic I doubt any webmaster is stupid enough to let it happen.