"Is it possible to trace who linked to you?" Topic

Somehow this sounds more like Magic, with Laws of Similarity and Contagion, but I could be wrong.

If I post a link to an article, is it possible for it to be traced by the author of the linked article?

Example. There are several threads on TMP about the alleged "below Zero" experiments. (Actually being "below zero" is what I mean by "alleged".)
Each has a link to a NEWS story about the experiment. Could the author know in any way that he has been linked to, tracing back to the TMP threads, without being told separately?

Almost certainly yes – your host can log where visitors to your site came from (obviously it's used by advertisers mainly – they can see where their site's traffic is coming from.)

Yes, but only to the extent that any information on the Internet is valid. The fundamentals of the Internet do not allow for repudiation, so, f'r'ex, if a server gets a request for data from somewhere else, there is no actual guarantee that it actually came from where it said it did.

However, as a rule, people don't mess with their routing data, so in the example you give, it is very likely that someone could trace it back. Not likely the author (especially given the quality of science reporting in the article), but their IT department should be able to make short work of it, if they wanted.

Even at that, there are probably hundreds of thousands of external links leading to that article (like results from search engines), and the couple hundred link throughs from TMP are probably about as noticeable as a single brunette hair in a pile of blonde ones.

That is, my wife would see it instantly. :)

Why?

Definitely. You can tell where someone came from to get to a specific page pretty easily if you have access to the web server logging info.

Every request for a resource on a server has a lot of possible information you can gather. Not magic, just the way the servers communicate.

The originating computer sends a request that specifies a resource that it wants, along with that request it sends information about the requestor. Things such as what browser they are using, where they came from, their IP address, their operating system, what language they prefer, and a few other minor things.

Using Google info you can even tell who is linking to you on pages even of people aren't using the links. That's just brute force recording of information as they crawl through web sites.

"The originating computer sends a request that specifies a resource that it wants, along with that request it sends information about the requestor."

Only if configured to do so, though. Incognito browsers don't.

The only thing that's *required* is a HTTP verb and a target.

"However, as a rule, people don't mess with their routing data"

If you mess with the routing info (sending forged from fields in the IP header), you'll never see the SYN packet (it'll get sent somewhere else), so you won't establish a TCP connection to do any requesting over…

Could the author know in any way that he has been linked to, tracing back to the TMP threads, without being told separately?

What I think you are asking is "Are there sites with a link to ___ url"?

Assuming the sites are visited by Google, the following (example) search would work:

link:www.theminiaturespage.com -site:theminiaturespage.com

Which means "web pages containing the link theminiaturespage.com but not any pages at the site theminiaturespage.com

If you mess with the routing info (sending forged from fields in the IP header), you'll never see the SYN packet (it'll get sent somewhere else), so you won't establish a TCP connection to do any requesting over…

There are about a dozen ways to get around that. The simplest is to spoof a non-existent address and claim to be a router that can find it. Then the replies will be sent through you en route the non-existent address.

Obviously tech people never miss a chance to give more information than is necessary to answer the simple question.

give more information than is necessary

Mrs Elmo calls that: "technically accurate but not helpful."