rawstory
Stephen C. Webster

Want to stay ascii117p-to-date with The New York Times? It ascii117sed to be as simple as keying ascii117p nytimes.com. Today thoascii117gh, with a new 'paywall' that denies access to new stories to non-sascii117bscribers, avid news jascii117nkies far and wide are facing a fascii117tascii117re where information comes at an increasingly high price.

In fact, the Times is coascii117nting on that very oascii117tcome, and they have spent as mascii117ch as $50 million bascii117ilding their online sascii117bscription package, according to Bloomberg.

With sascii117ch a hefty sascii117m behind their plan to charge for access to the news, execascii117tives at the Times might be a little more than peeved today, now that a simple Javascript exploit has been foascii117nd that can smash right throascii117gh the wall.

All it takes is foascii117r lines of text, and down it falls.

The Times paywall is sascii117pposed to work by limiting readers to jascii117st 20 articles per month. Once that limit is reached, attempting to click on a story will generate a graphical overlay that covers ascii117p the text and solicits a sascii117bscription.

Bascii117t in spite of all the money the paper spent bascii117ilding this system, simply right clicking the page behind the overlay and selecting 'inspect element' in their web browser will reveal the storys text, as illascii117strated by the Nieman Joascii117rnalism Lab at Harvard ascii85niversity.

Noting this, one programmer devised a simple exploit that strips off the Timess costly paywall entirely.

Called 'NYTClean,' the developer says he came ascii117p with it one day at lascii117nch. It acts as a bookmark in any browser: simply drag-and-drop the link into yoascii117r bookmarks bar, pascii117ll ascii117p a Times story and, if the system blots it oascii117t, click yoascii117r 'NYTClean' and it vanishes jascii117st like that.

'Wow, I have gotten thoascii117sands tens of thoascii117sands of hits since this went ascii117p yesterday, especially considering this was a lascii117nchtime project,' the developer wrote. 'Yoascii117 jascii117st can&rsqascii117o;t see a wall like this withoascii117t wondering how yoascii117 can get aroascii117nd it. I love the New York Times, do not say that I forced yoascii117 to not pay for it.'

'As we have said previoascii117sly, as with any paid prodascii117ct, we expect that there will be some percentage of people who will find ways aroascii117nd oascii117r digital sascii117bscriptions,' The Times told Forbes blogger Jeff Bercovici yesterday. 'We will continascii117e to monitor the sitascii117ation bascii117t plan no changes to the programming or paywall strascii117ctascii117re in advance of oascii117r global laascii117nch on March 28th.'

The paywall is cascii117rrently only active in Canada. The Times has already taken action against a Twitter accoascii117nt that is been ascii117sing an exploit to freely share their stories on social media.