Web Printing Booby Trap?

[Donald Barclay]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Our library offers free laser printing from our networked computers, which
provide web access via Netscape.  A few weeks ago, we found at one of the
printers some 200 pages that were blank except for the following header: 

The Anarchist Cookbook   http://www.sonic.net/~robroy/cookbook2.html#18

This week, I found the same thing at another printer, so I decided to
investigate.  When I went to http://www.sonic.net/~robroy/ I found a web
version of <<The Anarchist Cookbook>>.  I thought I would try printing,
and when I did I got the blank pages with the header (though I only got
four of them since I had specified printing only pages 1-4).  I noticed
that the URL that shows up in the Netscape Print dialog box (the same URL
that is printed in the header) is different from the URL on which the
actual <<Coobook>> appears.  It seems that when you print from URL X, the
source for what you print is actually URL Y. 

Could this be an intentional printing booby trap designed to trick people
into wasting time and paper, or is it just a badly designed web page? If
it is an intentional printing trap, has anyone else run into anything like
it?  I hate to think of how much paper and bandwidth such traps will waste
if they become common. 


Donald A. Barclay
Coordinator of Electronic Services    always the beautiful answer
University of Houston Libraries       who asks a more beautiful question
DBarclay at uh.edu                               --e.e. cummings