Anyone who uses Facebook or Twitter is probably familiar with Bit.ly or TinyURL.com–Web services that shortens lengthy Web addresses to fit within limited character counts. These truncated URLs don’t make it clear what page the link redirects to, but most people have gotten used to that fact; users happily click a shortened URL without worrying that it might actually send you to a site that starts a computer virus download.

Now, a new website called ShadyURL.com is generating a few laughs for its service that claims to “make your Twitter followers a little more uneasy.” The web service shortens web addresses into “suspicious and frightening” links that would anyone think hard before clicking on.

For example:
Facebook.com became http://5z8.info/56-DEPLOY-TROJAN-287.mw9—-_i6f3e__init_download
Twitter.com turned into http://5z8.info/trojan_j7r7z_inject_worm

When we typed in DiscoverMagazine.com, here’s what we got:
http://5z8.info/friendster-of-sex_m8×9r_-OPEN-WEBCAM—START-RECORD–

Rest assured, these URLs don’t actually send you to sites where trojan horses will be deployed, worms will be injected, and webcams will start recording. Then again, we wonder how long it will be before someone puts an actual virus in a ShadyURL that looks obviously shady but that people will assume is a safe URL cloaked in false shadiness.

Damn your logical puzzles, Internet.

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