Why does the guestbook chatbox not produce any network activity?

Question

I was trying to test if I was able to automatically send a message through curl by inspecting the network activity on chrome and getting the curl command, but I found out that in spite of messages showing up in the gestbook chat there was no any network activity. Why?

Answer 1

Because all happens client-side and the messages are not comments from real people, but autogenerated with javascript.

If you press Control+U in Chrome you will be able to look the code of the website that is rendered by your browser. Go to lines 478-525 and you'll find the following javascript function:

function addRandomComment() {
    var names = [
        "adam",
        "jane",
        "meg",
        "jon",
        "josh",
        "lisa",
        "brian"
    ];
    var comments = [
        "Is this an April Fool's joke?",
        "this is for april 1",
        "april fools :)",
        "Where's the webring? :(",
        "check out this song! http://myspace.com/soeb__42345",
        "FIIIIIIIRRRSSSSTTTTTTT",
        "...",
        "lol",
        "lol jk",
        "testing.",
        "the unicorns are genius",
        "did they kill sparkles???",
        "fireballs would have been better",
        "I forgot about <marquee> lol",
        "<marquee> !!!",
        "What about <blink>?",
        "testing...",
        "test test test",
        "does this wor",
        "OMG HAHAHA",
        "omg",
        "heh.",
        "hehehe",
        "I think they got haxxxed",
        "There are so many better things for the devs to do.",
        "I guess it's April :P",
        "f",
        "it's almost Y2K!!!",
        "what browser are you using?",
        "netscape 4.05",
        "ff",
        "DHTML!",
        "Flash"
    ];

    addComment(names[Math.floor(Math.random()*names.length)], comments[Math.floor(Math.random()*comments.length)])
}

Also, in lines 417-427 you have the following function which calls the addRandomContent():

function initGuestbook() {
    populateGuestbook();
    bindGuestbook();

    // Randomly add items
    setInterval(function () {
        if (Math.floor(Math.random() * 3) === 0) {
            addRandomComment();
        }
    }, 300);
}

I guess making you believe you were talking to real people was part of the April's fool joke.

Fun fact: at lines 82 to 102 you can find this ASCII picture of an unicorn:

                HAPPY APRIL FOOL'S FROM STACK OVERFLOW

              \/                    __/   .::::.-'-(/-/)
                     _/:  .::::.-' .-'\/\_`*******          __ (_))
        \/          /:  .::::./   -._-.  d\|               (_))_(__))
                     /: (""""/    '.  (__/||           (_))__(_))--(__))
                      \::).-'  -._  \/ \\/\|
              __ _ .-'`)/  '-'. . '. |  (i_O
          .-'      \       -'      '\|
     _ _./      .-'|       '.  (    \\                         % % %
  .-'   :      '_  \         '-'\  /|/      @ @ @             % % % %
 /      )\_      '- )_________.-|_/^\      @ @ @@@           % %\/% %
 (   .-'   )-._-:  /        \(/\'-._ `.     @|@@@@            ..|........
  (   )  _//_/|:  /          `\()   `\_\     |/_@@             )'-._.-._.-
   ( (   \()^_/)_/             )/      \\    /                /   /
    )  _.-\\.\(_)__._.-'-.-'-.//_.-'-.-.)\-'/._              /
.-.-.-'   _o\ \\\     '::'   (o_ '-.-' |__\'-.-;~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~/   /\
          \ /  \\\__          )_\    .:::::::.-'\          '- - -|
     :::''':::::^)__\:::::::::::::::::'''''''-.  \                '- - -
    :::::::  '''''''''''   ''''''''''''':::. -'\  \     C. SWANSIGER
_____':::::_____________________________________\__\______________________