The Mork FAQ

Mork is a free URL shortener built by a small team who care about security. We design it from the user’s side, keep attacking our own assumptions the way an intruder would, and periodically invite people from the Taiwanese security community to run penetration tests so that what they find can be fixed.

The team is small and runs the service in whatever time is left over from day jobs. Tell us what you think, good or bad — we read all of it, and we would rather hear it than not.

Mork shortens URLs, and it also hosts images, videos and audio. All of it works without an account.

• Password protection: a visitor has to type the right password before the content appears.
• Expiry: when the deadline passes, the link stops working by itself.
• View limit: cap how many people can see it. The same person opening it again is not counted twice, and the link closes itself once the cap is reached.
• Management console: views, referrers, countries and devices for every link you made.

Step-by-step guides are available for short links, images, videos, audio and the management console.

Protection is spread across three points — the upload, the storage, and the moment someone opens the link — rather than resting on a password alone:

• The short link is created only after the file has arrived. The server checks that the file really is in storage and that its size and type are what they should be before it hands out a URL. An interrupted upload cannot leave behind a link that opens onto nothing.
• Only formats a browser can handle safely are accepted. SVG is always refused: it is XML underneath and can carry a script, which on opening would run under the storage domain.
• The filename does not decide where the file goes. Storage paths come from a random identifier the system generates. Only the extension is taken from the name you supplied, and it is sanitised first.
• File size is measured on the server. The number the browser reports is not trusted, and anything over the limit is deleted outright.
• The upload URL is tied to one file type and expires. It cannot be reused to write a different kind of content, and its lifetime scales with the file size so a large upload does not expire midway.
• Shortening a URL never makes the server visit it. Only the address itself is inspected — no request is sent to the target — and URLs pointing at private or reserved ranges are refused, so a short link cannot be turned into an attack on whatever network the person clicking it is sitting on.
• Password protection is backed by a bot check. Several wrong attempts in a row trigger it again, which stops automated guessing.
• Everything travels over HTTPS, and expiry, view limits and members-only access all narrow the damage if a link does get out.

One thing to be clear about: link passwords are currently stored as plain text, so that you can look one up on the management page if you forget it. Please do not reuse a password from anywhere else.

Photos from a phone or a camera usually carry a block of metadata called EXIF. It can hold the GPS coordinates of where the shot was taken, the make and model of the device, and the time. Some editors add XMP fields such as the author’s name on top of that. Share the photo as it is and you hand all of that over with it.

Mork strips all of it before the image leaves your computer. The stripping happens in your browser, so what reaches the server is already the version without those fields — the original file never leaves your device at all.

• JPEG, PNG and similar formats are re-encoded, which takes EXIF, GPS and XMP with it.
• GIF takes a different route. An animation cannot survive re-encoding — only the first frame would be left — so the blocks that have nothing to do with the picture are removed one by one instead, and the animation, the per-frame delays and the loop count all survive intact.

Metadata is not yet stripped from video and audio uploaded directly, and a phone recording can carry GPS coordinates just as a photo does. Video has another route, though: press Edit before uploading and saving re-encodes the whole clip, during which location and equipment information disappears with it. If you do not intend to edit and the location matters, clear the metadata with another tool first, or turn off location tagging when you record. Audio has no equivalent yet. We would rather tell you where we actually stand than let you assume you are covered.

No account is needed. Shortening a URL and uploading images, video or audio all work straight away, without an email address, a phone number or any other identifying detail. The links you make are remembered in this browser, listed in the sidebar, and can be cleared in one click.

• Short codes are random. Nothing about the creation time or order can be read out of a URL, and stepping through them will not find anyone else’s links.
• Views are counted per person. The same visitor opening a link again does not add to the total, so the number reflects how many people you actually reached.
• Passwords remembered on the creation page expire. On a shared computer, yours is not left behind for the next person.
• The sidebar history fades out on its own. Stay away long enough and it stops listing anything, so nothing is left behind on a device that is no longer yours.

To give the person who uploaded something basic figures — views, referrers, countries, device types — the system keeps the view records it needs for that. What is collected and how long it is kept is set out in full in the privacy policy.

Files uploaded without an account are kept for up to 30 days. Sign in and you can keep them for good.

• You can pick a shorter deadline when you create the link — anything from one minute to 30 days.
• Without an account, 30 days is the longest option in the menu, and it is also the default if you do not choose.
• Sign in and the menu gains a "♾️ Forever" option; choose it and the link never expires on its own.
• Plain short links are not subject to this limit. They take up no storage, so one created anonymously stays valid indefinitely.

Once the deadline passes the link stops working at once and nobody can open it, however they came by the URL. You can also delete it by hand at any time from the management page, with the same immediate effect.

To be precise about what expires: it is the link itself. The file stays in storage, because there is no automatic purge yet — that is a feature we are still building. Until it exists, treat not uploading as your first line of defence rather than relying on deleting afterwards. If you need us to remove something by hand, tell us through the feedback form.

You get the full set of creation and management features without an account. Signing in — with Google, free, no separate sign-up — adds these:

• Keep files for good: anonymous uploads last 30 days at most; signed in, you can choose no deadline at all.
• More files per upload: images go from 5 to 10 and audio from 2 to 3. Video stays at one.
• Automatic image watermarks: the text you choose is drawn onto the image as it uploads.
• Members-only sharing: visitors have to sign in before your link will open.
• The full history, and search: without an account the management page shows only your 10 most recent records; signed in, you can page through all of them and search by short code or by the post you saved.
• Records follow the account: without an account they are tied to this browser, so clearing cookies or moving to another device loses them — and with them the ability to change the password, adjust the view limit or delete the link. Signed in, they come with you.

Each of these is explained in detail under Member features.

Yes, and nothing needs installing. Choose a file on the image or video page and an Edit button appears next to it; press that and the editor opens in the page.

• Images: crop, rotate, filters, brightness and contrast, text and arrow annotations, emoji stickers, and redaction.
• Video: trim away the parts you do not want, crop the frame, apply filters and adjustments, and add annotations. The result is MP4.

All the editing happens inside your browser. The file is not sent to any other service in order to be edited; until you press upload, it has not left your device.

When you redact something, those pixels are destroyed before the file is written — it is not a layer laid on top that someone could peel off later. Since what usually needs covering is an account name, a licence plate or an address, that difference matters.

The video editor is about 1.4 MB to download, and saving re-encodes the whole video, which can take a few minutes on a long clip — so the first time you open it we explain that before you commit. It needs a browser with WebCodecs support; where that is missing, the Edit button is not shown.

There is a Facebook page, and you can message the team through it. Questions are welcome, and so is any kind of partnership proposal.

For anything to do with the service, use the feedback form or write to us. If your report is about a password-protected link, please include the password — without it we cannot open the link to check.

Mork is looking for partners and welcomes proposals of any kind. The partnerships and technical services already in place are described under Partners.

To talk it over, reach us through any of the channels in the previous answer.