I hacked the New York Times' paywall. So can you, if you can use a delete key

This morning, like a good citizen, I signed up for The New York Times' paywall, which went live today (see the sign-up screens and more here).

It cost 99US cents for four weeks (a launch special), after which my choice of sub (web/mobile/iPad) would cost $35 a month (the cheapest option, for the website only, costs $US15 a month).

Pre-launch, various geeks claimed they could hack the NYT paywall, which was being trialled in Canada. But that seemed all by-the-by, given their geek tips involved authoring lines of JavaScript.

This morning, however, Mashable claimed it was as easy as deleting the last part of an article's URL.

Dubious, I logged out of the Times, then chalked up 19 clicks on articles.

On my 20th click, the "Sign up today" message duly popped up.

The article's URL was:

thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/28/will-obama-speech-address-region-or-just-libya/?hp&gwh=188AD0B653059334D54EA7D97A20E142

Following Mashable's tip, I simply deleted the last part of this address after the "?" - as highlighted in the address bar in the screen grab below (click to zoom; yes, I have just installed IE9; no I haven't imported my Favourites yet).

So it became:

thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/28/will-obama-speech-address-region-or-just-libya/

And, lo, the article displayed in full.

Now, once you've passed your 20 article limit, you do have to delete the last part of the URL every time you want to read an article (an alternative doing the rounds: clear your browser's cache).

People who read the Times website cover-to-cover (so to speak) would find that a hassle.

But for Kiwis checking in on the odd article, it makes more sense than paying (at least, until the Times plugs the gap).

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I hacked the New York Times' paywall. So can you, if you can use a delete key