Once upon a time, Google Reader shut down, and everybody scrambled to write a replacement. I didn’t actually use Reader or any RSS reader, but writing one seemed like a great idea. I’m quickly learning to regret that decision.

Let’s consider just one terribly difficult task, extracting the link to a post. Maybe the <id> element?

<id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4341554630550651649.post-8843802384533935675</id>

That doesn’t look very clickable, but nobody said it should be, so let’s move on. Maybe it’s one of the aptly named <link> elements?

<link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/feeds/8843802384533935675/comments/default" title="Post Comments" />
<link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2013/10/lets-audit-truecrypt.html#comment-form" title="65 Comments" />
<link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4341554630550651649/posts/default/8843802384533935675?v=2" />
<link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4341554630550651649/posts/default/8843802384533935675?v=2" />
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AFewThoughtsOnCryptographicEngineering/~3/R0_NjwyIhqI/lets-audit-truecrypt.html" title="Let's audit Truecrypt!" />

That last one looks promising, but it’s also kind of fucked up. Can’t I just get a normal link? Oh, here we go:

<feedburner:origLink>http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2013/10/lets-audit-truecrypt.html</feedburner:origLink>

Hurray! But, but, but... Nooooo, what’s this?

<feedburner:origLink>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AFewThoughtsOnCryptographicEngineering/~3/EIOZbNuZhXc/lets-audit-truecrypt.html</feedburner:origLink>

WTF Google? Why are there two original links? What definition of original are we using here?

(To be clear, and for even more added bonus fun, the second origLink element only shows up sometimes. Welcome to the cloud. Why be correct when you can be available?)