The Secret Detective Http Project

The Server Detective – Explore a Website's Response Like a Pro

🎯 Objective:

Investigate how real servers process and respond to requests by analyzing HTTP responses, headers, status codes, and cache behavior — all without writing code.

🧰 What You’ll Use:

• Your browser’s Developer Tools (Chrome, Firefox, etc.)

• Online tools like:

  • http://httpstatus[dot]io
  • https://reqbin[dot]com
  • https://webhook[dot]site

• A text editor or Google Docs to record your findings

🔍 Step-by-Step Tasks:

1. Choose 3 Real Websites

• Pick 3 websites (e.g., wikipedia.org, netflix.com, 4geeks.com)

2. Use Developer Tools (F12)

• Open the browser’s Network tab
• Refresh one of the websites
• Click the first request (usually /) and record:

3. Check for Redirections

• Go to http://httpstatus[dot]io
• Enter a URL like http://google.com
• Record all redirects (e.g., 301 → 302 → 200)

4. Simulate a Bad Request

• Go to https://reqbin[dot]com
• Send a request to https://httpstat.us/401
• Repeat for:
• Observe and note status code and message

5. Inspect Caching Behavior

• Open a site like https://developer.mozilla.org
• Do a normal refresh and record status code
• Do a hard refresh (Ctrl+Shift+R) and compare
• Look for 200 OK vs 304 Not Modified

6. Bonus: Create Your Own Endpoint

• Go to https://webhook[dot]site
• Copy your unique URL
• Visit the URL in a new tab
• Go back to webhook[dot]site and check:

📋 Final Report:

• Make a short doc or slide deck answering: