How To Read WSJ.com For Free (NWS)

News Corp. (NWS) boss Rupert Murdoch isn't dropping the pay wall for the Wall Street Journal's Web site any time soon. But that doesn't mean you can't steal it!

How's that? WSJ.com has deals with Digg and Google News (GOOG) to give people free access to stories they find on those sites. That is, if you find a WSJ story on either of the sites, and click through, the site won't make you pay to read it.

So the easiest way to read the paper gratis, Salon's Farhad Manjoo explains, is to find the story you're looking for on Digg or Google News. But that's a pain. For more complete access: Convince their server that you're coming from Digg or Google News even when you're not. Manjoo:

The technical name for this is "referer spoofing" (with the misspelling). Spoofing is an easy thing to pull off in Firefox -- all you've got to do is download this add-on, refspoof.

Step-by-step instructions available on Salon. Oh, and is this ethical? Suuuure, Manjoo says.

"The Wall Street Journal wants people to come to its site for free -- if it didn't, it wouldn't give readers of Digg and Google News full access to its articles. I'll grant you that setting your browser to spoof Digg is slightly deceptive. But it's a minor fib, on the order of, say, handing a cashier an expired coupon."

Or maybe, like setting up a printing press and producing your own coupons in order to save a couple cents on some Hot Pockets. Dudes -- WSJ.com is $79 bucks. That's 22 cents a day. Pony up, or Rupe won't be able to cut his family many more $360 million checks.