diff --git a/Gemfile b/Gemfile
index b4a0967b..d5b42d83 100644
--- a/Gemfile
+++ b/Gemfile
@@ -23,6 +23,7 @@ gem 'pg'
 gem 'pundit'
 gem 'pundit_extra'
 gem 'rack-cors'
+gem 'rack-attack'
 gem 'redis'
 gem 'slack-notifier'
 gem 'snorlax'
diff --git a/Gemfile.lock b/Gemfile.lock
index 7e2590c1..23d4c827 100644
--- a/Gemfile.lock
+++ b/Gemfile.lock
@@ -177,6 +177,8 @@ GEM
       activesupport (>= 3.0.0)
     pundit_extra (0.3.0)
     rack (2.0.1)
+    rack-attack (5.0.1)
+      rack
     rack-cors (0.4.0)
     rack-test (0.6.3)
       rack (>= 1.0)
@@ -316,6 +318,7 @@ DEPENDENCIES
   pry-rails
   pundit
   pundit_extra
+  rack-attack
   rack-cors
   rails (~> 5.0.0)
   rails3-jquery-autocomplete
diff --git a/app/controllers/hacks_controller.rb b/app/controllers/hacks_controller.rb
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..1abe3e60
--- /dev/null
+++ b/app/controllers/hacks_controller.rb
@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
+# bad code that should be checked over before entering one of the
+# nice files from the right side of this repo
+class HacksController < ApplicationController
+  include ActionView::Helpers::TextHelper # string truncate method
+
+  # rate limited by rack-attack - currently 5r/s
+  # TODO: what else can we do to make get_with_redirects safer?
+  def load_url_title
+    authorize :Hack
+    url = params[:url]
+    response, url = get_with_redirects(url)
+    title = get_encoded_title(response)
+    render json: { success: true, title: title, url: url }
+  rescue StandardError => e
+    render json: { success: false }
+  end
+
+  private
+
+  def get_with_redirects(url)
+    uri = URI.parse(url)
+    response = Net::HTTP.get_response(uri)
+    while response.code == '301'
+      uri = URI.parse(response['location'])
+      response = Net::HTTP.get_response(uri)
+    end
+    [response, uri.to_s]
+  end
+
+  def get_encoded_title(http_response)
+    title = http_response.body.sub(/.*<title>(.*)<\/title>.*/m, '\1')
+    charset = http_response['content-type'].sub(/.*charset=(.*);?.*/, '\1')
+    charset = nil if charset == 'text/html'
+    title = title.force_encoding(charset) if charset
+    truncate(title, length: 140)
+  end
+end
diff --git a/app/policies/hack_policy.rb b/app/policies/hack_policy.rb
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..b6fbf6ce
--- /dev/null
+++ b/app/policies/hack_policy.rb
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+class HackPolicy < ApplicationPolicy
+  def load_url_title?
+    true
+  end
+end
diff --git a/config/application.rb b/config/application.rb
index b629682a..96505b32 100644
--- a/config/application.rb
+++ b/config/application.rb
@@ -26,6 +26,8 @@ module Metamaps
       Doorkeeper::ApplicationController.helper ApplicationHelper
     end
 
+    config.middleware.use Rack::Attack
+
     # Configure sensitive parameters which will be filtered from the log file.
     config.filter_parameters += [:password]
 
diff --git a/config/initializers/rack-attack.rb b/config/initializers/rack-attack.rb
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..9dfe3746
--- /dev/null
+++ b/config/initializers/rack-attack.rb
@@ -0,0 +1,59 @@
+class Rack::Attack
+  Rack::Attack.cache.store = ActiveSupport::Cache::MemoryStore.new
+
+  # Throttle all requests by IP (60rpm)
+  #
+  # Key: "rack::attack:#{Time.now.to_i/:period}:req/ip:#{req.ip}"
+  throttle('req/ip', :limit => 300, :period => 5.minutes) do |req|
+    req.ip # unless req.path.start_with?('/assets')
+  end
+
+  # Throttle POST requests to /login by IP address
+  #
+  # Key: "rack::attack:#{Time.now.to_i/:period}:logins/ip:#{req.ip}"
+  throttle('logins/ip', :limit => 5, :period => 20.seconds) do |req|
+    if req.path == '/login' && req.post?
+      req.ip
+    end
+  end
+
+  # Throttle POST requests to /login by email param
+  #
+  # Key: "rack::attack:#{Time.now.to_i/:period}:logins/email:#{req.email}"
+  #
+  # Note: This creates a problem where a malicious user could intentionally
+  # throttle logins for another user and force their login requests to be
+  # denied, but that's not very common and shouldn't happen to you. (Knock
+  # on wood!)
+  throttle("logins/email", :limit => 5, :period => 20.seconds) do |req|
+    if req.path == '/login' && req.post?
+      # return the email if present, nil otherwise
+      req.params['email'].presence
+    end
+  end
+
+  throttle('load_url_title/req/ip', :limit => 5, :period => 1.second) do |req|
+    # If the return value is truthy, the cache key for the return value
+    # is incremented and compared with the limit. In this case:
+    #   "rack::attack:#{Time.now.to_i/1.second}:load_url_title/req/ip:#{req.ip}"
+    #
+    # If falsy, the cache key is neither incremented nor checked.
+
+    req.ip if req.path == 'hacks/load_url_title'
+  end
+
+  self.throttled_response = lambda do |env|
+		now = Time.now
+		match_data = env['rack.attack.match_data']
+    period = match_data[:period]
+    limit = match_data[:limit]
+
+		headers = {
+      'X-RateLimit-Limit' => limit.to_s,
+			'X-RateLimit-Remaining' => '0',
+			'X-RateLimit-Reset' => (now + (period - now.to_i % period)).to_s
+		}
+
+    [429, headers, ['']]
+  end
+end
diff --git a/config/routes.rb b/config/routes.rb
index fe48b6ba..84112d23 100644
--- a/config/routes.rb
+++ b/config/routes.rb
@@ -80,4 +80,8 @@ Metamaps::Application.routes.draw do
   get 'users/:id/details', to: 'users#details', as: :details
   post 'user/updatemetacodes', to: 'users#updatemetacodes', as: :updatemetacodes
   resources :users, except: [:index, :destroy]
+
+  namespace :hacks do
+    get 'load_url_title'
+  end
 end
diff --git a/frontend/src/Metamaps/PasteInput.js b/frontend/src/Metamaps/PasteInput.js
index d14a0cf4..13258857 100644
--- a/frontend/src/Metamaps/PasteInput.js
+++ b/frontend/src/Metamaps/PasteInput.js
@@ -88,6 +88,18 @@ const PasteInput = {
       import_id,
       {
         success: function(topic) {
+          $.get('/hacks/load_url_title', {
+            url: text
+          }, function success(data, textStatus) {
+            var selector = '#showcard #topic_' + topic.get('id') + ' .best_in_place'
+            if ($(selector).find('form').length > 0) {
+              $(selector).find('textarea, input').val(data.title)
+            } else {
+              $(selector).html(data.title)
+            }
+            topic.set('name', data.title)
+            topic.save()
+          })
           TopicCard.showCard(topic.get('node'), function() {
             $('#showcard #titleActivator').click()
               .find('textarea, input').focus()