The item links contain a Ctrl-R at the beginning and end of the string. It's possible to store and play back links, for example, by manually editting a character's .ini file to create a social button that sends the link along with the control characters.
However, the link has to contain the correct hash code in addition to the item ID. I don't know how item mining was happening before Sony changed it, but I would guess they added the hash code to prevent it. Without that, you could theoretically just try a link for each sequential item ID, since the server seems to ignore the item name text portion of the link.
Anyway, I've not had any luck yet with this idea on other boards where I asked, so it may be a dead end. If I were Sony, I would have generated a random number for the hash code as a secondary ID, rather than making it derivable from an algorithm, in which case, complete item mining this way is definitely prevented.
It's also possible that Sony has some non-existant items in their database that should never be linkable without some item mining technique, waiting to set off the alarms if anyone ever does link them. (item 70001, Noose of the Item Miner, Effect: Ban Your Ass) Not sure if this would be considered a violation of the license agreement, but it could be risky.
Here's another interesting note: Last week, one of the other item databases online displayed a field on their data page named EQHash. It was only on their page for a few days, then disappeared, and I didn't see any data populated in it for the 2 items I looked up. (Don't want to say which site, as I think it was unintended.) I'm pretty sure they are collecting data internally needed to build links.
So I think the concept of collecting the data that will allow construction of item links in game is out there, I just need to get/build those hash codes.
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