Tuesday 15 May 2007

Orkut hidden SWF

For a few days, I have been noticing a tiny Flash object in every Orkut page I visit, called "datastore2.swf" (full URL - http://www.orkut.com/talk/datastore2.swf)

Every page, bottom right. And it doesn't scroll with the page. Detected, almost just like my random buddy here, with AdBlock Plus.

Poked around the HTML, which says:
<embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.orkut.com/talk/datastore2.swf" name="plugin" height="100%" width="100%">

Intriguingly, it doesn't seemed to have caught the interest of the Google-baiters. Yet. A Google search for "datastore2.swf" throws up only that blog above, and the directory listing of some enterprising chap who has all the items from the Orkut front page. And an '0wn3d' graphic. Interesting aside, that was - Orkut h4x0r3d? *shakes head* MSN Live Search gives bupkes. Yahoo! Search gives that blog again, with another Portuguese (?) discussion forum. A few (three) Diggs. Some speculation that this is somehow linked to Google Talk.

No doubt this would trigger another wave of privacy concerns with Google. Shady fellows. Can't say they don't deserve it either, not giving Roofie a job properly and all that..

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

exactly the same thing that i've been scratching my head over the last couple of days. adblock+firefox again!

pawnstaar at gmail

Anonymous said...

and oh! you made it 3 links in search engines now :)

SuperMus said...

Dream on, if you think i am commenting on your techie post. just wanted to say, i love your template! and oh! i love the photo too..

FreaKo said...

I know its way off Date, but I guess that SWF file is the little chap that pops up at the bottom of your screen when you have a new scrap.

Me no sure... just my conjucture! ;)

BTW you have got a pretty decent setup(Read blog) and updated frequently... :) and I like the template you use too...

Unknown said...

Hey, Nikhil! Thanks for dropping by..

AFAIK, this Flash thing was *before* this scrap notification poppup thingy started showing up..plus it's called datastore, so I really doubt if your conjecture is right..

And which template are you talking about? The older green one, or the current orange/black one..?