Cox Crow

Centralized Compromise

Blogger was hacked today. Blogger functions by storing data and templates in a central location, with editing facilities. When you publish, it then merges the two and transfers the files to a specified destination, which may be an FTP site at your ISP. The problem is that it stores your username and password so you don't have to enter it every time you publish.

This is a problem because Blogger stores these usernames and passwords for lots of people. A compromise of the Blogger service compromises those passwords, and thus those accounts. If those are shell accounts, and some undoubtedly are, those hosts can be compromised. If those hosts are compromised, the other accounts on those hosts are compromised. You see the problem?

2:29:27 PM # Google It!
categories: Security

Over-Enthusiastic Bat-Boy Saved

Google News has comprehensive coverage. Video here. Good AP photo here.

12:20:35 PM # Google It!
categories: Baseball

Are there any mail user agents out there which do not entity-encode HTML but which do wrap the body part appropriately?

Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
 boundary="------------010805030809050605090807"



--------------010805030809050605090807
Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

11:01:08 AM #

Google Directory

David Weinberger [via sysrick] pointed out Google's phonebook. In combination with street maps, they can take a phone number, or a combination of attributes, and show you where someone lives — or at least what phone number is associated with which premises — if the number is listed. Maps are provided indirectly by Yahoo! Maps and MapQuest. (Google constructs the appropriate URI for finding that location on the map while you rest.)

What remains is for Google to relate "+will cox" to "william cox" and other variations of my name, and tie my domain to the telephone and map directory. The data is already there, though I could help Google along by providing a bit of text in the sidebar. Thus the tangible and virtual worlds join.

(Meanwhile, Google Cooking is helpful for those last minute refrigerator cleaning sessions.)

9:36:45 AM # Google It!
categories: Directories