Oct 30

The Debbie Does New Delhi Of Cloaking

Posted by Jaimie Sirovich on Oct. 30th, 2006. 0 comments — voice your opinion.

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Since I got my 10 links, I can now post again.  Needless to say, until then, I had a bit of free time.  What do you think I was doing?

Let me tell you.  I decided to do an objective investigation as to whether cloaking is alive and well in "the" Google image search.  It is.  And she's apparently, umm, working it.

I fancied that I would investigate some indian sex (careful!).  I was just sorta nearby in Fiji after all.  I'm sure you could find something else you'd like.  I found this:

Well, hello there Miss "India sex slavery lend slut."  You look quite dashing in that skimpy green dress, I think I'll click!  I expected to see her, but I got this:

 

… minus the very big smiley face, of course.  Hrmm.  I proceeded to click "see full size image."  That just got me to that actual page shown below cited in the frame up top.  Very disappointing!  Apparently, I got rejected.  But here's what's happening in a nutshell:

1. Miss "India sex slavery lend slut" looks for a Google IP address.
2.
If it's Google she provides "complimentary service."
3. If it's not, she politely asks you to open your wallet and subscribe for "100,000's of NASTY VIDEOS."

Hrmmm, this sounds very much like what the New York Times is doing — cloaking!  But she isn't just cloaking different content.  She's cloaking entirely different mime-types!  For Google she's a jpeg, but for me she's text/html.  That means Google isn't checking anything at all!

So forget mime-types!  Still worse, she could be a he.  Think of all the creative (evil) things one could do …

I guess I should consider myself lucky after all.  But no fun for me today.  Maybe I should just work for Google to get preferential service … ;)

Conclusion: You can use cloaking in Google image search to monetize images quite effectively.  It doesn't even have to be "India sex slavery lend slut."

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