Saturday, July 24, 2004
The Dark Side of the Picasa/Google Deal, or Harmless Scanning?
Posted by Jason Dunn in "THOUGHT" @ 11:00 AM
I was contacted by someone yesterday who found something interesting - by using a strangely constructed Google search query: "index of" / picasa.ini. This query brings up 322 results, all of which have that INI file in the root directory. Where does this INI file come from? When you export pictures from Picasa, it puts them into a folder, and includes a hidden INI settings file. This is what's in a typical Picasa.ini file:
[Picasa]
category=Exported Pictures
date=38191.444618
The person who contacted me seemed to believe this was some sort of Google/Picasa conspiracy to allow Google to scan images from Picasa, but I believe the explanation is much simper: all of these images are in folders without index.htm files, and all have their directory browsing permissions set such that Google can index the contents. Further, rather than uploading just the images, these people have uploaded the entire folders, which includes the INI file.
I don't doubt that someday there will be some sort of integration between Google, Picasa, and Hello, but I don't think that day is here yet. :wink:
[Picasa]
category=Exported Pictures
date=38191.444618
The person who contacted me seemed to believe this was some sort of Google/Picasa conspiracy to allow Google to scan images from Picasa, but I believe the explanation is much simper: all of these images are in folders without index.htm files, and all have their directory browsing permissions set such that Google can index the contents. Further, rather than uploading just the images, these people have uploaded the entire folders, which includes the INI file.
I don't doubt that someday there will be some sort of integration between Google, Picasa, and Hello, but I don't think that day is here yet. :wink:
