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Google Blocks Porn In Base, Patches Appliance

Posted by Zonk on from the tweaking-here-and-there dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The search giant has moved to fix a problem in Google Base which didn't properly block pornographic material in their search results. According to Google, the filter was broken for 'some period of time' but the company didn't elaborate. Nathan Weinberg could have been one of the first to report the incident on his blog, Inside Google, writing: 'Holy crap, there is a lot of porn at Google Base! Looks like, just like Google Images, Google Base could become a huge source of porn, and eventually a place where porn will be sold. I even noticed some movie reviews.'" They've also recently corrected a problem with their search appliance. geo_2677 wrote to mention a Securityfocus.com article discussing the rapid patching of the Google search boxes in response to a vulnerability.

11 of 122 comments (clear)

  1. "Rapid patching" gone horribly wrong by LostCluster · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Google may have quickly released the patch once they were notified like a good company should, but TFA reveals that the patching is far from complete:

    A small sample of 43 appliances taken this week showed that 23 remained vulnerable, 8 were patched, and the status of 12 could not be determined. If this sample is representative of all deployed Google Search Appliances, more than half may still be vulnerable.

    A patch that hasn't made it to half of the vulnerable devices? We've got a problem here. Google should have made it clear to the owners of the Search Appliance that there's a patch to install. (Fault the media while we're at it... this is the first /. mention of any patch for the Google Search Appliance.)

    You'd think Google would have built in an auto-updater, but clearly not with this low of a response rate.

    1. Re:"Rapid patching" gone horribly wrong by Threni · · Score: 4, Interesting

      > Fault the media while we're at it... this is the first /. mention of any patch for the Google
      > Search Appliance.)

      I'm Sorry? "The media" exists to make money, and I'm not sure if you're reading the business press lately but they've been doing just fine.

      If a company is relying upon another company then it's between those companies to sort out any practical problems. The media has correctly decided that the general public couldn't give a toss about whether there's a new version of software for some piece of kit or other.

      You obviously believe that the media exists to protect the public...

  2. new button by glaswegian · · Score: 5, Funny

    Looks like they may need to add a new button to their site : "I'm feeling horny"

  3. Re:And where is the problem with porn? by PunkOfLinux · · Score: 5, Informative

    Because this is on the company level. GOOGLE is doing this - not the feds.

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    Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
  4. NOT blocked! by TrumpetPower! · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You can still get all the pr0n you want. The problem was that SafeSearch was including pr0n in the results. Some dad uploaded pictures of his two-year-old daughter to share with family. But, when he searched for those pictures, he found a hell of a lot more than he was looking for.

    Considering the society we live in, SafeSearch is a good default--after all, you wouldn't want something that could easily get you fired popping up on your monitor just for doing an innocent search. It's also good of Google to offer the simple ability to tell them not to be your nanny.

    Cheers,

    b&

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    All but God can prove this sentence true.
  5. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. by roman_mir · · Score: 4, Funny

    That wasn't a bug! It was a feature. The best one!

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    You can't handle the truth.
  6. Is there a site... by SharpFang · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...that uses Google Images API with the SafeSearch in "reverse" mode, that is performs search twice, with SS on and off, and displays only images that would are filtered off by SS?

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    45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
  7. Re:[offtopic] What the ..... popover ads on Slashd by clifyt · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I get the same...and I'm on a Mac using firefox -- so I highly doubt if its adware.

    I saw this first last week asking me to take an OSTG survey at work -- and I thought I had my pop-up blocker off. Nope. And my flash block was off as well -- so it couldn't be that hole either. I wasn't too upset because I thought it was specifically for /. and its parent company...and then a few days later, the same thing with a non OSTG advertisement.

    Slashdot it going downhill and thats sad (then again, I know people on my site are complaining that I've had to monotize it to keep it running...but popups / popunders and annoying DHTML are something no reputable site should ever use). If this is the future of this site, Digg and others will get my reading (and I'll make certain to never buy another overpriced gizmo or tshirt from Thinkgeek).

  8. What a surprise! by Snamh+Da+Ean · · Score: 5, Funny

    Researchers find that a huge well designed freely accessible online database is used to store pr0n.

    In other news, scientists announce that snow is cold, and that bears defecate in the wooded environments.

  9. Re:[offtopic] What the ..... popover ads on Slashd by chez69 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    use adblock or squid to block the following items:

    *images.slashdot.org/*.js
    *images-aud.slashdot.org*
    *an.tacoda.net*
    *falkag*

    lots of funcky js gets loaded by slash by default. I block all this shit and slashdot loads twice as fast.

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    PHP is the solution of choice for relaying mysql errors to web users.
  10. Of course. by nathan+s · · Score: 4, Funny

    Point it out AFTER it's fixed. Thanks, guys! :-P

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