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Server Snafu Exposes Ask.com User Search Queries Via Internal Status Page (bleepingcomputer.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the asking-Ask dept.

"The Ask.com search engine went through some sort of technical issue late Friday night, as its servers were exposing the internal Apache server status page, revealing recently processed search queries," reports BleepingComputer. An anonymous reader writes: The issue is now fixed, but a copy of the server status page with some search queries can still be viewed in Google's search engine cache. "Some of the weirdest search queries were collected by users in a Hacker News thread," reports BleepingComputer, adding "As you'd expect, the server page included plenty of searches for porn."

The issue also affected localized Ask.com servers, such as uk.ask.com/server-status, us.ask.com/server-status, and de.ask.com/server-status, but no user data was exposed, as the search queries passed through load balancers and already hid user IPs.

10 comments

  1. SnaFu by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Situation Normal
    All Fucked Up

  2. Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bet this would make for an epic dataset to disect the poor souls who get ask searchbars installed by "accident" but don't care... We've all had those calls where talking someone through opening google over the phone makes you want to die... This is what those people search for when unsupervised...

  3. Conclusion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Zen Cart sucks. So many queries about why it fails to work.

  4. A whole night? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    So that's what... half a dozen queries, most of which were "how do i install google"?

    1. Re:A whole night? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The cache only has a snapshot. That page was listing results in real-time. You hit refresh, and you got a new batch of search queries.

    2. Re:A whole night? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also a bunch of queries about exploits like
      magento inurl:index.php/admin

  5. They aren't worried. by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

    I doubt that the people too stupid to remove the "Ask bar" are worried about there privacy. However, it was interesting to find out they actually searched if suntan lotion was "eatable" after consuming it.

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    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  6. real time searches by Trax3001BBS · · Score: 1

    A search engine I forget allowed one to view searches in real time then blocked it a few months later. It was very kool to watch, and a feature I miss.

  7. Search queries are user data by slimjim8094 · · Score: 1

    Search queries are user data. What they're not is personally identifiable information.

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    I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
    1. Re:Search queries are user data by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That very much so depends on the search terms.