Server Snafu Exposes Ask.com User Search Queries Via Internal Status Page (bleepingcomputer.com) 10
"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.
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.
A whole night? (Score:3, Funny)
So that's what... half a dozen queries, most of which were "how do i install google"?
They aren't worried. (Score:2)
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.
real time searches (Score:2)
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.
Search queries are user data (Score:2)
Search queries are user data. What they're not is personally identifiable information.