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Kackle · 09-22-2004, 04:14 PM

Does anyone remember PRMaster?

This was the first checksum crack of PageRank. The cracker made available a Windows download that directly fetched PageRank. He remained anonymous (the download happened through a third-party download site). This was in December 2001.

His code for Windows apparently copied the Google handshaking a bit too closely, because his unique Google cookie ID was embedded in the program! Either that, or it was a setup from the word go. It really seems stupid to leave the cookie ID in the handshake, since it wasn't necessary to get PageRank. How could someone clever enough to crack the checksum be that stupid? I never managed to answer this question.

I alerted people that they should use a hex editor and zero out the cookie ID, or else Google could trace them.

GoogleGuy came back and said, half jokingly, that I had ruined all the fun they were having. GoogleGuy admitted that they tracked down the author of the code and had a friendly chat with him, at which point the author of the code withdrew the program.

I continued to use the program until about May of 2002. At that point I embarrassed myself by discovering this amazing new PageRank update. Sites were shifting dramatically! Finally a friendly person suggested I download the toolbar and check it against PRMaster. Sure enough, it turned out that PRMaster was suddenly, after five months of returning accurate results, showing bogus results that were off by one or two numbers.

If Google is issuing new toolbar updates with easy-to-crack variations on the checksum, I'd be very careful. Google holds all the cards on this, and they're in a position to have more fun with it than you are. They could change the numbers based on the version that gets reported, or the format of the handshaking, and add one or subtract one. They could add one to the PageRank on even hours and subtract one on odd hours. They could make you all look silly quite effortlessly.

If you think I'm making this up, search for doofus prmaster (my username was Doofus when this happened).

09-22-2004, 04:14 PM	#199
Kackle Junior Member Posts: 3 Karma: 10 Join Date: Sep 2004	Does anyone remember PRMaster? This was the first checksum crack of PageRank. The cracker made available a Windows download that directly fetched PageRank. He remained anonymous (the download happened through a third-party download site). This was in December 2001. His code for Windows apparently copied the Google handshaking a bit too closely, because his unique Google cookie ID was embedded in the program! Either that, or it was a setup from the word go. It really seems stupid to leave the cookie ID in the handshake, since it wasn't necessary to get PageRank. How could someone clever enough to crack the checksum be that stupid? I never managed to answer this question. I alerted people that they should use a hex editor and zero out the cookie ID, or else Google could trace them. GoogleGuy came back and said, half jokingly, that I had ruined all the fun they were having. GoogleGuy admitted that they tracked down the author of the code and had a friendly chat with him, at which point the author of the code withdrew the program. I continued to use the program until about May of 2002. At that point I embarrassed myself by discovering this amazing new PageRank update. Sites were shifting dramatically! Finally a friendly person suggested I download the toolbar and check it against PRMaster. Sure enough, it turned out that PRMaster was suddenly, after five months of returning accurate results, showing bogus results that were off by one or two numbers. If Google is issuing new toolbar updates with easy-to-crack variations on the checksum, I'd be very careful. Google holds all the cards on this, and they're in a position to have more fun with it than you are. They could change the numbers based on the version that gets reported, or the format of the handshaking, and add one or subtract one. They could add one to the PageRank on even hours and subtract one on odd hours. They could make you all look silly quite effortlessly. If you think I'm making this up, search for doofus prmaster (my username was Doofus when this happened).