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Inquisitor 3 Build 52 identifies affiliate links

Joe — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 05:03:46 +0000

After the brouhaha about Inquisitor inserting affiliate links, Dave has updated the application to reflect the affiliate links. I think this is the best possible response to the situation. You can download the updated version from www.inquisitorx.com.

Inquisitor puts affiliate links at top of search results

Joe — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 04:50:36 +0000

Inquisitor has been updated as of build 52 to identify affiliate links. See here.

Tonight, I found this post on TUAW that discusses the Inquisitor search plugin for Safari. The plugin gives you a Spotlight-esque result when you use the built-in Google search box, giving you easy access to the top links. It turns out that the program, written by Dave Watanabe, is designed to insert affiliate-linked URL as the “top result” when you search for certain terms. This was initially found by a bloke named Allan and posted on his blog.

As I commented here, there are a specific set of terms which are written into the application that put affiliate linked URLs as the first match. Without the source code, there’s no definate way to see what is going on here. However, using the UNIX command strings, we can look for the various bits of text intermixed into a binary application. The main program doing the work here for Inquisitor is InquisitorCore, buried deep in the bundle. Running strings against this, we find some of the following code… (after the jump)

sony microsoft canon sandisk linksys belkin logitech quickbooks parallels warcraft elmo christmas halloween xbox samsung cingular verizon t-mobile tmobile kitchenaid braun wacom quicken turbotax turbo tax yamaha casio dewalt weber powershot cybershot panasonic nikon coolpix blackberry compaq applecare netgear sennheiser fuji virus garmin playstation nintendo exilim bravia aquos gears of war super mario final fantasy pokemon saddam hussein paris hilton neopets angelina jolie lindsay lohan britney spears fergie beyonce knowles shakira ciara iwork ilife tomtom hdmi treo toshiba iomega lacie

Some simple testing confirms if you search for these terms, the very first link will be to Amazon. If you dig further into it, as Allan did, you find these links are affiliate links for the author. I’m kinda suprised by Saddam Hussein being in that list… not a lot of people search for Saddam to find stuff at Amazon.

Further digging finds that if you search for certain Peer to Peer (P2P) terms, you get links to Watanabe’s other applications…

torrent file sharing Xtorrent is all about search. Type keywords in and the results show up right in Xtorrent. One click later and you're downloading your content. Xtorrent (for Mac OS X) xtorrentp2p.com

http://www.xtorrentp2p.com/

limewire gnutella soulseek edonkey Innovative Mac P2P. Acquisition (for Mac OS X) acquisitionx.com

http://www.acquisitionx.com/

And, later still, you find Apple Store Affiliate links… also designed to appear to be the top search result. I find these the most invasive, since they include marketing blurbs that look like something you’d see in a Google search leading to the Apple Store pages. Note: I have truncated the URLs to save space. Each of these URLs deep link to the product page for the search term. To see the specifics, download Inquisitor and run strings against it.
iphone iPhone redefines what a mobile phone can do. Tap a number to make a call. Listen to voicemail in any order with Visual Voicemail. iPhone (Apple Store) store.apple.com

http://www.kqzyfj.com/click-2593411-10479833?url=http%3A%2F%2Fstore.apple.com

aperture Introducing the first all-in-one post-production tool for photographers. Aperture (Apple Store)

http://www.jdoqocy.com/click-2593411-10479833?url=http%3A%2F%2Fstore.apple.com

imac At speeds up to 2.8GHz, the advanced dual-core Intel processors that power every iMac are faster than ever. iMac (Apple Store)

http://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-2593411-10479833?url=http%3A%2F%2Fstore.apple.com

macbook pro Powered by the most advanced mobile processors from Intel, the new Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro is over 50% faster than the original Core Duo MacBook Pro and now supports up to 4GB of RAM. MacBook Pro (Apple Store)

http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-2593411-10479833?url=http%3A%2F%2Fstore.apple.com

macbook Powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo processor at speeds up to 2.16GHz, the new MacBook is the fastest ever. MacBook (Apple Store)

http://www.jdoqocy.com/click-2593411-10479833?url=http%3A%2F%2Fstore.apple.com

mac pro Every Mac Pro packs the power of two multicore Intel Xeon processors. Mac Pro (Apple Store)

http://www.jdoqocy.com/click-2593411-10479833?url=http%3A%2F%2Fstore.apple.com

ipod touch Touch comes to iPod. Introducing iPod touch. iPod touch (Apple Store)

http://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-2593411-10479833?url=http%3A%2F%2Fstore.apple.com

ipod nano A little video for everyone. The new iPod nano. iPod nano (Apple Store)

http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-2593411-10479833?url=http%3A%2F%2Fstore.apple.com

ipod shuffle 240 songs. Remixed colors. The new iPod shuffle. iPod shuffle (Apple Store)

http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-2593411-10479833?url=http%3A%2F%2Fstore.apple.com

ipod Hold everything. The new iPod classic. iPod (Apple Store)

http://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-2593411-10479833?url=http%3A%2F%2Fstore.apple.com

apple tv If it's on iTunes, it's on TV. Apple TV (Apple Store)

http://www.jdoqocy.com/click-2593411-10479833?url=http%3A%2F%2Fstore.apple.com

Doesn’t this seem, you know, shady?

Well, yes. Yes it does… simply because it was not disclosed. There is no EULA displayed when you install Inquisitor. There’s no privacy policy or terms on the website either. If there had been a EULA that said that there were going to be affiliate links, then no one would really have any ground to complain on.

I have uninstalled Inquisitor from my system, even though I registered the application back when it first came out. I should have been more upset when it became a free application (presumably, when affiliate links were added). Now, I’m throughly pissed.

Dave’s always been one of those smart asshole types who makes really shiny software applications. Xtorrent, for example, is the open source Transmission client wrapped in a shiny user interface. Inquisition was slick as well. But, I can live without it. And, judging by the comments on TUAW, I’m not alone.

HOWTO: Stop runaway pcscd process when using PocketMac 4.0 to sync a BlackBerry device

Joe — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 14:33:21 +0000

I recently purchased a BlackBerry Pearl. I love it. It’s great. Maybe I’ll “review” it at some point in the future. But, I wanted to post an entry about working around a flaw in the way Mac OS X handles the BlackBerry.

By default, the BlackBerry and Mac won’t talk. They don’t know how to talk to each other. It would appear from some further research (and assumptions) that the BlackBerry presents itself as a “vendor specific” device in the USB handshake. Mac OS X spawns up the SmartCard daemon (pcscd) to attempt to load a SmartCard reader driver.¹ However, instead of failing and exiting, it starts sucking 100% of the CPU. Oh, and as an added bonus, it won’t die when sending it a ‘kill -9′ as root. Plus, a standard shutdown or reboot will fail. The only solution is to hold down that power button. Not really something we want to do constantly.

To keep the SmartCard subsystem from trying to talk to the BlackBerry, you’ll need to edit the preference file for securityd as root. Using a text editor~~, most likely from command line,~~² open the file /private/etc/mach_init.d/securityd.plist. Make the following change:

from: /usr/sbin/securityd to: /usr/sbin/securityd -s conservative

Occasionally, pcscd still launches and does it’s thing. Since I don’t use smart cards, I went ahead and just disabled it totally.
/usr/sbin/securityd -s off

Reboot your system, and the change should take effect. No more system dying when plugging in your BlackBerry!

If you’re interested in the details, I’d recommend reading the post on the Apple list. The poster describes it in plain English while not watering down the process. Well done, Perry. ↩
~~I don’t know if the Property List Editor will prompt you for credentials and let you do it without jumping into the terminal. Unfortunately, I can’t test it right now.~~ Using TextMate, I was able to open and edit the file. When I clicked “Save,” it prompted me for my password. ↩

Implementing a NAS at Home

Joe — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 02:54:42 +0000

Saturday morning (ok, technically it was early afternoon, but nevermind that), I woke up to The Wife saying “Come look what I bought.” I trudge out half asleep to the living room. I look in the office and see a black and steel futon by the window. I assess it for a second, then continue into the living room. She has me sit down.

She shows me a cavalcade of items that she had collected in a post-midnight “I need to get out of the house” fit. Towards the end, she brings out two Maxtor Basic 320GB USB hard drives. She says “They were on clearance for $50 each.” If I had been drinking a liquid, I might have done a spit take. “Fifty dollars? Seriously?” “Yep. They were in the clearance section. Are they okay?”

So, for $106 (tax, natch), we have the main components for a low cost home based NAS. “Oh yes, they’re just perfect,” I reply, as I carry them to the office and pull out her old HP desktop.

I spent the weekend deciding how I wanted to go as far as implementing and managing the NAS. I opted for Openfiler for my package rather than simply rolling my own. The other competitor was FreeNAS, but it didn’t have some of the features or robustness that Openfiler offered. After purchasing a USB 2.0 PCI card for the computer, we’re rocking away.

Openfiler is based on CentOS, a Linux distribution based on Red Hat’s Enterprise versions. They stripped a bunch of stuff down, did some tweaking, added some PHP, and you’re left with a web-enabled management interface. Openfiler is based on Linux standards, using Apache for its Webserver with a bunch of custom PHP scripts to actually do things. It uses LVM to support physical volume groups and logical groups with growing. It uses ext3 file system and also supports iSCSI (which I’m not using) for a full grown commercial class interface.

So, after some initial hiccups with not having an authentication system built in, and some wonkiness from one of the drives, we’re done with the building phase. I am mirroring the two drives with software-based RAID 1. I have SuperDuper chugging away, making a backup of my laptop. I’ve cut volumes out for music, pictures, software, and personal storage. So far I’ve allocated about 1/3 of the available space and have nightly snapshotting enabled for a few volumes. I’m ordering the necessary cables to tuck it all away and make it look pretty (right now, it’s sitting in the middle of the floor in a cable nest).

Thanks Sony! I needed a new battery anyway!

Joe — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 17:19:28 +0000

Yesterday, Apple announced they were recalling 1.8 million batteries for iBooks and PowerBooks. Turns out, there have been some problems with Apple laptops catching fire just like the Dell laptops.

This will be our third battery each due to safety recalls. But, I’m not complaining. I was in the market for a newer battery anyway as I’ve lost 25% of the capacity due to charge cycles. Sony gets to pick up the tab, and that makes me giddy like a school girl.

WWDC Results? As expected.

Joe — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 22:27:22 +0000

So, the WWDC keynote was today and it was as everyone expected. New Mac Pro to replace PowerMac. New XServes. Preview of Leopard. See the Jobs and crew giving the presentation at the WWDC site.

Apple Fanboy Delight: WWDC 2006

Joe — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 14:24:26 +0000

So, today is the first day of Apple’s World Wide Developer’s Conference. Why is this a big deal to the Apple Fanboys? It’s the day they announce new products! Woohoo! On the rumored agenda today will be Intel powered replacements for the PowerMac G5 workstations along with developer previews of OS X 10.5, aka Leopard. People also think there’ll be revised server products with Intel processors. Then, way out in the cheap seats, you have the possibility that Apple will announce a revised iPod Nano, or an iPod with a touch screen, or the ultimate dork toy: the iPhone.

If you are interested, MacRumors runs a self updating site with news from the Keynote. It starts at 1pm Eastern.

Flock: Mighty fast

Joe — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 00:38:06 +0000

I’m giving Flock a try. It’s really fast compared on my Powerbook G4. I mean, super fast compared to a G4 optimised version of Firefox. They’re the same core version of Firefox too. I’m going to give it a try and see how I like it. I’m writing this in the built in blog editor. ~~It doesn’t really offer tags~~¹, which means I’ll get to go back and add tags after the fact. It’s a WYSIWYG editor that seems okay (Wow, except it totally is screwing up that tag back there… Invalid XHTML here we come!).

I don’t think I’ll get much use from the Flickr integration if for no other reason than I think that the Lightbox plugin is too damn cool to give up.

After I hit submit, it gave a spiffy tags interface. But, it just created a bunch of Technorati links. I had to go back and add my local tags through the WordPress interface. ↩

Ask and Ye Shall Receive: NetNewsWire syncs with NewsGator

Joe — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 15:09:15 +0000

Just last week, I was writing about how there were no good Mac RSS readers that really synchronized with a web based aggregator. 6 days later, a new beta version of NetNewsWire was released that added synchronization between it and NewsGator. I’ve been playing with it, and it works great! I foresee a shareware registration in my future….

Desktop Based vs Web Based RSS Readers

Joe — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 17:02:42 +0000

All I want in life is a good Mac RSS reader that will work correctly with a web-based RSS aggregator site like Bloglines or any of the other 500,000 sites out there.

I hate getting left out of the game when someone, like the folks who make ecto, make an awesome program like endo for RSS reading. It looks sweeter than all get out, but, it’s not going to work for me. Why? Because I spend 9 hours a day, 5 days a week, behind a Windows computer at work… and I want to be able to read my RSS stuff there too. So, I use Bloglines. And Bloglines is awesome. But, it’s just not the same.

Am I asking too much?