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Security issue in Google Website Optimizer (conversionvoodoo.com)
11 points by aresant on Dec 7, 2010 | hide | past | favorite | 2 comments


My quick read is that the code they gave you earlier allows anyone capable of writing a cookie to execute arbitrary JS code against anyone who loads a page with the affected Javascript on it. It is 3 AM, though, so don't trust me on that read.

This class of mistake is very easy to make any time you have a paradigm which revolves around using eval(), and document.writeln() is eval() for all intents and purposes.

I kind of prefer doing my A/B testing server side, where I have the usual guarantee about the safety of all code I choose to execute. This isn't the best reason to abandon GWO -- not by a long shot -- but it is an added bonus.


Thanks for the update. Your readers may be interested in a simple Google Optimizer Code checker at

http://www.observepoint.com/optimizer-test.php

You just enter the URL of the page in question, and it will tell you whether the google website optimizer code is up-to-date, and if it needs to be edited, it will tell you what to change and where to change it.




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