Some Brisbane Guy

As I discovered earlier today, if you accidentally leave your Google account signed in on another computer, anything that is searched for on that computer using Google will be recorded in your Google account’s Personalized Search Search History.

But what if you didn’t just leave your account signed in accidentally, but actually managed to remotely log somebody in to a Google account you’ve created using just a crafted URL that you send to them on the pretext of showing them some cool/interesting/funny web page? That would be more interesting, wouldn’t it? (Say yes).

If you did this and that somebody didn’t realise, you would be able to gradually log that person’s search history and learn their searching habits, possibly leading to greater insights about that person. Sound good?

OK well since you’re so keen, here’s how to do it. So that this is all a bit more friendly and relaxed (I love relaxed), we’re going to name our person whose life we want to invade by tracking their search history “Bob”. Here’s what you do:

1. Create a Google account. Well you can use an existing account, but you do run the risk of losing access to it if Bob finds out the password to it, which they may. You can create the account using any e-mail address, although it will most likely end up being visible to Bob so you will want to use something like a fresh Gmail account I would imagine. Make sure you leave ticked the checkbox labelled “Enable Personalized Search”, or this whole thing is pointless.
2. Find a cool/fun/interesting/funny web page that you want to Bob and others whose search habits you would like to learn. The funny link I’ve provided there is hilarious, sure, but also it’s on Google’s Video site. This is potentially good because the several Google URLs that will soon flash across the address bar may raise less suspicion.
   UPDATE: You can only use Google addresses as the target URL eg the “funny” Google Video example just above. BUT you could also use the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button to redirect to other sites (http://www.google.com/search?q=feeling+lucky&btnI=I%27m+Feeling+Lucky).
3. URLEncode the URL of the web page that’s so awesome you just have to show Bob. Yep, just paste the URL into the Plain textbox there, press the URLEncode button and copy the resulting URL from the Encoded textbox. Voila, you have the encoded URL in your grubby little clipboard.
4. Here’s the (slightly) tricky bit. You need to construct for yourself a URL that does the job of:
   1. Logging Bob into your new Google account so that their searches will be added to your new account’s Personalized Search History
   2. Redirecting Bob to the page with the super cool content on it that you’re purportedly showing him.

   Your URL will be like this:

   https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLoginAuth?Email=[emailAddress]&Passwd=[password]&continue=[URL]

   Take out the square brackets, and replace the fields in square brackets like this:

   1. emailAddress: The email address for the new Google account you’re using. If it’s a GMail account, you don’t need the @ or anything after it, but for any other mail account you do need the @ and the domain part (examples: mynewgmailaccount, anotheraccount@freemail.com).
   2. Password: The password for the Google account you’re using.
   3. URL: Your URLEncoded funny/interesting/awesome web page for Bob to see.
5. OK, so you’ve plugged all that info into the URL and you have a big-ass string with lots of crazy % symbols and numbers etc. What you have to do now is make it presentable so Bob doesn’t get confused or suspicious or bewildered. We do that with TinyURL, a cool service that will redirect a URL like http://tinyurl.com/6mpq to a big, stupid URL like the monstrosity you have just created.
6. All you have to do now is give Bob your new TinyURL, and let the web weave its mystical magic. You might want to test your TinyURL first, or the big monstrosity URL or both. Just paste the URL into your browser’s address bar and you should be delivered right to the stupid/crazy/wacky site you are showing Bob. Then go back to Google Homepage where you should be logged in as the account you created. If not, check the email address and password from step 4 were correct.

So that’s it! All you need to know. Some ideas for using this are putting the TinyURL in one of those stupid email forwards where everyone puts in their name and “needs” so that Google tells them what they need — this way you get the name of everyone who’s fallen prey to your evil plan. You could also just send it to people you’re suss on or just joke around with your friends, or your Mum! So much fun to be had.