Catgofire - Blog

Compare People covert advertising

2008-07-03T17:11:00Z

Compare People is a sad yet disgustingly addictive Facebook application in which you compare your friends to each other, rating important attributes like “who is sexier”, “who smells nicer”, and “who is better at science”. I consistently rank lowest on “happier person” and “more talkative”, so there is some apparent merit. But I noticed something strange when clicking through today.

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

I have never heard of Novella Newton. I thought maybe one of my friends had changed their name, or maybe she was a friend of a friend. I searched on Facebook and got no results. There is no Novella Newton on Facebook. I looked at the source of the pictures to see if the one on the right was actually coming from facebook:

Left picture (friend on Facebook): http://profile.ak.facebook.com/v222/461/45/nxxxx_5430.jpg

Right picture (?): http://p57.mepopular.com/fb/cpersondata/700000000000000019.pic.jpg

Chainn, the creators of Compare People, are serving up fake people to be compared. There are lots of fake people — a mixture of girls and guys. A total of 338 people, to be exact. And they are all pictures like Ms. Newton’s — pictures of people that would catch the attention of a lonely member of the opposite sex (or same sex if the user is homosexual… Chainn has that logic in their code). Indeed, it is a clever and covert advertising strategy by Chainn. When you click “Vote” under one of the fake people, it pops something up saying “Would you like to meet this person?”. If you click “Yes”, it takes you to a partnered website. Here’s how image IDs line up with the sites they go to (all IDs start with 700000000000000):

001-035
fubar.com

36-101
adultfriendfinder.com

102-218
hornymatches.com

219-258
iwantu.com

259-298
passion.com

299-338
friendfinder.com

338-∞ (anything that doesn’t match one of the above)
adultfriendfinder.com

Chainn stores your location information and hands that off to the “friend finder” sites so that they may better serve you “girls in your area”.

Some interesting finds

Here’s a function name in their compacted javascript (one you disassemble it):

function canU1FuckU2(uid1, uid2, mutual) { ... }

When you go to the base domain (e.g. p57.mepopular.com) you get a server status page. Here are all of those status pages:

p31 p32 p33 p34 p35 p36 p37 p38 p39 p40 p41 p42 p43 p44 p46 p47 p48 p49 p50 p51 p52 p53 p54 p55 p56 p57 p58 p59

And just for kicks, here are all 338 images:

001 002 003 004 005 006 007 008 009 010 011 012 013 014 015 016 017 018 019 020 021 022 023 024 025 026 027 028 029 030 031 032 033 034 035 036 037 038 039 040 041 042 043 044 045 046 047 048 049 050 051 052 053 054 055 056 057 058 059 060 061 062 063 064 065 066 067 068 069 070 071 072 073 074 075 076 077 078 079 080 081 082 083 084 085 086 087 088 089 090 091 092 093 094 095 096 097 098 099 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338

Sun, May 11, 2008

2008-05-11T15:50:00Z

(This is downloading to CMU from MIT)

Camille's sidewalk cafe

2008-05-02T17:41:00Z

or: “why I cry at night sometimes”

or: ”...Really?...”

Me (to cashier): “Hi, can I have an English muffin with butter on it?”

Cashier, looks down at register then back up at me with pained expression: “That’s not in the system.”

Me, with an ‘are you effing kidding me’ look: ”...ok, can I have a breakfast sandwich” [English muffin, eggs, ham, and cheese] “with everything on the side, and also some butter?”

Cashier: “Ok.”

It wasn’t even very good. Probably because it wasn’t in the system.

Sat, Apr 19, 2008

2008-04-19T18:31:00Z

During an a cappella concert, Spring Carnival

BOOM

2008-03-24T20:44:00Z

All of them here: http://flickr.com/photos/catgofire/sets/72157604235184557/

MAR 22

2008-03-22T16:41:00Z

I’m going to start a law firm specializing in helping greedy relatives. I’ll call it “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

I saw the sign(s ... and a telephone pole)

2008-03-20T15:54:00Z

Exorbitant: adj. Exceeding all bounds, as of custom or fairness: exorbitant prices.

Red Chilli Chicken…have you tried?

I wonder if this is enforceable… things like this piss me off. And it’s in Comic Sans.

I threw a propane tank down the chute. At least it wasn’t fammable.

And, as promised, a telephone pole. (Only half of it is wet.) (It had just rained.)

MAR 18

2008-03-18T14:13:00Z

EfficientSee.com—coming Summer ‘08

MAR 16

2008-03-16T17:44:00Z

My new fitness training program for the Mac is called iOfthetiger.

MAR 15

2008-03-15T16:44:00Z

recreational war

MAR 13

2008-03-13T18:13:00Z

ly go

apostrophes

2008-03-09T18:59:00Z

‘twix’ would be correct…

Persepolis

2008-03-09T03:30:00Z

Was good.

simplification

2008-03-06T19:21:00Z

“How” -> “Whow”

No exceptions.

It was really nice out today

2008-03-04T06:03:00Z

I’m addicted to punching smokers in the face. It’s relaxing, and I look really badass while I’m doing it. I’m going to stand right outside doorways and just punch as many smokers as I can (in their faces!), because fuck y’all, it’s a free country and I do what I want. I don’t care about your health or comfort or wellbeing. Watch out!