Comment Re:Still Selection. (Score 1) 495
That's an interesting hypothesis, but this is not the way it apparently works according to my tests (see below). As other commenters have pointed out it does not access the clipboard but "capture" the Cmd-C keystrokes to trigger the code.
I have tried to replicate your hypothesis with Safari and LittleSnitch, both on Mac. First,I have to say thaton Safari, the selection does not disappear after you press Cmd-C.
1- I accessed this Wired article.
2- Upon selection of any text, it tries to open a connection to w1.tcr112.tynt.com, port 80. I "Deny Once" on LittleSnitch.
3- Re-selecting any other portion of text causes the same behavior of point 2, but deselecting text does not generate a connection request.
4- When pressing Cmd-C on the keyboard I get another connection request to w1.tcr112.tynt.com, followed by another one to wau.tynt.com, both on port 80.
5- Either by allowing these connections or not, the Javascript code detects this text has been already selected and copied and ignores subsequent Cmd-C sequences over the same selection. You need to deselect and select again to create another connection request
One really interesting finding is that the JS code does retain in memory what text you have selected previously on thet page and compares your new selections to the previous ones, only generating new connection requests when new text. It ignores the position of the text (so a single word selected in different parts of a page is only sent once when selected), and it is case sensitive so it you select "The" and "the", you get two connection requests (but only the first time). I suppose this is a way for them to clean requests.
I have tried to replicate your hypothesis with Safari and LittleSnitch, both on Mac. First,I have to say thaton Safari, the selection does not disappear after you press Cmd-C.
1- I accessed this Wired article.
2- Upon selection of any text, it tries to open a connection to w1.tcr112.tynt.com, port 80. I "Deny Once" on LittleSnitch.
3- Re-selecting any other portion of text causes the same behavior of point 2, but deselecting text does not generate a connection request.
4- When pressing Cmd-C on the keyboard I get another connection request to w1.tcr112.tynt.com, followed by another one to wau.tynt.com, both on port 80.
5- Either by allowing these connections or not, the Javascript code detects this text has been already selected and copied and ignores subsequent Cmd-C sequences over the same selection. You need to deselect and select again to create another connection request
One really interesting finding is that the JS code does retain in memory what text you have selected previously on thet page and compares your new selections to the previous ones, only generating new connection requests when new text. It ignores the position of the text (so a single word selected in different parts of a page is only sent once when selected), and it is case sensitive so it you select "The" and "the", you get two connection requests (but only the first time). I suppose this is a way for them to clean requests.
