By Steve Ragan Jun 20, 2007, 16:14 GMT
If you use Google Desktop, or Firefox 2.0, then you are likely used to the warnings you might come across if you visit a potential malicious website. One of the things that make the website blocker and warning system work is an API (Application Programming Interface) that calls on a Google created and maintained black list of URLs. The black list is all of the known sites that are related to reports of Phishing, Malware hosting, and other online crimes. The list is updated constantly, and with the help of the newly released API, developers can start using Google’s list for other creations.
Phishing and Malware are a serious issue online. The list created by Google comes from several sources including information sent to the teams by normal internet users. The lists are used to deny access to sires that spread Malware, or are used in cases of fraud online. Developers wishing to use the API, can signup for the code as well as an API key. While there are some rules, mostly the program is well received by security experts and developers alike.
“OK, so it might be a little early to declare victory, but we're excited about the Safe Browsing API we launched today. It provides a simple mechanism for downloading Google's lists of suspected Phishing and Malware URLs, so now any developer can access the blacklists used in products such as Firefox and Google Desktop,” Brian Rakowski and Garrett Casto said on the Google Security blog.
The API is still experimental, but Google said that they hope it will be useful to ISPs, web-hosting companies, or anyone building a site or an application that publishes or transmits user-generated links. They are asking for feedback to improve the code from anyone who uses it. There are also some restrictions on usage. For example anyone who plans to include the API for usage by more than ten thousand users, should contact Google first. “We will limit the number of users you can support with a single API key. If you expect to have more than 10,000 users sending regular requests to the API, you must contact us,” Google explained.
The new tool is available from http://code.google.com/apis/safebrowsing/
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