Has Google's Orkut Security Been Hacked?

Just when I was about to write a "How to get your forum back if its hacked," post, my inbox and scrapbook have been receiving attention over what seems to be the massive deletion of many forums on Orkut.

This has led many people to suspect that Orkut security has been compromised by a hacker, who seems to have stolen Google Admin powers and is deleting forums (and profiles) at random.

While there are users who have been able to steal forums away from members via hacking, I am having serious doubts as to whether or not Orkut as a whole has been compromised.

Many of the forums that are disappearing seem to be what some consider to be "hate sites." Although in America hate sites are pretty much ignored (and laughed at) by society, some nations seem to have laws against them existing, and go at great lengths to silence them.

Although it is possible that a hacker could have accessed Google's admin controls via internet cookies, a more reasonable explanation seems to be that Google may have given India police "too much authority" and it is quite possible that an officer is abusing their authority online.

(Boing Boing) The Indian Express and other regional media are reporting that Google's social networking service Orkut will cooperate with the Mumbai Police to share IP addresses of users who post "objectionable content" on Orkut. If reports are to be believed, the police need only email a complaint to Orkut, and Orkut will send back the personally identifying data, no questions asked.

The police are said to be targeting a number of "problematic" Orkut posts, including items that criticize various public figures in India, others that glorify Indian mobsters, and "anti-Indian words." The latter probably has to do with a group on Orkut called "I Hate India," which pissed off Indian officials so much, they decided to sue Google over it last October.

This seems very similar to Google's agreement with Brazil, and I suspect that Indian users are facing something similar. Of course, this doesn't mean that a hacker could not have stolen "admin powers" from a Googler (or even an Indian police officer which would be just as bad IMHO) although I think I still need to see more evidence before assuming Google's security on Orkut has been compromised.

Note: If you do have any evidence, please alert Google about this immediately, or if you are uncomfortable with contacting Google (for whatever reason) you can send me a testimonial (which won't be published) and I'll pass on word to Google anonymously.

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