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On Wed, 15 Jul 2020, Tom via list wrote:
I was just reading a latin quote in an online paper and cut it so I could drop it into Translate.Google and that page came up with latin already selected as the From language. I've tried a few other ones though my test is probably a bit dodgy it seems the page can read the buffer before its pasted. This strikes me as a security hazard.
The contents of the X clipboard is available for programs to read at any time - not just when you paste. This is the way it's been done for decades. It's not new.
Try this: Open an xterm. type some text, ls, etc. highlight some text. Run: xclip -o and it should dump the highlighted text.Try this from a different application - e.g. highlight some text in a browser and type that in an xterm. It will work just the same.
Google translate has asked the browser to dump the clipboard into it's input buffer for you - which it then sent up the interwebtubes to auto-detect latin, in a helpful way.
The same helpful way that all other web applications (facebook, etc.) can request the contents of your clipboard at any time e.g. when copy & pasting passwords and so on...
La di da ... Gordon -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG https://mailman.dcglug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq