Myspace trick - viewing full size default pictures on private/restricted profiles

This are more of a trick or workaround than actual hacks or exploits of the system. But they are not always obvious to beginner level users.

Updated: August 29, 2007

Advanced Users can skip past the basics to Step 1

Some Basics
Q: What is a URL?

A: a URL is the address or link to the information you are viewing or looking for on the web. For example www.google.com is a URL. So are longer more complicated URLs such as http://www.google.com/search?q=URL&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official

Q: What is the address bar?

A: the address bar is almost always located at the top of your web browser, it is where the URL goes into.

Like this…

Q: What is a profile ID/number?

A: it’s a number given to a user to identify their individual profile. Person A could have the profile number 1234, while person B could have the profile number 5678. These numbers clearly distinguish those individuals from each other. On sites like MySpace, Facebook, or similar sites these numbers come inside or at the end of pretty much every URL because it is meant to identify you as the user doing these actions. Most sites have protection against fiddling with this mechanism, however not always and in many cases a loophole is missed somewhere in the system or left open because it’s so minor allowing you access by changing the URL and/or these numbers. This is what this post covers.

Getting the large version of someones default picture when their profile is set to private

The default picture is the picture you see next to someones name on MySpace pretty much everywhere you see them. Messages, Posts, Searches, On someones friends list, etc. MySpace warns that your default picture is visible to everyone, and it’s true! Even if someones profile is set to private or they have disabled viewing of their pictures to only friends. Sometimes you come across a profile that is private but they have a really cool picture and you want to see the larger version. It’s very easy.

Step 1

Find one of those annoyingly small/medium pictures you want to have a large version of, any picture at all on any myspace page. For this example we will just use everyones default friend Tom.

Step 2

Right click the image and a sub menu appears. If using Firefox click View Image. If using Internet Explorer click Properties then copy the Address: URL and paste it into the address bar. Make sure you copied everything from http:// to the end which should be .gif or .jpg See images below for your specific browser if necessary!

Firefox Users:

Internet Explorer Users:

note, this also works in Firefox

Step 3

Once you have the image URL in the address bar, change the letter s or m (whichever is there depends on the size of the photo) to the letter l in the filename all the way near the end of the URL. That’s l as in a lower case L. The s stands for small, m stands for medium, l stands for large. See image below for example.

Now all you have to do is press Enter or hit Go to go to the new URL and you will arrive at the large sized version of the picture.

I do this all the time, not for malicious reasons, but just because I genuinely find lots of pictures on Myspace interesting/creative or just because I don’t want to visit someones profile and sort through 200 pictures to find their default.

Feel free to comment if something is unclear, or if you found this useful… or not. =)