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Keep in mind that the original post said "it was the picture of a cat". It implied they looked at the content of the file.

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No they didn't. They talked about how sharing pictures of cats was a running internet joke. All they said about that particular file was that it was named cat.jpg.

From http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3076-i-heard-you-like-numbers:

And a Basecamp user uploaded the 100,000,000th file (It was a picture of a cat!)

In the comments, they clarify that it was called cat.jpg, and that's how they knew it was a picture of a cat.

Yeah, I remember that. But they also mentioned the file name too so it wasn't really a secret as to how they assumed what was in it. I very rarely go into conspiracy land but now I'm wondering where the uproar came from? Does anyone know who started this backlash? Was it a group or an individual? I ask because for a fleeting moment I wondered if a competitor took their original post and used it as an opportunity to knock 37Signals down a couple of notches. I may be totally off in the deep end with that thought, however.

But they also mentioned the file name too

They only mentioned that it was from the filename in the comments. So initially at the start, it wasn't clear that's how they did it.

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