Why does Lit use cookies? Why sextracker?

[zipman]

As Wierd Harold & Ishmael said "caveat emptor"....let the buyer beware, is the rule of the day on the unregulated Internet.

This means ask questions and don't blindly trust what people taking and housing your transcripts and personal information tell you.

In this respect, while I respect Killer Muffin's (and others') loyalty to Laurel & Manu...all should understand there is no disrespect in asking the questions and providing authoritative discussion links in support of increasing awareness...particularly when Laurel & Manu have been silent on the matter and have no Privacy Policy posted on the site addressing third party access to cookie profiling techniques.

However, it is not completely up to individuals on the board how our information is used...for the simple reason that Laurel & Manu have and control information about us.

I don't see that as a particularly provokative or emotional statement...that's just the way it is.

If others continually speak on behalf of Laurel & Manu to attack me for pointing out the facts regarding issues that affect all of us, I suggest that you not only question my motivations....but those of the people who resort to personal attacks in the "discussion" without speaking to the facts as well.

My posts stand on their facts...facts gathered from reputable, fully disclosed news and advocacy groups.

Let's see some facts in response....shall we?

Lance

I have to say that I agree with this post completely. Increasing awareness of about these issues and discussing them in this manner is not an attack on Laurel and Manu.

Lance has provided accurate information from reputable sources to encourage discussion about a highly unregulated form of communication that we all use.

Posters here have varying degrees of knowledge about computers and the internet. While some people like Ishmael, Weird Harold and others have a high degree of knowledge in this area, others, like estevie have less knowledge. Informing them of how this all works is a public service.

Of course, some of the conspiratorial innuendo from previous Lance threads has colored the way this thread is being perceived.

 

[Calamity Jane]

The blue eye gene is recessive. Two are required to make a blue-eyed baby. Brown is dominant. If there is one brown gene and one blue gene present, brown will win.

There are only two eye color genes, blue and brown. Green and hazel and grey and every other color are simply a mixture of the two.

Also, if you have one blue eyed parent, and one brown eyed parent, you have a 1 in 4 chance of having a blue eyed child.

I have a question that's actually related to the thread... is there honestly anyone on the planet who thinks the internet is all taht secure? I tend to look at it like a conversation on a crowded street. You're surrounded by people who might hear you, but they have to actually overhear something that grabs their interest before they're going to listen to you.

I really don't give a rat's ass whether I'm tracked when I open this site or any other site. I don't understand where all the concern comes in.

 

[Ishmael]

Of course, some of the conspiratorial innuendo from previous Lance threads has colored the way this thread is being perceived.

Quite so Zip. There are about a hundred different informative ways that this thread could have been started without any innuendo concerning Lit. if information and discussion were the only goals.

Be that as it may. Sextracker is a counter only. There is NO personal information contained in the sextracker cookie.

Lance provided a link in another similar thread to a site that demonstrated the information that could be obtained from our computers. And the page looked like it was chock full of all sorts of info. It was. But for the most part it was technical info about your browser so that the host site know's what your capabilites are and does't send you pages that your browser and/or plug-ins can't handle.

The rest of the information in available to ANY site that wants to make use of it. It is part of the internet specifications. That information DID NOT come from any cookie. It was information that your browser gave up because it was asked to. Bitch at Netscape, Microsoft, or the standards commitee if you're unhappy about it.

The little demonstration at the end where your IP is traced looks ominous but it is just a standard feature of the web. Anyone can run "traceroute". You can download the software and do it from your own computer. If you're running UNIX, there is nothing to download, you already have it.

All in all, is it a concern? Perhaps to some. Cookies can be managed and denied. But there is much that you can't stop because of the internet specifications and the built-ins in your browser. None of which have a thing to do with Lit., or anyother site really.

Viruses and trojan horse are far more dangerous. They cause real malicious effects. Cookies are small fry compared to the real dangers of the net.

Ishmael

 

[DéjàNu]

Since cookies exist that everyone says its bad because it can trace your whereabout, so why poeple keep them on? We only have to disable them or use a software that help manage them!!!!

I'm myself owner of a big website, not as big as this one, and if this one was mine, it would have so much more publiicities then that for sure.

Laurel and Manu do a great job, I think not a lot here are aware of it. They need cookies, clicks, banners and pubs to make this place free. Lit is user friendly website (board too) and I hope it stays like this.

 

[Guest]

KillerMuffin starts another ''beat the drop dead donkey'' thread.

 

[CoolidgEffect]

The blue eye gene is recessive. Two are required to make a blue-eyed baby. Brown is dominant. If there is one brown gene and one blue gene present, brown will win.

There are only two eye color genes, blue and brown. Green and hazel and grey and every other color are simply a mixture of the two.

The determination of eye color is a little more complex than dominant and recessive alleles of a single gene pair. Currently there are three gene pairs that control eye color known to control human eye color. Two of these genes are located on chromosome 15 and one on chromosome 19.

“The bey 2 gene, on chromosome 15, has a brown and a blue allele. A second gene, located on chromosome 19 (the gey gene) has a blue and a green allele. A third gene, bey 1, located on chromosome 15, is a central brown eye color gene.”


(I am confident in the security of the internet, because I am invisible)
http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/emoticons/38.gif

 

[Dixon Carter Lee]

Amazing how Lance extracted this complex rant from KM.


KM the Lit Sheriff who gets her orders from 'above'

Why doesn't Laurel post this in her own name?


Seems as though Laurel has been quiet round here lately.

More Flouride. Silly.

 

[Dixon Carter Lee]

Muffie is Lit's director of Pubic Relations.

And neither she nor Ish nor Chey are capable of refuting my discussion points...because I'm right.

Wow. Really stupid.

 

[Calamity Jane]

And neither she nor Ish nor Chey are capable of refuting my discussion points...because I'm right.

Kinda like taht dumbass drug/terrorism support commercial? "It's true because it's a fact."

 

[1fiestyredhead]

The blue eye gene is recessive. Two are required to make a blue-eyed baby. Brown is dominant. If there is one brown gene and one blue gene present, brown will win.

There are only two eye color genes, blue and brown. Green and hazel and grey and every other color are simply a mixture of the two.

Damn, and all this time I thought my green eyes were something special...now I find out they're just a mixture of blue and brown genes.

 

[CoolidgEffect]

Damn, and all this time I thought my green eyes were something special...now I find out they're just a mixture of blue and brown genes.

Darn, there goes my invisible trick.

 

[Mischka]

Laurel & Manu have been silent on the matter and have no Privacy Policy posted on the site addressing third party access to cookie profiling techniques.

Could you please provide an example of a website that explains the process to your satisfaction?

 

[JazzManJim]

Could you please provide an example of a website that explains the process to your satisfaction?

Heh.


Statements like this is, of course, why you rock.

 

[Rubyfruit]

The determination of eye color is a little more complex than dominant and recessive alleles of a single gene pair. Currently there are three gene pairs that control eye color known to control human eye color. Two of these genes are located on chromosome 15 and one on chromosome 19.

“The bey 2 gene, on chromosome 15, has a brown and a blue allele. A second gene, located on chromosome 19 (the gey gene) has a blue and a green allele. A third gene, bey 1, located on chromosome 15, is a central brown eye color gene.”


(I am confident in the security of the internet, because I am invisible)
http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/emoticons/38.gif

Thank you, Coolidge. I find this subject fascinating, don't you?

 

[CoolidgEffect]

yeah, but most of the genetic stuff is ove my head. I like eyes, but vision is cool.

 

[1fiestyredhead]

Darn, there goes my invisible trick.

Shhh....I see invisible people...

 

[CoolidgEffect]

OMG I'm dead!

 

[KillerMuffin]

My posts stand on their facts...facts gathered from reputable, fully disclosed news and advocacy groups.

*cough* bullshit *cough*

Let's see some facts in response....shall we?

Lance

From your own much investigated links.

"A "Spyware cookie" is any cookie that is not used only by a single site for its private interactions with its users, but is shared across sites."

"Spyware cookies are not dangerous, and invade your privacy very little. Nonetheless, some folks hate them, and many are glad that PestPatrol can find and remove them."


*Yawn*

In this respect, while I respect Killer Muffin's (and others') loyalty to Laurel & Manu...all should understand there is no disrespect in asking the questions and providing authoritative discussion links in support of increasing awareness...particularly when Laurel & Manu have been silent on the matter and have no Privacy Policy posted on the site addressing third party access to cookie profiling techniques.

However, it is not completely up to individuals on the board how our information is used...for the simple reason that Laurel & Manu have and control information about us.

L & M have not been silent on the matter. Those were Laurel's words you've been vainly attempting to refute. I wasn't speaking for Laurel. Click the link, stupid.

But whatever, you don't read what others have to say and you spin everything as badly as possible.

"for the simple reason that Laurel & Manu have and control information about us."

This is nothing more than a scare tactic. The uninitiated are suddenly unsure if L & M know their phone number and last names or not. Maybe if you were actually genuine and you'd never tried to take over a forum before, that would be different.


Your generosity and research techniques really helped out. You didn't even supply a link to the free spyware cookie removal programs available 'Netwide.

Your glaring lack of offered solutions to the unitiated--particularly when I found one in two links--is really a glaring statement about your motives.

 

[Lancecastor]

Could you please provide an example of a website that explains the process to your satisfaction?

I mentioned sextracker.com's Privacy Policy, which links off their front page, yesterday in the original thread.

While, like most porn sites with Privacy Policies (and any Doubleclick-cookied site) it doesn't (in my view) disclose the full facts in its definition of "personal information", it's otherwise a fairly comprehensive document.

And again, if you're interested in online privacy issues as they relate to cookies, just type in Spyware in the search facility at eff.org.

Lance

 

[Guest]

(I am confident in the security of the internet, because I am invisible)
http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/emoticons/38.gif

Mark, is that you?

 

[Lancecastor]

"for the simple reason that Laurel & Manu have and control information about us."

This is nothing more than a scare tactic. The uninitiated are suddenly unsure if L & M know their phone number and last names or not.

L&M have terabytes of views, opinions, deeply personal revelations...the gamut...in their possession.

Yes, there are some like software company Pestware who consider spyware relatively benign, presumably because their software can erase it...and I included those views in my links for balance.

There are others, like the EFF and the US Congress, that consider Spyware like the Doubleclick cookie (which, like Sextracker, is multi-site enabled to profile you) very dangerous, especialy when cross-referenced against the direct mail databases of companies like Abacus, which Doubleclick bought in 2001 and has backed off from integrating at the insistence of various US federal agencies.

Not everyone has cookie control/eradication devices installed...I would guess that most don't.

The fact that a major communications medium (the internet) that will likely surpass television and telephony one day has been launched and fostered by corporate interests without any guarantees of personal privacy or freedom is, to me, a darkly chilling notion...one that deserves discussion.

Again....discussions of online, internet and web security issues are simply that...discussions. Some people like these discussions, others don't.

Your continued attempts to make everything a "conspiracy" in the face of the balanced views and I facts I have presented in these threads are evidence only of your shortcomings of fact and your penchant for emotional (versus rational) responses to the things I say, Muffer.

The only people who have raised issues of "fear", "takeovers", "secrets" and "conspiracies" here in any serious way.....are you, the other Moderators and old-school posters like Ishmael & Cheyenne.

Lance

 

[Ishmael]

L&M have terabytes of views, opinions, deeply personal revelations...the gamut...in their possession.

Yes, there are some like software company Pestware who consider spyware relatively benign, presumably because their software can erase it...and I included those views in my links for balance.

There are others, like the EFF and the US Congress, that consider Spyware like the Doubleclick cookie (which, like Sextracker, is multi-site enabled to profile you) very dangerous, especialy when cross-referenced against the direct mail databases of companies like Abacus, which Doubleclick bought in 2001 and has backed off from integrating at the insistence of various US federal agencies.

Not everyone has cookie control/eradication devices installed...I would guess that most don't.

The fact that a major communications medium (the internet) that will likely surpass television and telephony one day has been launched and fostered by corporate interests without any guarantees of personal privacy or freedom is, to me, a darkly chilling notion...one that deserves discussion.

Again....discussions of online, internet and web security issues are simply that...discussions. Some people like these discussions, others don't.

Your continued attempts to make everything a "conspiracy" in the face of the balanced views and I facts I have presented in these threads are evidence only of your shortcomings of fact and your penchant for emotional (versus rational) responses to the things I say, Muffer.

The only people who have raised issues of "fear", "takeovers", "secrets" and "conspiracies" here in any serious way.....are you, the other Moderators and old-school posters like Ishmael & Cheyenne.

Lance

Want to make sure this one isn't edited. New thread in the offing.

Ishmael

 

[Lancecastor]

60 Classic Cookie Recipies

1. High Tech "NewsBits" for 10/05/01 •••
October 5, 2001 `Sunset clause' splits Congress on anti-terrorism legislation The Senate and House are poised to pass separate anti-terrorism bills next week...
...policy clears the way for the company to use online tracking tools, including cookies and Web bugs, to compile anonymous data about its members and...
...AOL: Cookie Policy Is In Line With Industry Standards Although America Online (AOL) recently warned its subscribers that it would deposit "cookies" on...
60% Fri, 12 Oct 2001 08:32:28 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2001/20011005.htm


2. High Tech "NewsBits" for 07/27/01 ••
July 27, 2001 'Code Red' virus re-infection expected on 1 August Thousands of servers are likely to be re-infected with the self-propagating Code Red worm...
...believe that searching through e-mails, browser files of sites visited, cookies, favourite site lists and personalised Web portals can provide an...
50% Sat, 28 Jul 2001 02:56:36 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2001/20010727.htm


3. High Tech "NewsBits" for 07/23/01 ••
July 23, 2001 AntiOffline founder reports to Club Fed Jesus Oquendo, aka Sil, who maintains the quirky site AntiOffline, has been convicted of computer...
...was announced in January 1997. This problem was a buffer overflow in Apache's cookie module that was fixed in Apache 1.1.3....
50% Tue, 24 Jul 2001 00:12:34 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2001/20010723.htm


4. High Tech "NewsBits" for 06/18/01 ••
June 18, 2001 Solar Sunrise hacker 'Analyzer' escapes jail The hacker known as 'The Analyzer' was sentenced Thursday in Israel to six months of community...
...culled from reports of 51 inspectors general, found 300 "cookies" on the Web sites of 23 agencies. Cookies are Internet tracking devices that last year...
...tp://www.internetnews.com/prod-news/article/0,,9_785711,00.html - - - - - - - - Cookies, image posting real bad combo During a routine internal security...
...Chris Lambert discovered an exploit that affects nearly any script that uses cookie session/login data to validate CGI forms. Jelsoft tested this...
52% Mon, 18 Jun 2001 23:03:49 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2001/20010618.htm


5. High Tech "NewsBits" for 06/15/01 ••
June 15, 2001 Hampton officer arrested in child porn case A 27-year police veteran has been arrested on three child pornography charges, some allegedly...
...Internet advertising companies are racing to ensure that their ads and cookies are compatible with it. Internet Explorer 6, scheduled to be released in...
...compliant with the standards being included in IE 6 may not be able to place cookies on PC users' hard drives. http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,...
51% Sun, 17 Jun 2001 07:31:14 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2001/20010615.htm


6. High Tech "NewsBits" for 06/13/01 ••
June 13, 2001 Witnesses say teen hacker intended to disable Internet sites A 16-year-old computer hacker illegally used software to cripple major Internet...
...- - - - - - - - IE6 will not monster our cookies, says Doubleclick Doubleclick cookies may be entirely blocked by the current beta versions of IE6, as...
...a machine readable P3P policy in preparation, and this will allow Doubleclick cookies to be accepted by IE6 at the default privacy settings....
51% Fri, 15 Jun 2001 07:28:39 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2001/20010613.htm


7. High Tech "NewsBits" for 06/11/01 ••
June 11, 2001 Police probe 1,800-strong Internet paedophile ring London man arrested as Scotland Yard investigates what could be the UK's largest ever Web...
...ttp://uk.news.yahoo.com/010608/36/bufop.html - - - - - - - - DOD still misuses ’cookies’ Many military Web sites still collect personal information from...
...policies regulating the use of "persistent cookies" and other information-gathering technology. Persistent cookies are small pieces of software a Web...
51% Tue, 12 Jun 2001 08:13:08 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2001/20010611.htm


8. High Tech "NewsBits" for 06/08/01 ••
June 8, 2001 UK woman dubbed 'Internet hooker' arrested in U.S. A 32-year-old British woman known to police as the ``Internet hooker'' was arrested and...
...p://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/166676.html - - - - - - - - CIO site caught with ’cookies’ The redesigned Web site for the CIO Council had to be pulled...
...notified officials the site was using persistent cookies, a violation of government privacy rules. The use of cookies violates the CIO Council’s posted...
...states, "We do not use 'persistent cookies.’" It also violates the Office of Management and Budget’s much-publicized no-cookie rule issued late last...
54% Tue, 12 Jun 2001 08:13:05 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2001/20010608.htm


9. High Tech "NewsBits" for 06/07/01 ••
June 7, 2001 Philippine authorities charge seven people for hacking Philippine authorities have filed criminal charges against seven people, including...
...deliver targeted information to consumers. The bugs can also be matched with cookies, electronic files stored on a PC that can contain personal...
50% Tue, 12 Jun 2001 08:13:02 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2001/20010607.htm


10. High Tech "NewsBits" for 06/01/01 ••
June 1, 2001 Three Indicted in Lucent Trade Secret Case Men face maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines. Three men were indicted...
...privacy policy up to public comment, to clearly outlining for consumers how 'cookies' work and how they can opt-out of them, and to holding our...
...- - - - - Agencies continue to use forbidden 'cookies' on Web sites Federal agencies are still using Internet "cookie" files that track computer users'...
...determine whether their use of cookies was consistent with OMB’s rules, and whether OMB had provided enough direction on the no-cookies policy to...
52% Sun, 03 Jun 2001 03:20:18 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2001/20010601.htm


11. High Tech "NewsBits" for 05/31/01 ••
May 31, 2001 Accused FBI spy Hanssen pleads not guilty Accused FBI spy Robert Hanssen pleaded not guilty Thursday to 21 charges of conspiracy and espionage,...
...new report by the General Accounting Office. The report focuses on the use of "cookies," which are small pieces of software stored on users computers...
...they visit a Web site. OMB officials have given agencies do's and don'ts for cookies, but the guidelines are spread across several memoranda, as well as...
53% Thu, 31 May 2001 22:05:55 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2001/20010531.htm


12. High Tech "NewsBits" for 05/29/01 ••
May 29, 2001 Child porn: Prison officer charged A 49-year-old prison officer has been charged with making indecent photographs of children. Brian Bestford, a...
...and scanning tools developed to crack home PCs, he said. With proliferation of cookies, hackers have a ready source of confidential information,...
50% Wed, 30 May 2001 05:26:05 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2001/20010529.htm


13. High Tech "NewsBits" for 05/01/01 ••
May 11, 2001 Senate Leader On Cyber-Security Struck By Homepage Worm Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, a congressional leader on issues relating to electronic...
...all state agencies to outline their Web site’s policies regarding the use of cookies, visitor tracking, and the protection and sharing of citizens’...
...it also comes as a result of citizen complaints that some state agencies use cookies to track users in ways private companies must disclose a policy...
51% Sat, 12 May 2001 20:34:49 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2001/20010511.htm


14. High Tech "NewsBits" for 04/30/01 ••
April 30, 2001 Another Net paedophile sentenced in Britain A British paedophile has been sentenced to 18 months imprisonment after raping a 15-year old girl...
...from memory allocation pools. Such data could include session identifiers, cookies, form submissions, login names and passwords. "If persistent...
52% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:29:16 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2001/20010430.htm


15. High Tech "NewsBits" for 04/27/01 ••
April 27, 2001 Soldier gets prison in child porn case Charges that he sexually abused a local boy were dropped. A Fort Richardson soldier and father of three...
...disdain for the ultimate extension of his data-gathering tools: online ''cookies,'' the files Web sites plant on your computer to track where you surf...
51% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:29:14 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2001/20010427.htm


16. High Tech "NewsBits" for 04/23/01 ••
April 23, 2001 Police Say 80 People in Global Child Porn Ring Spanish police believe around 80 people were involved in an international child pornography...
...- - - - - - - - DOT sweeps away Web cookies The Transportation Department said Friday that it has deleted "persistent cookies" from all of its Web sites...
...cookies" from all of its Web sites and has developed procedures to keep cookies off its Web sites in the future. The DOT announcement came four days...
...the worst offender among seven agencies violating federal regulations against cookies, which are bits of computer code planted in Web site visitors’...
52% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:29:08 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2001/20010423.htm


17. High Tech "NewsBits" for 04/20/01 ••
April 20, 2001 The online 13-year-old was a Bedford County sheriff's deputy Police allege Md. man solicited sex with 'teenager'. He also could be charged...
...Visitors - Report More than 60 federal government Web sites use permanent "cookies," or tiny text files that track visitors' movements online, in clear...
...Governmental Affairs Committee found that 64 federal sites routinely place cookies on visitors' hard drives. Considering that the federal government...
51% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:29:06 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2001/20010420.htm


18. High Tech "NewsBits" for 04/10/01 ••
April 10, 2001 Crackers Used Shopping Software Holes To Steal Credit Cards Malicious hackers used a bug in PDG Shopping Cart - a popular e-commerce software...
...we can get away with it." And who's to blame them for thinking so? Take cookies, the little identification tags that Web sites drop on our hard drives...
...of sites, cookies were rejected only 0.68% of the time. That means only seven out of every thousand users have set their browsers to reject cookies....
52% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:28:53 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2001/20010410.htm


19. High Tech "NewsBits" for 04/09/01 ••
April 9, 2001 Rabbi Arrested on Sex Charges A father who was angry that his 16-year-old son had been solicited for sex over the Internet helped police...
.../0,1199,NAV47-68-84-88_STO59394,00.html - - - - - - - - Readers' Letters Poison cookies? Is the recent Doubleclick ruling the springboard for a giant...
50% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:28:51 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2001/20010409.htm


20. High Tech "NewsBits" for 04/03/01 ••
April 3, 2001 Ashland police close child porn Web site The Ashland Police Department says it has been instrumental in shutting down an online...
...- - - - - - - - New ad technology's got milk without cookies An advertising technology company is hoping to turn concerns about Internet privacy to its...
...for companies to deliver online ads without using electronic markers known as cookies. The service, unveiled by Raleigh, N.C.-based Interadnet on...
51% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:28:41 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2001/20010403.htm


21. High Tech "NewsBits" for 03/29/01 ••
March 29, 2001 Woman asked computer repairman to save child porn on hard drive Police are investigating a woman who dropped off a computer to be fixed and...
...- - - - - - - - New Internet Explorer Will Boost Cookie Controls Microsoft Corp., in a bid to help the Internet industry ward off new privacy laws from...
50% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:28:36 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2001/20010329.htm


22. High Tech "NewsBits" for 03/23/01 ••
March 23, 2001 AOL chat room threat closes school A school district in New York closed its doors Friday as police and the FBI investigate an e-mail threat on...
...ech/review/games/2001-03-23-violence.htm - - - - - - - - Privacy experts rip IE cookie cutter Microsoft's plan to add privacy technology to its new...
50% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:28:29 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2001/20010323.htm


23. High Tech "NewsBits" for 03/12/01 ••
March 12, 2001 FBI agent successfully lures paedophile into cyber-trap A Scottish university lecturer faces a 15-year jail sentence after an FBI sting...
...defaced by a crew calling itself Hackweiser Saturday night. "We demand cookies for all the l33t hax0rs and skript kiddies out there," the crew says. "We...
...agencies already burned in the last year by revelations that they plant cookies on Internet users' computers, a new report from a privacy public-policy...
56% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:28:14 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2001/20010312.htm


24. High Tech "NewsBits" for 03/05/01 ••
March 5, 2001 Security of credit card info violated Online bookseller Bibliofind on Monday said it has learned of a security violation that compromised...
...installing pernicious files, for example. The bugs can also be matched with "cookies," the electronic files that are stored on a PC and can contain...
51% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:28:07 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2001/20010305.htm


25. High Tech "NewsBits" for 03/01/01 ••
March 1, 2001 Man Jailed for Sex With Teenage Chat Mate A Singapore man will spend nine months in jail for having sex with an underage girl he met via the...
...http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/162573.html - - - - - - - - - 'Web Bugs' Make Cookies Look Good Enough To Eat According to security experts, the next...
...- - - DOT complying with cookie rules The Transportation Department is complying with an Office of Management and Budget policy on cookies after a...
...Transportation’s IG identified 22 DOT Web pages using unauthorized persistent cookies. The General Accounting Office identified another site in December...
52% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:28:04 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2001/20010301.htm


26. High Tech "NewsBits" for 02/12/01 ••
February 13, 2001 Napster News Napster is just one battle in the war for control of digital content http://www0.mercurycenter.com/svtech/columns/gillmor/docs/d...
...already offers a free browsing gateway which uses 128-bit SSL, disables cookies and scripts and hides the surfer's IP, for pretty good on-line...
51% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:27:46 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2001/20010213.htm


27. High Tech "NewsBits" for 02/12/01 ••
February 12, 2001 Appeals court rules Napster must stop trading in copyrighted material Napster Inc. must halt the sharing of copyrighted recordings by...
...companies directly. Their mission is to curb the surreptitious use of Internet cookies — files that collect information, usually for advertisers, after...
51% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:27:45 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2001/20010212.htm


28. High Tech "NewsBits" for 02/08/01 ••
February 8, 2001 Former Los Alamos computer whiz jailed again The 21-year-old computer whiz accused of causing more than $1 million in damage by hacking into...
...http://www.securityfocus.com/news/149 - - - - - - - - - Gnutella swapping cookies, too Web surfers trading free music and other digital goods over one...
...Putting these would-be file swappers at risk are electronic markers, known as cookies, left automatically on their computers through Netscape or...
57% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:27:43 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2001/20010208.htm


29. High Tech "NewsBits" for 12/07/00 ••
December 7, 2000 Mafiaboy arrested by police again The teenager alleged to have jammed some of the largest sites on the Internet earlier this year has been...
......which allows them to do things such as stealing that client/server's cookies," Elias Levy, Bugtraq's moderator and the chief technology officer of...
58% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:25:45 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2000/20001207.htm


30. High Tech "NewsBits" for 11/09/00 ••
November 9, 2000 Stars Find Swiss Bank Account Details on Internet A technical glitch put show business stars' secret Swiss bank account numbers, private...
...w.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2000/1106/web-fedcirc-11-09-00.asp - - - - - - - - - - - Cookie control weak at DOT The Transportation Department’s inspector...
...general blames weak technology implementation controls for the use of banned "cookies" on DOT bureau Web sites. The Transportation IG’s audit, performed...
...telecommunications network security at DOT headquarters. This audit focused on cookies, code placed on a Web site visitor’s hard drive that identifies...
55% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:25:22 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2000/20001109.htm


31. High Tech "NewsBits" for 10/26/00 •••
October 26, 2000 Israeli Web sites crash Several Israeli Web sites containing the government's perspective on the Mideast conflict crashed after Islamic...
...number. By default, this card number is stored to a data file, or cookie, on the customer’s local server and sent via encryption to Bank One’s site at...
61% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:25:07 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2000/20001026.htm


32. High Tech "NewsBits" for 09/01/00 ••
September 1, 2000 *** EDITOR'S NOTE *** Greetings from the UK! Since Monday, Sept. 4th is a holiday in the US, NewsBits will not be published again until...
...intended to provide users with greater control over the browser-tracking cookies handed out by websites. The company issued a beta release of what it...
...features in this update give you a clearer understanding of different types of cookies and where they originate, as well as an easier way to manage and...
...constructed link, the unwary victim would be tricked into abdicating crucial cookie information that would allow the hacker to gain access to the...
58% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:24:55 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2000/20000901.htm


33. High Tech "NewsBits" for 08/31/00 ••
August 31, 2000 23-year-old arrested in Emulex hoax Federal law enforcement authorities today arrested a 23-year-old Southern California student in the stock...
...- - - - - - - - - Microsoft adds cookie management to IE 5.5 Microsoft Corp. today said it's ready to ship a promised set of cookie management features...
...give users of the Web browser the option of deleting cookies as an added form of privacy. The new cookie controls were released to about 2,000 users for...
52% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:24:54 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2000/20000831.htm


34. High Tech "NewsBits" for 08/24/00 ••
August 24, 2000 FBI arrests extortion suspect at library computer The man wrote e-mails to a company threatening to release company secrets unless it paid...
...other privacy breaches in the past, noticed that TRUSTe's Web site contained ``cookies,'' small text files used for online tracking and profiling, as...
50% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:24:46 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2000/20000824.htm


35. High Tech "NewsBits" for 08/18/00 ••
August 18, 2000 New Kid Porn Bust in Florida Federal authorities have made their second child pornography bust this week in Florida's Palm Beach County. Myer...
...with order to stop tracking Web users The government is still grinding out "cookie" programs two months after a White House directive ordered Web...
...office - shut down their cookie operations after the June order, a survey of federal sites this week found some still delivering cookies....
...54 percent of those surveyed considered the use of tracking devices such as "cookies" an invasion of privacy, while only 27 percent said they agreed...
58% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:24:42 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2000/20000818.htm


36. High Tech "NewsBits" for 08/17/00 ••
August 17, 2000 Computer maker sued for snooping, sparking allegations of child pornography in 1998 A Las Vegas businessman has sued Compaq Computer Corp.,...
...from snooping on you as you browse. You may also view and manage the cookies you collect as you browse the web. "As I watched 60 Minutes I realized it...
52% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:24:41 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2000/20000817.htm


37. High Tech "NewsBits" for 07/31/00 ••
July 31, 2000 Internet scam lands man in prison for 18 months A man who admitted cheating a dozen people out of nearly $30,000 and a series of fraudulent...
...k/news/pages/sti/2000/07/30/stinwenws01037.html - - - - - - - - - - - Microsoft cookie tool stirs controversy What began as an effort to give Web...
...With Internet Explorer 5.5, Microsoft is testing a cookie management feature that blocks certain kinds of cookies -- data records created by a browser...
...vendors that claim the feature unfairly excludes them from the benefits of cookies: driving traffic and ad dollars to a site and supplying key...
59% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:24:26 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2000/20000731.htm


38. High Tech "NewsBits" for 07/21/00 ••
July 21, 2000 TX woman, CA man arrested for pilfering online stock accounts A Richardson, Texas, woman and a Los Angeles man were arrested Wednesday on...
...offer an Internet Explorer 5.5 update that gives people the option to manage cookies, which can track consumer preferences and whereabouts on the Web....
53% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:24:19 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2000/20000721.htm


39. High Tech "NewsBits" for 07/20/00 ••
July 20, 2000 FBI Seizes ex-official's computer hard drive The FBI has seized a computer hard drive used by former Energy Department intelligence chief Notra...
...- - - - - - - - - - - IE will warn users about 'cookies' Microsoft Corp. will announce a major change to the newest version of its dominant Internet...
...a feature that will better warn consumers when Web sites attempt to implant "cookies," which can be used in some circumstances to track Web surfing by...
...attempts by third-party Web sites, such as advertising companies, to plant cookies. Privacy experts have long complained about the practice, which could...
58% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:24:18 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2000/20000720.htm


40. High Tech "NewsBits" for 07/12/00 ••
July 12, 2000 Boys boast of murder plot on internet A race against time across cyberspace led Berlin police to thwart a murder foretold, minutes before the...
...people's Internet surfing habits is joining its better-known cousin, the cookie, as the subject of several lawsuits and a privacy initiative by the...
...the once-freewheeling Web is becoming more like an Orwellian Big Browser. Like cookies, Web bugs are electronic tags that help Web sites and advertisers...
57% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:24:11 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2000/20000712.htm


41. High Tech "NewsBits" for 07/07/00 ••
July 7, 2000 FBI probes attacks by hacker on Qualcomm The FBI is conducting a criminal investigation into a series of illegal hacker attacks on computer...
...information about the files back to itself, along with an identifying software cookie lodged in each copy of Netscape's Navigator Web browser....
57% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:24:08 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2000/20000707.htm


42. High Tech "NewsBits" for 06/26/00 ••
June 26, 2000 Russia Holds Lithuanian for Spying for Washington Russia's FSB domestic security service said Monday it had exposed and detained a Lithuanian...
...- - - - Federal Web sites put on 'no cookies' diet Federal agencies cannot make use of data tracking software, known as "cookies", on any federal Web...
...White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy was ordered to stop using cookies to track Web users who clicked on its anti-drug advertising....
.../news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200-2152384.html - - - - - - - - - - - - Germany: No Cookies, Bitte German firm fights for stronger Internet privacy. When...
55% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:23:58 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2000/20000626.htm


43. High Tech "NewsBits" for 06/21/00 ••
June 21, 2000 Nike Web site taken over The Nike corporate Web site was taken over by hackers Wednesday who replaced the content with a message about the...
...advertising effort by the White House drug office that is inserting a digital "cookies" into the hard drives of Internet users who land on Web pages...
59% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:23:56 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2000/20000621.htm


44. High Tech "NewsBits" for 06/16/00 ••
June 16, 2000 Missing Hard Drives Found The two missing hard drives with nuclear secrets have been found at the Los Alamos lab, the Energy Department said on...
...or invisible 1-by-1 pixel graphics that prompt consumers' browsers to exchange cookie information with third parties. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2...
58% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:23:53 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2000/20000616.htm


45. High Tech "NewsBits" for 06/14/00 ••
June 14, 2000 Huge Securities Bust: Five Mob Families Hit the Net Members of five organized crime families, two chain restaurant officers, and a long list of...
...- - - - - - - - - - - - - Michigan A.G. goes after Web cookies Michigan Attorney General Jennifer Granholm has threatened legal action against four...
...said these sites fail to tell customers that a third-party company is placing "cookies," or small programs that automatically upload on the individual’s...
55% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:23:51 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2000/20000614.htm


46. High Tech "NewsBits" for 06/13/00 ••
June 13, 2000 Charges filed in Internet serial murder probe Prosecutors charged a Kansas man known on the Internet as ``the slavemaster'' with murder on...
...that would allow a malicious user to steal cookie data. This is a potential threat to you, since some Web sites use cookies to store usernames,...
56% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:23:50 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2000/20000613.htm


47. High Tech "NewsBits" for 05/15/00 ••
May 15, 2000 Today's Love Bug update: A Philippine Internet provider said it used caller ID to trace the "Love Bug'' e-mail virus to a Manila phone line that...
...in Internet Explorer that could let hackers steal personal information from cookie files if the victim uses Microsoft Internet Explorer and clicks on a...
53% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:23:20 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2000/20000515.htm


48. High Tech "NewsBits" for 04/13/00 ••
April 13, 2000 "White Hat" Hacker in Court A 27-year-old computer security expert and former FBI source returned to federal court in San Jose, California...
...Fox probed 28 busy sites and found that the unsolicited use of Web browser "cookies" to track user activity was the rule, rather than the exception, and...
50% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:23:06 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2000/20000413.htm


49. High Tech "NewsBits" for 04/10/00 ••
April 10, 2000 Internet stalking charges dropped A Santa Clara County prosecutor is learning it is hard to make a cyberstalking charge stick and says he...
...2003, that could mean 1 million computers that are vulnerable to having their cookies stolen, their hard drives rifled and their operations...
56% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:23:02 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2000/20000410.htm


50. High Tech "NewsBits" for 03/22/00 ••
March 22, 2000 Report: 'E-crime is booming' Just like e-commerce, electronic crime is a booming business that cost companies at least $266 million last year,...
...through cookies, one or two lines of text kept on your computer's hard drive acting as a constant trail of your likes and dislikes. Cookies have gotten...
...and regionalization. In fact, some sites won't work at all if a browser's cookies are disabled. http://cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/03/21/idcide/index.ht...
51% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:22:46 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2000/20000322.htm


51. High Tech "NewsBits" for 03/13/00 ••
March 13, 2000 U.S. launches cybercrime Web site The Justice Department unveiled a Web site Monday to pull together information on its growing battle against...
...- - - - - - - - - - - - - - Updated programs crush cookies Slowly but surely, your hard drive is collecting cookies from all over the Web. Maybe it's...
...updated its cookie-detection and -deletion tools. Cookie Crusher, priced at $15, and CyberClean, $10.95, help you discover, control, and crumble...
...control, and crumble cookies. A bundle of both products costs $19.95. Cookies are small text files that a Web server sends to and stores on your PC....
53% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:22:36 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2000/20000313.htm


52. High Tech "NewsBits" for 03/06/00 ••
March 6, 2000 'Coolio' may be charged A 17-year-old New Hampshire computer junkie known as ``Coolio'' may be charged in a handful of vandalism incidents at...
...firm announcing it would suspend plans to tie names to now-anonymous user Web "cookies" until online privacy standards were established. With that,...
50% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:22:29 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2000/20000306.htm


53. High Tech "NewsBits" for 02/10/00 ••
February 10, 2000 Excite, Possibly AOL, Hit With Hack Attacks There was another confirmed denial of service attack on a major Internet e-commerce site...
...- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Privacy bill would control 'cookies' Complaint filed with FTC over DoubleClick's tracking technology. In the clearest...
...use of "cookies," or digital ID tags, dropped on Net users' hard drives. Under the bill, Web sites couldn't begin gathering information via cookies...
51% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:22:07 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2000/20000210.htm


54. High Tech "NewsBits" for 02/08/00 ••
February 8, 2000 Attacker creates traffic jam on Yahoo Parts of Yahoo Inc.'s Web site -- one of the most heavily trafficked on the Internet -- were...
...- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Net-privacy apps take bite out of 'cookies' Consumer privacy fears are turning into business opportunities, spurring...
...a service that will block ads as well as unique computer identifiers, called ''cookies,'' which can be used to track a consumer's shopping and surfing...
51% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:22:02 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2000/20000208.htm


55. High Tech "NewsBits" for 02/07/00 ••
February 7, 2000 Justice Dept. Requests $37 Mil To Fight Cybercrime The Department of Justice (DOJ) is requesting $37 million out of its $23.4 billion fiscal...
...- - - - - - - - - - - - Cookies Are Good, Bad, Good... Few topics have caused as much confusion or spawned as many utility programs as cookies. The buzz...
51% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:22:00 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2000/20000207.htm


56. High Tech "NewsBits" for 01/27/00 ••
January 27, 2000 Student charged with hacking Fugitive: Prosecutors say he broke into Palo Alto firm, then fled to Bulgaria. A federal grand jury in San Jose...
...Gibson to rule that Yahoo violated Texas criminal law through its use of "cookies," or computer files that collect data on Internet users. Universal's...
...customer data, and also would require companies to disclose when they use "cookies" to track their Website visitors elsewhere on the Internet....
55% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:21:49 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2000/20000127.htm


57. High Tech "NewsBits" for 01/25/00 ••
January 25, 2000 Man sent to prison for trying to lure girl A New York man who used the Internet in an attempt to persuade a 12-year-old Columbus girl to...
...visiting any one of the 11,500 sites that use DoubleClick's ad-tracking ``cookies.'' http://www.sjmercury.com/svtech/news/breaking/merc/docs/061582.htm...
55% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:21:47 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/2000/20000125.htm


58. High Tech "NewsBits" for 12/22/99 ••
December 22, 1999 ***EDITOR'S NOTE*** Though this is not a high tech crime in and of it's self, the need for personal security of high tech executives should...
...discussions, use chat or send e-mail without revealing their identity to cookies or online profilers. It costs about $50. Bob Wallace, a spokesman for...
...- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Not All Cookies Are Sweet Not all cookies are of the Christmas kind this holiday season. Consumer privacy groups,...
...electronic "cookies" that reside on computer hard drives and are used to profile the activities of consumers while online. Through the use of "cookies,"...
56% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:18:51 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/1999/19991222.htm


59. High Tech "NewsBits" for 12/03/99 •••
December 3, 1999 Another new virus found!! W32.Mypics.Worm was discovered on the evening of Dec 2, 1999. The worm propagates automatically on Windows 9x and...
...was lifted, Schmidt says he believes it was through a mechanism that reads the cookies-files sitting on a user's desktop and storing personal...
...http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2403346,00.html Experts: Cookie theft of credit card unlikely When Novell CEO Eric Schmidt announced...
...Thursday he believed his credit card had been stolen via a Web browser cookie, the potential for scaring average consumers was huge. Here is a man who...
62% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:18:34 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/1999/19991203.htm


60. High Tech "NewsBits" for 10/28/99 ••
October 28, 1999 Texas, Net Providers to Fight Child Porn Agreement Aims to Streamline Reporting, Investigation The Texas Attorney General's Office and...
...If you want to eliminate those tracks, I would first erase your cookies file. Find the "cookie.txt" file on your computer's hard drive and erase its con...
51% Tue, 01 May 2001 19:18:10 GMT http://www.newsbits.net/1999/19991028.htm

 

[JazzManJim]

The only people who have raised issues of "fear", "takeovers", "secrets" and "conspiracies" here in any serious way.....are you, the other Moderators and old-school posters like Ishmael & Cheyenne.

That's an outright lie.

 

[JazzManJim]

This is the simplest and most elegant explanation of what a cookie is I have ever read, and I managed to find it after about 30 seconds on Google.

Thank you to www.macconnection.com

"The subject of "cookies" comes up often on the Internet—specifically, concerns that sites may use them to extract your personal information or track your browsing habits on the World Wide Web. Unfortunately, many of the concerns raised about cookies are based on misconceptions of how cookies and the World Wide Web work."

"When computers talk to each other on the Web, it is different from what happens on your local network at home or at work. At work, when your computer talks to other computers and databases, you log on, and the other computer knows who you are, remembering what you have done. So, it knows whether you have access to a file, what you've done in the past, and can adjust its behavior based on that access and those past requests.

The Web is different. Traditionally, when you click a button on a web page, a message goes to a server. That server reads your message, such as "Send page #2," and behaves accordingly - "Yes, here is page #2" or "No, I can't give you page #2." However, as soon as the server sends the response, it forgets who you are. So if you were to ask the server, "Ok, send me the 'Next' page," it would have no idea what you were asking, since it doesn't know what the "Next" page is. You would have to ask, specifically, "Send me page #3."

What is a cookie?

Cookies are one way of helping the server remember who you are and what you have done. A cookie is a file sent to your browser that assigns your browser a number. Then, whenever you click on a page from the site that sent you the cookie, it logs what you did. "Send me the 'Next' page" now makes sense to the server because it remembers that it last sent you page #2 - and page #3 is "Next." Because cookies help a server remember who you are, they can be very useful, even necessary, in making the web friendly and practical.

For instance, you can use a cookie to save a password. The next time you come to the site, it identifies you and shows you the content that you configured for your personal interests. Another way to use cookies is for online shopping. When you put a product into an online "shopping basket," the server has to remember who put what products into which "baskets." This way, when you "check out" and purchase, the server knows that you are ordering Adobe Photoshop and an IBM Thinkpad, not a Power Mac 8500.

What Kind of Cookies are There?

Basically, there are two types of cookies. One kind is called a "Persistent Cookie." A persistent cookie is stored on your hard drive as a text file, usually in your browser preference folder. These cookies can be set to last for years by the site, and the site that sent it will remember you for days, weeks, months, even years later - as long as the file is still on your hard drive.

A second kind of cookie is the "Non-Persistent Cookie." The non-persistent cookie is very temporary. It is NOT stored on your hard drive, but is stored in the temporary cache of your browser and is usually set to last from 20 minutes to a few hours. Regardless of how long it lasts, the non-persistent cookie goes away as soon as you quit your browser. Therefore, the site that sets this kind of cookie does not remember you the next day, possibly even the next hour.

Should I be Afraid of Cookies?

It is good to know that some companies use cookies to track your viewing habits. It is important to note, however, that a cookie cannot record EVERY site you visit. It can only track sites that know what the numbers assigned to your cookie mean. In other words, if "Site A" gives you a persistent cookie, it can't track you to your best friend's personal page - unless your best friend is setting cookies in partnership with "Site A."

It's important to know that cookies can not give out personal information stored on your hard drive. In other words, if you have registered software with your name and address, a cookie can not extract that information and send it to a site.

Also, most persistent cookies are not bad. Most persistent cookies are doing nothing more than helping you remember one of those zillions of passwords you have, or letting you pick which sports scores you wish to see when logging onto a site.

Since they are not stored and have such a short lifespan, non-persistent cookies are of no danger to your privacy. They are used frequently throughout the web for online shopping and performance/speed enhancements. "