[lit-ideas] Re: Calling all computer gurus & lawyers (Andreas?)
- From: "Andreas Ramos" <andreas@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2005 20:35:01 -0800
I'm familiar with cookies, as I thought everyone was.
Cookies are widely used by ecommerce sites for all sort of purposes. When you go to
Amazon.com, it recognizes you, remembers what you ordered, and shows you suggestions based
on your preferences. This is done by cookies. There are session cookies (which let you move
from screen to screen duing a shopping cart session) and persistent cookies (like Amazon's)
that remember your ID.
Some critics however call this "spyware" and insist that it's snooping on users. The
clueless media picks that up and inflates it into a CIA scandal.
The goverment cookies are set to 2039 (or something like that.) Big deal. Google's cookies
also go to 2039. This is a limit set by UNIX; otherwise, it would probably be set for the
year 2600.
We use tracking cookies for our work. It meant to give useful information to the merchant
and provide better service for the user. It's not intended as malicious in any way.
Could it be malicious? Yes. The user can be tracked back to his home (incl. street address).
With sufficient access to databases, the user's activities can be tracked from site to site.
The NSA has this capability and they are very likely doing this (I'd be surprised if they
weren't).
Can it be thwarted? Very easy. Set the browser to block all cookies. Erase all sessions
after every use. Use computers at the library, etc.
So is it useful to catch al Qaeda sleeper cells? Totally useless. It's just snooping on
people.
yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
