Re: Defeating the supercookie

From: bb (handy_9999@yahoo.com)
Date: 01/28/02 

From: "bb" <handy_9999@yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 22:01:21 GMT

"Sébastien SAUVAGE" <nospam@sebsauvage.net> wrote in message
news:Xns91A4B5B9A47A2sebsauvagedotnet@127.0.0.1...
> a__l__a__n@hotmail.com (Alan) wrote in
> news:e155108f.0201280730.5cd5029e@posting.google.com:
>
> > You've probably heard of the Microsoft Media Player "supercookie"
> > which can be used by web sites to track you even if you have cookies
> > turned off in your web browser.
> >
> > It seems to me that an easy solution to the supercookie problem would
> > be for everyone to set their supercookie id to be the same thing.
> > This is a simple registry entry, and could be installed as a .reg file
> > so users wouldn't have to understand registry editing to "innoculate"
> > themselves against this MS virus.
>
> Please don't call it a virus. Please stop confusing people.
> This is *not* a virus, it does not reproduce, it does not cause direct
harm.
>
>
> Otherwise, your idea of using the same identifier everywhere is quite
good.
>
> --
> Sébastien SAUVAGE
> sebsauvage at sebsauvage dot net
> http://sebsauvage.net

Sébastien SAUVAGE is right, the supercookie is much closer to a Trojan than
a virus. People don't have the time to read EULAs and a flash (data
submission) screen never appeared on my version of Media Player.

The days of configuration management and internal controls are long gone.
If these kinds of identifiers were included in the original pkzip program,
shareware would have never been allowed on corporate computers. I'll never
understand why Microsoft and others insist upon supporting the hidden
portion of CRM industry.

Statistics are very useful when you'd like to vilify groups of people.

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