Re: Spyware and Adware affect every internet user

Volker Birk wrote:
Fuzzy Logic <bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
But as IE isn't suitable as a webbrowser
anyway, who cares?
Apparently you do. I've been using it for years without a single incident.
Without a single incident you realized ;-)
I do regular scans for viruses, spyware etc. and have never found anything

Yes. This is what I'm saying.

(not even a malicious cookie).

What is a "malicious cookie"?

Supposedly a cookie with the domain attribute set, which can be used to
transfer state beyond domain borders. A common tracking technique used
by almost all big web advertisement companies since more than 10 years.
For the better, Microsoft recently patented it. [1]

Of course this is totally stupid if you configure your webbrowser to not
interpret the domain attribute and therefore keeping the tracking local
(which is possible anyway without any cookies at all). About any
webbrowser under the sun has this disabled by default, and even IE and
has is disabled for anything but websites which regard themselves
trusted according to their P3P policy (which, of course, can be dishonest).

No matter what, most scanners don't pay any respect to the browser
settings and also report any such cookies whether or not it's actually
suitable or intended for tracking.

[1] <http://techdirt.com/articles/20060503/0141241.shtml>
.

Relevant Pages

  • Cookies and Tracking
    ... Should the overide automatic cookie handling be checked ... and 3rd party... ... How do these tracking things get on one's computer? ...
    (microsoft.public.security)
  • Re: Mozilla Firefox Spyware????
    ... The browser just holds them, in case you should visit the site again. ... I don't really see why Spybot should consider a tracking cookie a 'red alert'. ... Firefox is the same in this respect as any other browser. ... If a site give you a cookie, the site already has the information that is going to be stored in the cookie, so you don't give away information by accepting a cookie. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support)
  • Charge for Cookies -- new feature request for MS
    ... order for me to use the facilities they offer, EVEN IF I PAY for their ... It seems to me I should be able to charge for each cookie, ... They are receiving valuable marking data by tracking my useable and ...
    (microsoft.public.win2000.general)
  • Accessing Cookies From Entire Site?
    ... an order and then a cart to checkout. ... Well, the cookie is tracking ...
    (alt.html)
  • WebBrowser UC Document.Cookie
    ... with a session ID and a XML response that contains a second session ID. ... User clicks a link to display a web page in a WebBrowser user control. ... Without the cookie the ...
    (microsoft.public.dotnet.framework.windowsforms.controls)