Super Cookies on Your Computer

[CurSedVoyce]

It has come about recent (last week) that a company called Kissmetrics has been embedding super cookies in flash media you view on your computer. These cookies gather info to send to them about what you view and shop for. Unfortunately, they are on your computer for an indefinite amount of time. They do not ask your permission to place them there, they just do. Cookies are needed to run flash players like on Hulu and we acquire them when we watch a movie or what not. Normally a cookie is deleted when you ask cookies to be, reboot (if you have your settings set for that), or automatically by a certain time. They expire some of them. Not these.
Sooooooooooo.

The top 500 or sites have been slapping you with these cookies.
After coming under scrutiny, Kissmetrics has released an un-subscribe applet so that they won't load you up again (supposedly) or take your info anymore.

There is also a blocker ad on for Firefox to help out with the future of your web browsing to ward off these "super cookies".

Here is an article from the Wall Street Journal about the matter....
Supercookie!
Here is the un-subscribe....

Unsibscribe

If you see subscribe in the applet.. You may not have the cookie.

And here is the Firefox add on....
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/betterprivacy/

Ad Block Plus did not catch this. Firefox did not.. Linux did not. Windows..... well... :roll: Nope.

This has been on the news for the last week. Fox has been covering it as well as the Journal. Check it out and I hope this helps keep some of our web machines clean

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Please note that a lot of companies use these cookies aside from the malicious. Your banks for instance... Ebay...
Stuff you want and want saved from sites like these. If you get the program and open it up... (it is listed under tools in Firefox), you will see probably a few or quite a few. Some you may recognize the address beginning. Some maybe not. I deleted the ones I did not recognize and now I will check when I log onto a site as to who puts what on my computer. Then I can decide to let them or not.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Thanks for the heads up, you computer genius you!!!

 

[Thor's Hammer]

Thanks bro, appreciate the heads up.

 

[woodworkingboy]

Helpful info, over a hundred cookies here, almost all I never heard of.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Only one that pains me when I delete it is the one from my bank. Then the bank does not recognize my computer and I have to answer a couple more questions before I can log in. Small price I guess for a little more privacy and a cleaner system. Some of these thins are pretty big and can really slow your system down. I hate to think how much info they gather and can make use of with our our permission.:what:

 

[Al Smith]

Once again that's why I don't trust the damned things for access of personal finances .

If a couple of inquistive teenager from the Philipine islands can break the code to get into the pentegon I kinda figure a real pro could get in any where .Al the dinosaur .

 

[MasterBlaster]

I don't know what I'd do w/o online banking. It's the cat's meow!

 

[gf beranek]

Nothing on the internet is secure. All we can do is cross our fingers and keep the hackers that we know at bay the best we can.

 

[Al Smith]

We as a society in general and world wide have became so dependent on a computer that business cannot conduct business without them .

Because of the complex machining operations ,documentation of specific parts etc the place I work at cannot build auto engines without the almighty things . The financial institutes are dead in the water without them .It could turn into a big mess in short order .

 

[MasterBlaster]

Ain't progress awesome? I love not even dealing with filthy cash.

 

[gf beranek]

One of the real scary scenarios is having the GPS hacked into. A lot of people would become lost in a heartbeat.

 

[Al Smith]

Well maybe but moss always grows on the north side of a tree .If you either head left or right you will eventually find an ocean .The one the sun rises on is the Atlantic .

Money is okay but I'd just as soon get paid in gold .

 

[MasterBlaster]

From what I've gleaned, silver's a lot easier/better to get into over gold.

 

[Al Smith]

Well there's more of it for sure .

 

[NeTree]

I don't know what I'd do w/o online banking. It's the cat's meow!

Word. From paying my credit cards, etc., to moving money between accounts... I very much like being able to do all of that from wherever I happen to be.

 

[woodworkingboy]

I got a little reckless with deleting the cookies as there were so many to do. By mistake, I deleted them all. Had to go through a log in here. No doubt other inconveniences will follow.

 

[gf beranek]

It's not a bad thing to delete the contents of your cookie folder every once in a while. Over 99 percent of them you don't need anyway. Malicious stuff in there sometimes. But don't get reckless, save the few that are important. Otherwise you may have to reopen all your past accounts and everything that goes with it.

I know.

 

[BlackSmith]

http://www.piriform.com/CCLEANER

 

[Paul B]

Well maybe but moss always grows on the north side of a tree .

I would say that you have never camped in the pacific northwest

 

[Al Smith]

Well of course not you live there .I'll tell ya big old king size bed beats a camp cot any day .

 

[Paul B]

no argument there Al. I'll take your words of experience on that one.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

You can have more fun on the kind size bed as well

 

[Al Smith]

Well of course you can but it doesn't take an old grandpappy type like myself to tell you young ladies and gentlemen that fact .Ya done figured that one out yourselves .

 

[gf beranek]

Where ever that saying came from certainly doesn't apply where I live. The relative direction of the slope that the tree is on dictates more which side the moss grows. Up in Paul's neck of the woods the trees have moss on all sides practically anywhere you go.