New Ways To Spy On Us Via The Internet

by Robert Wilkinson

It turns out that we are more vulnerable to tracking via the internet than we thought, and the future just started looking a lot worse. Welcome to our version of "Corporatocracy 1984 Redux."

While I realize we're already being tracked 16 ways from Thursday, this new development will affect anyone who uses browsers to surf the web anywhere in the world. It supposedly will affect "everything about the internet and the way we use it" and create a new Web that's a quantum leap over what we're accustomed to.

Via the NYT story by Tanzina Vega, New Web Code Draws Concern Over Privacy Risks," we find that thanks to HTML 5 (a new web programming language) "a powerful new suite of capabilities will become available to Web developers that could give marketers and advertisers access to many more details about computer users’ online activities. Nearly everyone who uses the Internet will face the privacy risks that come with those capabilities..."

More from the article:

The new Web language and its additional features present more tracking opportunities because the technology uses a process in which large amounts of data can be collected and stored on the user’s hard drive while online. Because of that process, advertisers and others could, experts say, see weeks or even months of personal data. That could include a user’s location, time zone, photographs, text from blogs, shopping cart contents, e-mails and a history of the Web pages visited....

Samy Kamkar, a California programmer best known in some circles for creating a virus called the “Samy Worm,” which took down MySpace.com in 2005, has created a cookie that is not easily deleted, even by experts — something he calls an Evercookie.

Some observers call it a “supercookie” because it stores information in at least 10 places on a computer, far more than usually found. It combines traditional tracking tools with new features that come with the new Web language.

In creating the cookie, Mr. Kamkar has drawn comments from bloggers across the Internet whose descriptions of it range from “extremely persistent” to “horrific.”

Mr. Kamkar, however, said he did not create it to violate anyone’s privacy. He said was curious about how advertisers tracked him on the Internet. After cataloging what he found on his computer, he made the Evercookie to demonstrate just how thoroughly people’s computers could be infiltrated by the latest Internet technology.

“I think it’s O.K. for them to say we want to provide better service,” Mr. Kamkar said of advertisers who placed tracking cookies on his computer. “However, I should also be able to opt out because it is my computer.”

Mr. Kamkar, whose 2005 virus circumvented browser safeguards and added more than a million “friends” to his MySpace page in less than 20 hours, said he had no plans to profit from the Evercookie and did not intend to sell it to advertisers.

“That wouldn’t have been difficult,” he said. Instead, he has made the code open to anyone who wants to examine it and says the cookie should be used “as a litmus test for preventing tracking.”

A recent spate of class-action lawsuits have accused large media companies like the Fox Entertainment Group and NBC Universal, and technology companies like Clearspring Technologies and Quantcast, of violating users’ privacy by tracking their online activities even after they took steps to prevent that.

By all means, go to the link to the entire article and click to read more if you're interested. While I understand there are privacy settings on browsers that help somewhat, this is an entirely new generation of invasive means to track where we go, what we do, what we buy, who we associate with, and more.

Time to be even more vigilant in how we can limit our exposure to outside forces and pressures we neither want nor need.

© Copyright 2010 Robert Wilkinson

Comments

[caliban]

Is there some kind of big secret going on that I should know about?

Crumminy, spying seems like a waste of time that can be spent on opening up creative potential.

To check myself on spying, I think I would ask the question, what am I exploring and what is my intent? And how would I feel if the shoe were on the other foot? Would I be comfortable if this were being done on me?

Off to the psychology of spying. Last time I googled psychology I believe it was bullying.

[Saoirse]

The government already uses technology to destroy private thought, and therefore, private speech and the associations they can create. They also frequently disrupt the usual forms of communication, even on computer and phone services, of their targets, the majority of which are law-abiding Americans trying to exercise their (now, non-existent) First Amendment rights. The government's use of this technology is both more ubiquitous than you know, as well as an increasing threat to the blissfully ignorant. Search "Ambient Technology," or "silent sound" at www.artificialtelepathy.blogspot.com and see what you've been misled to believe is not a threat to your freedom.

www.dontfearyourfreedom.blogspot.com

[caliban]

Intelligence. Counter intelligence. Counter counter intelligence. Counter counter counter intelligence.

Does anybody really know what time it is?

[mary streets]

Recently I googled myself and found a coment I made on "Talk like a Pirate Day" Arrghh me buckos... I had a good laugh. I get this is serious, but if they check in on me....Snooze, a big, tall glass of boring organic 2 percent milk.

[aquarius40]

This is actually happened to me.

A few days ago I went onto a specific computer website to look for a mouse. Was there for about 15 mins. Sometime later that day, I went onto a political blog that runs ads and, sure enough, the political blog was running an ad for computer products from that very website. Spooked me but not as much as the fact that 2 other blogs I went onto were running the same ad.

Clearly, that computer website "tracked me" and started offering me products they thought I would buy. Very creepy guys....

[Kelly]

Very creepy indeed.

What I have noticed that bothers me is the side ads on gmail. They are always related to the content of the email.

It does seem there is a violation of privacy, not to mention storing others' "property" on my privately owned computer. The whole thing just feels wrong.