What’s the latest security issue with Web browsers? Knowing where you’ve been. And telling.
You know how on a Web browser, you can hit the back button and it’ll take you to the page you were just on. And how you can do that over and over? For a bit, anyway?
Well, the browser can do it because it keeps up with where you’ve been. And, some Websites can have code that tracks where you’ve been.
Lot of browsers report where you just came from. Suppose you clicked a link to come to this Website, your browser probably included the page you were on in the HTTP_REFERER header (yes, it’s correctly misspelled as “referer”). But this security issue isn’t that. It’s the actual reading of the Web browser history.
Didn’t know they could do that? Yeah, well they can. For lots of browsers anyway. LikeInternet Explorer and Firefox. And older version of Chrome and Safari.
The report adds to growing worry about surreptitious surveillance by Internet companies and comes as federal regulators in the U.S. are proposing a “Do Not Track” tool that would prevent advertisers from following consumers around online to sell them more products.
The researchers found 46 sites, ranging from smutty to staid, that tried to pry loose their visitors browsing histories using this technique, sometimes with homegrown tracking code. Nearly half of the 46 sites, including financial research site Morningstar.com and news site Newsmax.com, used an ad-targeting company, Interclick, which says its code was responsible for the tracking.
Oh, and I’m not saying we have any of that kind of tracking code here, but some of you people are freaks. Seriously. I can’t believe the places some of you go.
I do wonder, though, what would happen if WikiLeaks got hold of this information for, say, the president? Or some of his cabinet? So, I did some digging. And here’s what I found.
Obama’s most-visited Websites?
Joe Biden’s most-visited Websites?
- Trick question. His computer is an Etch-A-Sketch.
I’m sort of afraid to ask, but … what do you think are the most-visited Websites by some high-profile people? Oh, and you may not want to include a link. Or I may not want you to.
This is why I always click on Bing when leaving IMAO.
[But why would you leave IMAO? I mean, Frank will be back later today. Maybe. – B.]
Might want to proceed with caution when dealing with news reported by Rather’s channel, they sometimes exaggerate just the tiniest of bits.
Speaking of which, Dan Rather goes to the “I Hate GB with the Fire of a Billion Suns” site often to study different font types.
Sean Connery: IMAO, IMAO, and IMAO.
Who is Frank? I thought this was Basil’s Blog.
Nancy Pelosi: http://www.awfulplasticsurgery.com
Harry Reid: http://www.home-remedies-for-you.com/remedy/Constipation.html
Barney Frank: goatse.cx
hillary goes to the “how to get your boss to blame bush so you can have his job in 2012” page
bill goes to fatwomenrus page.
bwarney fwank goes to europeanvaction.net: but is always confused because every picture has joey biden in it.
Well…
Nancy Pelosi spends her time soaking up the news
Harry Reid’s browsing history is short because he never gets past his homepage
Gore contents himself with pretending people still care
Barney Frank spends his time trying to find his place in degenerate history (Semi-SFW)
It’s easy to turn of your ‘referer’ and also flash cookies.
But there always seems to be something new to turn off. Pretty damn annoying.
A better plan would be some kind of protection that spoofed referer and tracking data with a flood of random sites, so anyone trying to track would simply find it impossible.
I bet that Hillary Clinton logs in to World of Warcraft every day where she plays a beautiful elf girl and fantasizes about life in that innocent and magical land.
if you use firefox there are several different add-ons that detect and block trackers on websites – I use ghostery myself. I think IE has some kind of addons system, but I avoid using IE for anything unless there’s no other option, so I don’t know what they have in the way of privacy add-ons. (I’m kinda new commenting here by the way. usually I just read the posts and lurk on some of the comment threads if something catches my eye, but I’ve decided that isn’t very sociable of me, so here I am)
Actually…this site “requires” referers or none of the pictures work, I should know since I don’t see them unless I enable them.
for Firefox:
1. Type about:config in the address bar and press Enter.
2. Find the entry that says Network.http.sendRefererHeader and double-click on it.
3. Set the entry to one of the following:
* 0 – Disable referrer.
* 1 – Send the Referer header when clicking on a link, and set document.referrer for the following page.
* 2 – Send the Referer header when clicking on a link or loading an image.
@Joe,
And, BILL Clinton logs in to World of Warcraft every day where he plays a beautiful elf girl and watches her ass as she runs through that innocent and magical land.
I’m gonna run for vice president so I can get me an Etch-a-Sketch. I’ll use while I fly around in my personal helicopter (thup-thup-thup-thup)