Headline, November04, 2013

''' !!! ^^^ << EVERCOOKIE​S :

WARNING-BE​WARE >> ^^^ !!! '''

This prompted Dr Soghoian to develop two add-ons for the Firefox web browser that demonstrated simple ways to turn off tracking automatically. The first manipulated ''cookies'' , the tiny snippets of information stored by web browsers, to disable tracking.

The second, developed with the help of Sid Stamm, q programmer, sends a special message with every request asking that the user not be tracked. Dr Soghoian got the idea for this approach from Dan Kaminsky, a security researcher. But it will work only if websites are required to detect and act on such messages.

At first this suggestion was ridiculed. In 2009, however, Dr Soghoian was contacted by the FTC to provide lawyer-to- geek translation for its staff. In this role he was able to garner support for his ''Do Not Track'' scheme within the FTC, and technology firms including Microsoft and Twitter have subsequently backed it.

The advertising industry dislikes it, but seems resigned to accepting it in some form.

A few months after joining the FTC Dr Soghoian recorded a Sprint executive speaking at a surveillance trade show attended by telecom firms, law-enforcement agencies and equipment makers.

The executive explained that Sprint had built an automatic system that had provided 8m lookups of customers' locations in the preceding year in response to requests backed by court orders. Sprint said later that a single court order could generate several thousand lookups.

Dr Soghoian briefed the press and posted the audio online. He insisted that he was doing so in his role as a graduate student, rather than an FTC contractor. The scale of tracking caused a furore that persists three years later about the ease and scale of mobile surveillance. When Dr Soghoian's first year at the FTC was up, the agency did not renew his contract.

Dr Soghoian is one of a group of researchers, some of whom are affiliated with academic institutions and many of whom work together, who have risen to prominence by showing how tedious technical flaws can affect ordinary people.

Ashkan Soltani, who like Dr Soghani has worked as an adviser to the FTC, has shown how some companies have devised ''evercookies'' -cookies that are very difficult to eradicate. Alongwith Jonathan Mayer of Stanford Law School, he showed how Google was bypassing tracking preferences in Apple's web browser, Safari.

This resulted in Google having to pay a $22.5 million fine. Mr Kaminsky spotted a huge flaw in the internet's addressing system in 2008, and then worked very closely with large technology firm to fix it. And Mr Tamm is now a privacy advocate at the Mozilla Foundation, which oversees the development of the Firefox web browser.

These researchers insist they are acting solely in the interest of protecting individual privacy.

They are certainly not in it for money. Dr Soghoian has spent three years living the life of an aesthete in Washington, DC, where he rides a bicycle and resides in the basement of a house he shares with four other people.

''There are so many events with free food and drink that you never need to buy anything to eat,'' he says.

The Honour Post continues

With respectful dedication to the Students, Professors and Teachers of Ireland. See Ya all on the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless

''' !!! Go Beyond !!! '''

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless