April 25, 2001 – 12:00 am
[ via MsGeek ] Bad Spamford, very bad Spamford. Using some evil registry kung-fu, he forces your browser to his site full of ads and popup windows. We hope he lives a long, long time, because he’s going to want to delay the payback on the karmic debt he’s incurred.
April 16, 2001 – 12:00 am
[ via TBTF ] A spam-fighter from Milwaukee learned to deal with singleminded, extremist nut-cases while doing women’s clinic defense in the early 1990’s. The spammers seem to be on the same page as the anti-abortion nuts, because they send him death threats, publish the names and addresses of his children — both of which [...]
September 26, 2000 – 12:00 am
Did you know, that if someone sends you something unsolicited, and of value in the mail, and they expect you to either pay or be bound by contract if you use it, that it’s a violation of US law? So, if you didn’t ask for that QueCat you got in the mail, you should be [...]
September 26, 2000 – 12:00 am
[ via Privacy Digest ] Fred Woodworth has a great story of how, tired of ideological thrashing at his co-op, he walks into Safeway, only to be hounded by glassy-eyed shop clerks.
September 12, 2000 – 12:00 am
Want to help watch the watchers? The Realtime Backhoe List as a distributed client for you to run. The python script is used to determine how long a DoubleClick UID lives.
September 12, 2000 – 12:00 am
Advogato’s had a discussion on the merits of generating fake data to feed back into user tracking cookies.
August 1, 2000 – 12:00 am
Suppose you build a system that allows a site to outsource their detailed log analysis? Coremetrics did, but they did it in such a way that a person with access to their data can correlate detailed personal information and purchasing behavior across multiple sites. Furthermore, Coremetrics’ customers are at the very least misrepresenting the use [...]
More like this: privacy, web
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[ via Ward Willats ] A ‘free’ ISP has signed with Predictive Networks to use their user tracking software. The founder of Predictive keeps on about how people want “Personalized” content. Hint: targeted advertising isn’t content. It’s crap.
April 21, 2000 – 12:00 am
[ via WardCo ] Do you know of a classmate who is in danger of engaging in counter-revolutionary behavior? The Pinkerton Corporation has been contracted by The State to let you turn the little f*ckers in before they go Klebold on you and upset someone’s Mommy. Jon Katz went to Pinkerton HQ to try and [...]
April 20, 2000 – 12:00 am
You knew this would happen eventually. A firm calling itself Predictive Networks wants to pay your ISP for your clickstream data, circumventing cookie management, and many other strategies for protecting your identity online. The nightmare scenario is that your ISP will make consent to this sort of snooping part of the terms of service, or [...]
More like this: privacy, web
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April 18, 2000 – 12:00 am
Let’s continue the theme of post-correction gloom & doom. Here we have a list of all the fun ways marketers can keep track of you when you follow links from email. And how about that Active X control that rewrites your .signature file?
More like this: privacy, web
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Andy Oram comments on the Platform for Privacy Preferences, or P3P. It doesn’t embody the basic presumtion of Internet security: don’t trust whomever is sending the packets. And it doesn’t address the basic problem: a small number of organizations have tremendous power over large collections of data.
Prof. Phil Agre has compiled (due to popular demand) all the URLs he has cited in several year’s worth of Red Rock Eater. This should be a valuable resource.
February 13, 2000 – 12:00 am
[ via Robotwisdom ] One has blue eyes, the other has brown. Other than that, it’s hard to tell the current pop princesses (’I dream of’ Christine Agulara ‘in a bottle at the bottom of the ocean’ and Britney ‘I don’t have implants’ Spears) apart. USA Today has a guide for the perplexed.
Privacy Warning: USA [...]
February 2, 2000 – 12:00 am
While the major record labels (and then there were four) have a wealth of data they could use to spy on us, they may not have the technical sophistication to exploit said data. Thank G_D for small favors. And having worked for Hollywood-types, I would agree they lack that sophsitication. However they have buckets of [...]
