NSA cookies / tempest in a teapot

[Caro]

I haven’t published anything about cookiegate, because I wasn’t convinced that cookies, by themselves, can do any tracking. Turns out I was right. If we're going to beat up on the Bush administration, let's do it for the things that really are threats to our liberties.

From Design Nine:

NSA cookies

There is a tempest in a teapot over the National Security Agency's use of cookies on its Web site.

Let me say first that cookies can be and often are mis-used, and I routinely delete a lot of cookies left on my computer. And the NSA did use persistent cookies, which is against the Federal government's rules.

But having said that, the AP article being published almost everywhere is misleading, and perhaps intentionally so. Here is one example:

"....privacy advocates complain that cookies can also track Web surfing..."

The statement makes it sound like the NSA cookies could be used to see where you have been anywhere on the Web. There is no way to do that with cookies. They can be used to track where you have been on the NSA Web site, but that's all. It is a huge difference…

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com