NSA Web Site Puts 'Cookies' on Visitors Computers.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

To anyone that has visited their site or other govt. sites, - you'd better check for cookies and spyware. (I'd also check all your cookies/spyware for that matter....) Sad that we have to be so paranoid.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051228/ap_on_hi_te/spy_agency_privacy

NEW YORK - The National Security Agency's Internet site has been placing files on visitors' computers that can track their Web surfing activity despite strict federal rules banning most of them.

These files, known as "cookies," disappeared after a privacy activist complained and The Associated Press made inquiries this week, and agency officials acknowledged Wednesday they had made a mistake. Nonetheless, the issue raises questions about privacy at a spy agency already on the defensive amid reports of a secretive eavesdropping program in the United States.


-snip-

[leveymg]

1. Don't they have terrorists to track, or commie codes to crack?

Or, something?

I expect cookies from the Disney sites my daughter goes to, but what the hell does NSA want to know about my family's surfing habits?

Actually, I remember CIA got called on this a year or two ago and they responded with so much aplomb that their cookies were to "provide better service to their customers", or some such BS. :eyes:

[kerry-is-my-prez]

3. Guess they're more scared of us than the REAL terrorists- makes one wonder

Maybe there is something to a lot of these "conspiracy theories" that say that the government does some things - then blames it on terrorists.

They are more afraid of us doing research on them and spend more time on that than they do on checking on "terrorists."

[sui generis]

2. nice -- think of all that gay porn

they'll have to go through on my home computer to find my subversive plan to build a portable nuclear device powered by pre-owned chewing gum, chihuahua farts, a scrunchie and the chemical funk of two old gym socks that fell behind the washer.

Guantanamo here I come!!!!

Oh shit wait. They're going to extraordinarily render me to Germany. Yes, und this is Brigitta, und she vill shmack you vis her boops und make you eat sauerkraut und ze cherman zauzages until you giff us dis information. Vat kind of chewing gum!!!! Shpit it out!


Oh ja!

:rofl:

[kerry-is-my-prez]

4. hope they render me to the Netherlands, France or Italy.....

I'd be most grateful to them.

[sui generis]

6. it does make you wonder

I'm a half kraut dual citizen military brat, but Germany certainly does NOT have a torture policy. Where on earth would they ER us to? They'd have to go dig back five or six generations to Croatia or something . . .

Sorry for my shameless hokey cherman - my mom would probably extraordinarily rendition me if she knew I wrote that. ;)

[Liberal In Texas]

5. Well, almost every site puts cookies on your computer. Like DU for

example. Right now on mine there are 4 democraticunderground cookies. Also, everytime you DU a poll you get a cookie from the site so they know that you already voted if you try to vote again, plus other various cookies just for visiting the site.

Delete them if you like, but I don't think it's anything to worry about.

[progressivebydesign]

7. Read the article. They were not allowed to put cookies on..

An executive order bans the use of permanent cookies to track your computer from govt agencies. That is the issue. The type they used were disallowed, and disappeared after being caught doing it. If you check out the thread on GD right now, entitled: "DoD SCanned My Computer", you'll see that something is going on. Not one of us that had our computer scanned by the DoD have visted their websites... seriously. Yes.. people SHOULD be concerned about this.

[Liberal In Texas]

8. OK, I see your point, if they're not supposed to be doing it, they

shouldn't. And these were persistent cookies, not temps. Not nice.

Yeah, I was following that other discussion, and honestly I don't know what to make of it. It seems pretty stupid that the DoD would leave an obvious trail. And if they wanted to spy on you they must have methods that wouldn't point right at them or even let you suspect it was going on.

Interesting subject though.

[Boomer]

14. Speaking as a web developer

I know just how easy it is to miss details like this when installing new versions of software. One of the problems with computer code is that there is just so much of it. Testing, even very rigorous testing, is focused on finding out whether anything broke, not on the details of "how" it runs when it runs well. You have to dig around to inspect cookie code, which no programmer is likely to do unless there is some specific problem which is related to the cookie.

>> Until Tuesday, the NSA site created two cookie files that do not expire until 2035 — likely beyond the life of any computer in use today.

Don Weber, an NSA spokesman, said in a statement Wednesday that the cookie use resulted from a recent software upgrade. Normally, the site uses temporary, permissible cookies that are automatically deleted when users close their Web browsers, he said, but the software in use shipped with persistent cookies already on.<<

[kerry-is-my-prez]

11. We signed up for DU & Advertisers put them on for an understandable reason

Why on earth would a government agency be tracking what you do on your computer - which is what they are doing.

[Boomer]

13. People have the strangest notions...

...about what cookies can do. Which is not much, at least by themselves.

Spyware may track your wanderings through the internet (and use cookies to do so), but the cookies themselves are not spyware. They are simply a way to store information that may be useful on return visits to a specific website.

Here's a pretty good resource for explaining cookies:

http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/wwwsf2.html#CLT-Q10

"Cookies cannot be used to "steal" information about you or your computer system. They can only be used to store information that you have provided at some point. To give a benign example, if you fill out a form giving your favorite color, a server can turn this information into a cookie and send it to your browser. The next time you contact the site, your browser will return the cookie, allowing the server to alter background color of its pages to suit your preferences."

[chat_noir]

9. found the NSA cookie...

...and deleted it

[kerry-is-my-prez]

10. I almost feel like keeping mine for evidence. Class Action suit....

n/t

[kerry-is-my-prez]

12. Mine says "NCS" National Communications System- national security

Assist the President, the National Security Council.... in (1) the exercise of the telecommunications functions and (2) the coordination of the planning for and provision of national security and emergency preparedness communications for the Federal government under all circumstances, including crisis or emergency, attack & recovery and reconstitution.