web abuse

I found this and it kind of frightens me.

On Wednesday, Boston-based Internet security and privacy consultant Richard Smith found buried in the SiteFinder page a so-called "Web bug," an invisible image file delivering a cookie that doesn't expire for five years.

This certainly means the culling of some information, said Smith. "They're getting a sense of what domain names are mistyped, and perhaps this can be used by a domain name sales company. In addition, Overture is a pay for click search engine, with questionable affiliates."

The question on everyone's mind is, what are Verisign and Overture doing with information gathered through SiteFinder? Will the companies be able to tell that the person looking for a medical marijuana site on Monday is the same person looking for a cancer support group the week before?

"We don't know if this site is harvesting personal information, but we believe it's at risk," said Lance Cottrell, president of Anonymizer.com in Pasadena, which Thursday updated its privacy software to circumvent SiteFinder.

the full article can be found at http://www.securityfocus.com/news/7009
It seems to me that this could easily lead to lots of abuse.

Hope I don't get thrashed for being an impudent newbie

You won't get thrashed for being impudent but you might want to use the search feature next time.

http://www.antionline.com/showthread...light=verisign

This topic is being heavily discussed on various security mailing lists. On the one hand, I suppose it prevents things like the typo-website-to-porn problem but on the other, the potential of privacy being opened doesn't help.

Not an easy win either way.

thanks I search before I post next time sorry..

Yeah i think i'm gonna think twice before i use a search engine again..........?

Hmmm so u mean that they would now everything that i search for......?

Well that's just scarin me now, they must be havin a good old laugh over at Verisign.
"Hey look guys look what this newbies searching for."
God help me i knew i shouldn't have searched for how to install a second hard drive...
DOH!~

anyhow cheers,

And hello MsMittens,