On Nov 28, 2005, at 23:32, AB wrote:
AB to Brian's reply:
No just the whole lack of privacy. For example, I have gone to non-
Mac websites and ads appear for Mac related products because of my
previously tracked surfing and/or my OS and browser info. being made
available.
that has very little to do with your IP address.
Umm... yes, but it has to do with the OTHER info. that sites and
individuals get from your browser.
Every browser sends its identity - what type of browser it is, what
platform and OS it is running on, and what version it is. Most
browsers have a way to fake this information, but that is really only
useful for testing, or for bypassing a Windows IE browser check that is
preventing you from doing something.
It's the whole "Big Brother" thing where my purchases, political
leanings, interests, etc. don,t need to be broadcast and tracked by
strangers. If something can be done to help prevent it then I'm all
for taking whatever measures I need to take.
Maybe quit using Safari, Safari sucks info out of my user setup and I
can't find a way to make it quit. If I am using Safari and go to
certain weather sites, for example, I get matchmaker.com ads for my
city.
I don't use Safari. I use Firefox. And just like in your example my
location info. is provided as well as my ISP name and IP address so I
too get similar geographically matched ads.
That's because your ISP is a good citizen and uses DNS to reverse-map
your IP address to a name within its domain name. (e.g.
24-92-152-15.nc.rr.com or some such). The IP address is required for
Internet communications as I explained in my earlier reply, and there
is no way of not sending out this information when you browse. You can
use an anonymizer to avoid sending it to the sites to which you browse,
but the anonymizer still knows your IP address (it has to).
Set up Firefox, no cache, no history, no cookies, etc and you'll see
less of those ads. If you want, set FireFox to ID itself as a Windows
IE browser and you'll get Windows ads instead of Mac ones. Big deal.
And, if you are using excite.com...
Financial, eBay and many other sites would be a real pain if I flushed
all cookies each time. I do go thru and toss many others out manually
from time to time.
You can't have both sides: you either desire total privacy or you use
cookies. The two are mutually exclusive. If you want total privacy
(which is a mirage anyway), you have to watch your use of cookies.
There is no way to have total privacy and still use cookies.
I use excite or other web-based email only on public mail lists and
the like where email addresses are easily harvested. I keep my email
client (I prefer Eudora) and addresses for work and family/friends
correspondence, thank you. My SPAM levels sneaking through the filters
dropped considerably after I quit using my regular email on public
mail lists.
I could change my email address fairly easy (not so easy for all my
recipients), and if my IP address becomes compromised I would like to
be able to do the same. Even as part of regular system maintenance,
housecleaning and problem prevention. The firewalls work but, just one
Bit torrent session can expose your system and IP to thousands of
potential "evil doers" (if I may quote George Bush).
What do you mean "IP address becomes compromised"?!
This security discussion could be an interesting exercise if you would
tell us what it is exactly that concerns you - what it is you are
trying to accomplish, then we could discuss ways to accomplish those
things, if they are possible. Internet privacy and security are two
things that interest me, and I think a more formal discussion about
them might interest us all.
Daniel
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