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Cookiegate Explained
Pete writes " EPIC reports that privacy advocates call for investigation of "Cookiegate". Privacy advocates wrote to congressional leaders urging an investigation of the privacy practices of the White House Office on National Drug Control Policy Web site. The site has been using DoubleClick advertisements which placed cookies on users' computers, possibly violating federal laws on government collection of data from citizens. See the press release."
... in respect of which the world's press remains eerily silent. Go here (it's one of the documents linked from the UK legislature's pending bills page, and is entirely official) and marvel at what the media will ignore.
And yes, it does exactly what it looks like: makes it legal, but not a hundred per cent legal.
(It is, however, like all Private Members' Bills - ones not supported by a government department - almost certainly doomed.)
-- AndrewD
A Maze of Twisty Little Laws, All Different.
...and doubleclick will simply disappear for you and all of your fellow users.
The entire program of systematic persecution of a large section of society who choose to enjoy themselves in a way that harms nobody is a true testament to the methods by which even Constiutional "protection" can be subverted in the name of the "greater good".
Read: "who choose to enjoy themselves in a way that harms nobody"
Recollect: some illegal drugs are: heroin and pcp.
Interpret:
therefore, we can interpret the above as:
heroin addiction is enjoyed in a way that harms nobody.
pcp is enjoyed in a way that harms nobody.
Recall: Jimi Hendrix choking on his own vomit. The end of Sublime. Trainspotting. My brother.
React: It's about the death toll. It's about people DYING. It's about watching people you love die, slowly. It's about pain, and suffering, and loss.
Ponder...
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
Who cares?
I'd love to see ads on ALL government websites -- let's see the government cut costs by taking a page out of the book of private industry.
Personally, I think that an ad for condoms (or Cigars?) would go real nicely on the presidential websites at www.whitehouse.gov.
But all joking aside, why not require government websites to have a banner ad on their websites? The extra income could allow for either increased services or lower national debt, whichever the ever-changing mood of Congress desires.
...is available at here. This has a crapload of doubclick type sites that are all redirected to a blank domain. I did not put the work into this, someone else did, but I don't remember who.
Yes, this will filter out 90% of all banner ads.
- Rev.JHK
http://www.cascap.org because you care.
Very glad to know we agree on the basics.
As far as what "realistic" policy goals I favor, I really couldn't say. Things like the Meth bill and the profiling pullovers really make me think there's no hope whatsoever for this country. For a while, I've been shopping around for countries to move to once I'm rich and the US turns totally fascist. I'm only slightly kidding.
I suppose some things are simple. Cut taxes. Liberalize issuance of concealed carry permits. Legalize marijuana. Privatize social security. School vouchers. But aside from vouchers, which I'm rather iffy on, I doubt many of these things will actually happen, especially what with Al Gore wandering around taking credit for economic well-being that is really attributable to Reagan. Oh well. In the meantime I suppose I'll hoard guns and gold.
MoNsTeR
The information may not ever actually exist on Federal Servers.
Of course I don't like anybody, government, organization, or indivuals collecting the info either.
Of course I am well aware that the information is out there already, that doesn't make it right.
On any gov website?
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
i wonder if agent mulder would have suspected that the government is using double click banners for "alternative" uses???
Now could you tie this in with area 51 and aliens? most likely not, but dammit! mulder would find a way.
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
Let me get this straight. You say,
Now... replace advertising companies with any other concept.
The average Slashdotter would scream bloody murder if somebody else made blacklists, unilateral decisions, and "protect the users" arguments. This is what they rally against, when Mattel/CyberPatrol does things like this. This is what gets people up-in-arms when governments like China do things like this.
Get a clue. If you have the power to make decisions for other people, repeat the mantra: Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Teach the government how to lead you, by setting a good example.
[
Check out this link on the ACLU website. The riders that are attached to this legislation are going to increase the police powers of the goverment, effectively giving them the ability to shut down websites that they consider 'dangerous', and do computer search and seizures without notification. Its scary. And it already passed the Senate unanimously. I wrote my represenatative in Congress, and he fed me back some pap about how the Act was good, I was just misunderstanding it. I think the language is pretty clear on this one.
Check out Magic Firesheep!
The press release raises the specter of people being busted because they went to the ONDCP web site for information on how to "grow pot".
Who in their right mind would go to the ONDCP or other federal web site for tips on growing pot?
I actually went there (http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/) and tried it, but didn't find any information. In fact, there is simply nothing on this site that reading would mark you as a "black hat". This isn't some government conspiracy -- at best it is a half baked attempt to characterize an anti-drug market segment. Any conspirator with half a brain would plant pages at independent ISPS under assumed names.
The doubleclick ads are gone, so perhaps they were removed. If the doubleclick cookies were there, it was wrong of ONDCP to put them there; however, banging the police state drum is way overstating the case.
These guys have a bee in their bonnet over the P3P thing. Fair enough, but FUD is a reprehensible tactic for opposing it.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/N668.SlashDot/B2020 1;sz=468x60;ord=961771260961771260?
This is the one featuring the boxer. There's at least one other, featuring characters from User Friendly advertising the latest version of SuSE. Isn't this interesting?
www.alarmist.org
At this rate freedom on the net in America will become a myth by the end of the decade.
That's mighty pessimistic, since the decade ends in less than 6 months.
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...does admiteddly benefit many Americans - specifically those living off the ultra-corrupt industry that is law enforcement.
And don't forget about those who make their living smuggling or selling drugs, whose business depends on having enough heat to make the drugs valuable but not enough to keep them from selling them.
"The only difference between a Republican and a Democrat is that I'd fuck a Democrat." - Sarah Michelle Gellar
:)
Damn. I uhhh..voted for Bill Clinton twice, and I even voted for Dukakis! Yeah, yeah, that's the ticket.
My journal has hot
As I understand it, the Office participated in an ad network to market its site. If you searched Altavista for "grow pot" , a Doubleclick banner would be served for the Drug Control office Web site and, of course, you'd be cookied (unless you filter). The paranoia is that the cookie potentially represents a personally identifiable piece of information that is understandable disconcerting if you believe the government is using the cookie to surreptitiously track you personally and determine what other sites you are visiting.
But "cookie" does not automatically equal "privacy invasion". I consider it to be a disservice to the education of the Web public for Jason Catlett (Junkbusters.Com), Mark Rotenberg (EPIC, and even Richard Smith (his expose' here) to contribute to this hysteria. I think it makes for good sensationalism to further the advocacy for electronic privacy. The Whitehouse's withering before the criticism is disappointing but understandable considering that any defense would have only powered the conspiracy theory. But in terms of the threat to privacy this represents, I think it only extends the broad and irrational fear of an incredibly useful and pervasive Web technology.
If you think I'm wrong, email me or post here so I can exercise the debate. I consider myself a pragmatic privacy advocate and am willing to listen to logic.
Get Veiled
The information may not ever actually exist on Federal Servers.
You misunderstand what the government is accused of doing.
What the government agency did was buy "targeted" adds on several of the big search-engine sites. Then, when anyone made a keyword search that included drug-related keywords (example: "grow pot") they were likely to get an "anti drug" banner add from the government along with their results.
The banner add was served from a government computer, with a name that sounded kinda druggy and not AT ALL government. The government computer got the user's IP address, the contents of the query (encoded into the URL for the convenience of the advertiser's add-targeting software), and all the other information about the user that the browser hands out. And it placed a cookie on the user's computer, to label him from then on. They admit to tracking the users' email addresses "to gauge the effectiveness of the (alleged anti-drug propaganda) campaign".
Browsers hand out a LOT of information, and some of it can be used by other tools (such as finger,
reverse domain number lookup, and domain registration data bases) to identify the user and/or his employer (if he's browsing from work).
The potential for abuse is astronomical. For instance: If they trace some drug-related queries back to a company domain, they might contact the employer, insinuate that the employee is a druggie, and tell the employer to look in the user's cookie file for proof.
I could easily compose a dozen other nightmare scenarios.
(I tried to submit this info a couple days ago, with a reference, when it first came to light, but slashdot rejected the article.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Time out. Did anyone notice that EPIC's press release does not include the URL of the offending site? I went back a few levels and found their link to Freevibe.com. But a strange thing happened -- I went to Freevibe, and it did not try to place any cookies on me, and did not have any links to Doubleclick. Just to be sure, I sent an automated spider to index their site, and doing GREPs for doubleclick or cookie turned up Zero hits.
Some further background info: Freevibe is registered with NetworkSolutions. It is not owned by the federal government, but instead by:SHS is apparently one of the numerous "Beltway Bandits" -- subcontractors in the DC area who do federal outsourcing. Freevibe is part of the Anti-Drug Media Campaign -- "hey kids, this KEWL web site says don't do drugs!" It's certainly ineffective, uses sloppy DHTML, and is a waste of money, but I don't see it violating any privacy laws.
Does this shock you? It's just the tip of the iceberg. A brief summary of the price of America's (originally Nixon's) War On Drugs(tm):
;).
1. No-Knock Warrants. Any idiot can see that the police breaking down your door and charging in with guns drawn, with a warrant issued on the basis of an ANONYMOUS TIP, is a violation of our 4th Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and siezures. The whole point of "probable cause" is to protect against stuff like anonymous tips.
Here in Denver, a Mr. Ismael Mena was gunned down by police executing a no-knock raid (issued on an anonymous tip) ON THE WRONG HOUSE. Unacceptable.
2. Asset Forfeiture. Do you know that if the police SUSPECT you've violated drug laws, or worse yet if they actually arrest you, THEY CAN SIEZE YOUR HOUSE, YOUR CAR, YOUR BANK ACCOUNTS, EVERYTHING YOU OWN. And what if you're found not guilty? Or released without even a trial? Do you get it back? Nope. You essentially have to prove your innocence to get it back. Even beginning the process can take more than 6 months, during which time you have to pay for your lawyer(s).
You might want to read that again. These aren't paranoid ramblings, this happens, every day. They can confiscate everything you own, and keep it forever. Intolerable.
3. Roadsite searches. Two kinds, legal and, er, "extra-legal". If a cop pulls you over for speeding or running a red light, he can frisk you and search your car for drugs with no probable cause. It's unconstitutional already! But there's more. You might think "searching" you car amounts to looking under the seats, in the trunk and other storage compartments, maybe even under the hood. But it doesn't stop there, the cop can practically destroy your car in the search process. He can slash open your upholstery, your roof liner, cut open your tires, do ANYTHING to get to any part of your car that could conceivably be used to hide drugs, and more that couldn't. Again, this is not some urban legend, it happens every day.
Then there's the "extra-legal" roadside search. This actually happened to a friend of mine, and is not only happening but happening right here in my own city of Denver. You're driving along, not breaking any laws, and you see flashing lights and hear sirens. You pull over. You're asked to step out of the car, you're frisked, your car is searched (thankfully not in the above way), and you're sent on your way. They're looking for drugs, and they pulled you over because you fit the profile. Apparently, while I wasn't watching, simply being a teenaged male driving at night is probable cause for drug posession. But the best part is that these searches are not explicitly authorized by law, city, state, or federal. The cops are simply doing this as a "trial run" to see if it's effective, so they can get a law passed if they like it. So now they can do ANYTHING they want, as long as they plan on legalizing it later.
4. The Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act. This is HB2987 in the House, but I've forgotten the senate version's number. It has two major provisions. One, it becomes illegal to disseminate information about the use and manufacture of meth (as if it'll only apply to meth, it'll apply to all drugs). That's right, it's illegal to SAY things. So much for freedom of speech. I cannot possibly see how this red-flags the "clear and present danger" test. Two, police are empowered to search your home while you are not home (again, anonymous tips are OK), copy your documents, copy files off your computer, seize "evidence", and NOT TELL YOU ABOUT IT FOR UP TO 6 MONTHS. So, they don't have probable cause, their warrant is not specific, they don't even have to inform you, and you receive no compensation for seizures. This breaks just about every clause in the 4th Amendment.
But you know what? It passed the Senate UNANIMOUSLY. That's right, not a single senator voted against this piece of trash. The only thing I can imagine is that they just read the title, figured it'd look good to their constituents, like they were "tough on drugs" or something, and voted yes without reading the damned thing. At any rate, it's sitting in the House Judiciary Committee right now, and though it's house sponsor is considering a re-write due to the volume of correspondence opposing it, I very much doubt that it will be stopped unless it receives major mainstream media coverage, or everyone who actually cares about their rights calls their reps and senators and expresses in no uncertain terms how much they love their rights and how quickly they will vote for other people come re-election time.
These are just hilights. The story of the drug war is a story of impossibility, yet of brutality, ruthlessness, and unmitigated sacrifice of our constitutional rights. It mirrors alcohol prohibition in almost every way:
1. drug use has increased, not decreased, just as alcohol use did
2. it has brought about immeasurable amounts of organized crime
3. enforcement is extremely costly and horribly ineffective
The only difference is that drug dealers are rarely considered heroes like bootleggers were (except maybe pot hook-ups
It's time to end the war on drugs. Not just because it's doomed to fail, but because we have no business waging it in the first place. Use of drugs is not a violent act. You have a right to put whatever you want into your own body, don't you? Under current law, you don't. Drug use can, in and of itself, harm no one but the user, who engages in the act of his own volition. Prohibition of a peaceful act can never be justified.
http://www.lp.org
http://www.self-gov.org/quiz.html
MoNsTeR
possibly violating federal laws on government collection of data from citizens
So, who was it who was collecting the data again? DoubleClick, or the US government? Did DoubleClick pass the details back to the government, or just used it to target further adverts? Did the website in question illegally attempt to access the DoubleClick cookies?
What's that? The government wasn't collecting the data? Thought so. Next hysterical reaction please.
Syllable : It's an Operating System
As a future parent, I have long since decided that I will teach my kids that while Mr. Mackey is right, drugs ARE bad, m'kay, what's FAR more dangerous to the individual and society than a few lines of blow every now and again is the concept of a taxpayer-funded propoganda organization tasked with spreading misinformation, statistics that are damn lies, and just plain wrong, divisive thoughts in the minds of the populace with the sole purpose of numbing them to the war on civil liberties that is the "War On Drugs", which does admiteddly benefit many Americans - specifically those living off the ultra-corrupt industry that is law enforcement.
Using Doubleclick ads does not surprise me one little itty bit.
Between this and the reivew of all televised broadcasts to reward producers for including anti-drug messages, it seems that the independence of our media and the privacy of our citizens are the primaty casualties in our national "war on drugs." Of course 1% of the population is imprisoned for drug-based offenses, so many people's liberty has also fallen victim to our national crusade.
Both presidential candidates have not denied that they have used drugs in the past. Yet, they both advocate harsher sentences for convicted drug offenders. Since possession of a large enough quantity of drugs is considered a felony in many jurisdictions, if they were arrested, they would be convicted felons and unable to vote, let alone hold public office.
Go figure.
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
Out of all of the various agencies and bodies that comprise the American system of "justice", those that deal with the "War on Drugs" are the most dangerous of the lot. The entire program of systematic persecution of a large section of society who choose to enjoy themselves in a way that harms nobody is a true testament to the methods by which even Constiutional "protection" can be subverted in the name of the "greater good".
The fact that the Office of National Drug Control Policy is spying upon the web browsing habits of people viewing its site should really come as no suprise. After all, the whole war on drugs has provided a succession of American governments with a ready-made excuse to violate freedom left, right and centre and thanks to the educational brainwashing that occurs in American schools and homes Americans are only too willing to give up freedom for safety from the drugs "menace".
And despite the war on drugs having failed miserably, this in itself is a bonus for those in power. Citing this failure as being the fault of the "drug barons", they can get more measures into law, so that things like this will become legal, even mandatory. After all, the internet is already known as a haven for pedarats, terrorists and nazis, add drug dealers to that and the American government has all the "moral" justification in the world to impose a Stalinistic regime on the net.
At this rate freedom on the net in America will become a myth by the end of the decade.
---
Jon E. Erikson
Jon Erikson, IT guru
Double Click, aka "Cookie Monster", is infamous for getting into trouble with placing cookies in their banners. Intuit is being sued by users of its Quicken.com website right now because people clicked banners on their website placed by Double Click and this lead to personal data, "including tax preparation and bill paying tools" were sold to third parties. More info on that lawsuit here.
Cookies can, and often do, store very personal information and can be a breach of security in some cases, but they're not all evil. For the casual browser, cookies can be useful to say the least.
I know for sure though, I don't want to be caught on Double Click's bad side. (1 2 3)
It has been infused with pork bacon juices.
Let me get this straight: when Doubleclick tracks your browsing habits without your knowledge on commercial sites it's ok, but when the government is involved, it's illegal?
Um...why is the government running advertisements anyways? Isn't that a conflict of interest?--
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
Edit your hosts file! Put in ALL the ad companies (*.doubleclick.net, *.flycast.net, etc), then you wont have to downlaod the banners, wont get the cookies, etc. I did this a LONG time ago.