IE "Persistence" Tracks Without Warning

A reader writes "Never mind if you've shut off cookies. If you are using IE 5+, the browser can still be used to track you, with no warning. An IE 5+ feature, "persistence", allows the browser to remember information, such as search queries. Which of course means that you can be uniquely identified and tracked. And since it is a feature, there is no warning either that this information is being stored or when it is given. Shutting off scripting in theory stops it. More on the story at www.news.c om ."

Comments

"Page Hit Counting" in IE 5.1

[quonsar]

I use IE 5.1 and there is an option in the advanced tab called "Enable Page Hit Counting". Here is what the Help says about it (emphasis is mine):

Specifies whether you want Internet Explorer to allow Web sites to track your Web page usage. Selecting this check box allows sites to create a log on your computer of which pages you view, even when you are viewing Web pages offline. That log is sent to the site the next time you go to it. By tracking the usage and popularity of specific Web pages, content providers can tailor future content to match your interests.

Looks like this has been around a while as M$ fishes for the most innocuous name possible.

"I will gladly pay you today, sir, and eat up

Announcement: IE Calls Spouse, Parent W/O Warning

[Saint Aardvark]

Redmond, WA (AP) -- Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) today admitted that Internet Explorer, from version 4.2, has had the capability to phone the user's spouse or parents without warning and inform them of the user's browsing habits, including listing specific sites and the names of image and movie files downloaded.

The capability, described as a "feature" by Microsoft, came to light on the BugTraq mailing list three days ago after an angry user revealed that his copy of IE 5.1 had phoned his wife to tell her about his subscription to hotmonkeylovin.com.

"This is a perfectly standard feature of any web browser," said a Microsoft spokesman. "As with all aspects of life on the internet, there is a tradeoff here between a very valuable capability and a vanishingly small, almost theoretical loss of privacy."

Free Software Foundation guru Richard M. Stallman was unavailable for comment. A source close to the programmer said that Stallman was "busy reformatting his Windows partition."

Better Documentation A Start?

[great throwdini]

From the article

Hint, the link is there to remind you to read it

Microsoft defended the feature and pointed out that the vast majority of Web surfers already are knowingly vulnerable to the same level of exposure. "This feature has a trade-off, like almost every other feature on the Web--in this case, between functionality and a minor, potential privacy exposure" [...]

Not to rant, but I cannot understand how such specious reasoning would find its way out of the mouth of a Microsoft representative. How could they possibly argue that since users are already at much greater risk from other features/exploits, one more "minor" inconvenience shouldn't matter?

Clearly documented explanations of the security features that one can toggle in the Internet Options -> Security tab would be one thing, but the lack of context-specific, right-click help (try it and see) or even the word persistence in the indexed help file (search and see) is somewhat silly.

Why would I have to journey to the developer's corner (link lifted from article) to learn what features are present in my browser? Maybe it's time that end-users insist on better [more immediate] documentation from Microsoft, especially with regards to things categorized under the heading of security

ps - SlashDot still has its woes when dropping in long URLs. God bless the preview button

It is easily fixed

[Idaho]

And you don't have to turn off javascript. It's just in the IE Preferences dialog, but it's enabled by default.

To turn it off, do the following in IE:

Click Tools->Internet Options.
Choose the 'Security' tab.
Click the 'Custom level' button
Search for 'Userdata persitence' (it's near the bottom, in the 'Miscellaneous' section)
Select the 'disable' option.

That's it!