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MS Wants To Identify All Web Surfers
Moochman writes "New Scientist reports on a technology Microsoft is developing to identify users based on their browsing habits. Quote: 'The software could get its raw information from a number of sources, including a new type of 'cookie' program that records the pages visited. Alternatively, it could use your PC's own cache of web pages, or proxy servers could maintain records of sites visited. So far it can only guess gender and age with any accuracy,' but the aim is to be able to identify name, occupation and location as well. On a related note, The Inquirer reports on Microsoft's plans to widen the use of its identity-verification technology CardSpace, which is built into Windows Vista and available as an add-on to XP. It's being envisioned as an identity solution for the entire internet: says Kim Cameron, pioneer of the technology, 'We feel it has to solve all use cases.' (Aha, so the anonymous use cases, too, eh?) One might ask, with all of this user-ID information on hand, how long will it be until the Feds come knocking on Microsoft's door asking for help? They already have."
I have no doubt that Google (do no evil?) already does this. I have some friends who have been banned from the AdSense network because they clicked their own ads (big no-no), but not from their own network. Laptops from other networks in the same region (say, Chicago). Google's ads definitely send back SOMETHING to Google -- maybe screen resolution + browser version + operation system + who knows what. No one really knows what it shared (someone should trace the traffic), but Google knows more than they're sharing. Heck, their Google search tells you how many times you recently visited a searched site (I log in via gmail, though).
It isn't that hard, and it won't be that hard to deflect if you're privacy crazy. I'd say this is mostly un-news, because privacy geeks will work around it, and those who don't work around it will get some benefit from targetted ads, better compensated search opportunities, and who knows what else.
Yes but it appears that 95% of all male web users are located at www.bigtits.com which obviously of limited use.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
I wonder how well this would work for someone like myself who frequently uses stumbleupon.com (or del.icio.us) to surf the net, or indeed anyone who tends to explore the net outside their own backyard.
To me this profiling technology seems like going through someone's garbage to find out what kind of person they are. Works great, unless they live in an RV or on a boat....I'm not sure that analogy works perfectly, but I think I'm going to start putting my trash in my neighbor's bin from here on.
Note: Stumbleupon is a firefox toolbar which will take you to a random site when you click the Stumble button.
Read my Very Short "Stories"
I wonder if they're trying to get all this information about the users to be able to identify what advertising to show them on those websites. If so google should be interested in stopping MS from doing this too.
It's suprising it hasn't been mentioned in the article. Its taking more of a privacy and anti-government stance. It looks to me like Microsoft are trying to take the lead in the advertising dollar in shifty ways also. As mentioned in the zdnet article too microsoft are already doing some of this through passport. The difference is that is opt-in whereas this is invisible to the vista user. While currently a download for XP, how long before it becomes part of the auto-updates?
If I share a computer with my family, won't their data get watered down? And when my friend comes over and checks his favorite web sites, the data will just get worse. I know MS could still find me 99%, I'm the guy who goes to /. and nytimes web site a dozen times a day, no chance there's another person with habits like that, but their database will be compromised by every user variable you can imagine. You have no privacy on the internet but you do have anonymity because your computer doesn't care who you are, just what kind of access you have.
Right, and just why does Microsoft thinks it has a 'right' to glean our page-viewing habits (an act akin to rummaging our underwear and sock drawers) - perhaps because that those using their software gave it to them? They assume much, but no doubt, once again, the ignorant will fall for it. MS owes its fortune to the latter aspect of their user base, so I don't see how this move is anything new.
No, no sig. Really.
ThePromenader
We have found that 5% of Internet user are identifiable by there browsing habits, all the other 95% do is surf for porn making it hard to narrow down.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
This is probably them fulfilling their obligation for the code they allowed the NSA to incorporate into XP and Vista.
Microsoft can take their ideas and shove them up their asses. What do you think we want Microsoft making these decisions and bringing up these ideas. It is none of their freaking business nor anyone else's if I choose to use the internet.
These people are getting freaking spooky. We really need to shut them down and fast. Stop frigging buying Microsoft products. Protect your security and your privacy by using Linux.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
Don't worry, I'm sure this will be an opt-in feature. You won't need to enable it on your Windows machine (yes, there will be desktop component, why not), unless you want to upgrade to Vista SP1, or get IE8, or use Windows Update, Hotmail, or MSN messenger, or Word, or Outlook, or prevent WGA from deactivating your machine after a month.
Frankly, I'm surprised we haven't seen MS-TCP/IP yet (no, wait, marketing name "MS Live Connect"). A proprietary, "safe" networking protocol on top of the Internet as we know it that requires you to log-in and authenticate against their servers to use the Internet, uses their own DNS (by default, but you can change it if you're technically competent enough), and of course makes sure you're not doing anything that could interfere with MS DRM in any way.
Now it's your job, given the content and the topic of this post, to figure out if I'm being serious or sarcastic. Honestly, I am not sure which one it is.
That is ridiculous reasoning! Thumb drives hold Gigabytes of data today. Even more tomorrow. A thumb drive with heavy duty encryption to protect the contents is the best way to take your preferences, files, data, etc. with you.
Personal data devices are more secure, private, load faster (oh boy down load my desktop over the Internet...riiight), can be written to faster, don't go down like the Internet, etc., etc. If you want you can have a backup image on a server, but the image would be encrypted and access would be owned by you.
Kids these days and their centralized computing!
They're the same people who think REAL ID is a good thing, the people who think that the trade of some rights to privacy for a little convenience is a good one.
These people exist, just not on Slashdot.
And of course, there must be thousands of people in my ISP's /16 of the network, who, once a day, log onto Slashdot, hits Digg's homepage, checks stock quotes for MSFT, GOOG, AAPL, FOO, BAR, and BAZ (and only those six stocks, and always in that order), and then does some SSL with Quuxbank (and only Quuxbank), before going back to reading stories on Slashdot and Digg, predominantly in the "YRO" category.
What are these cookies of which you speak? Cookies only make tracking easier. NSA had to compromise the backbone routers to gain access to every user's clickstream. All Microsoft has to do is control the browser and embed the spyware in the OS... oh, wait.
with this story, that bill gates icon with the borg visor has never been more appropriate
"resistance is futile, you will be assimilated"
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If I wanted to identify myself, I'd do myself, thank you very much!
- Anonymous Coward, and proud of it.
it would take about 20 minutes to write a bot that would browse at random for you and render this useless. Sounds like a great way to look anonymous. Or really, really weird, depending on where your bot runs off to.....
This signature is a waste of 42 characters
Under corporate feudalism, the corporation has rights by default. Can they do it? Check. Will it make money for them and the shareholders? Check. There are no other questions.
"Only the small secrets need to be protected. The big ones are kept secret by public incredulity." - Marshall McLuhan
Here's an example: The 1930 US Census asked citizens to provide information about their ethnicity, information which of course could be used to better target governement services, but outside the original constitutional scope of the Census to determine how many voters were in each Congressional district for purposes of reapportionment. This seemingly innocuous information, however, was not so harmless once WWII kicked in, as it was used to identify American-born citizens of Japanese (and to a lesser extent, German) descent for internment camps. No matter how harmless the information, a Government agency acting in bad faith and ignoring the Constitution can use it for harmful purposes. Since our Government consists of the same sort of people it's watching, if all people are good, they don't need this personal information; if some segment of people are rotten, the government shouldn't have it, because they too will have a percentage of rotten people who will misuse it. The privacy implicit in the original Constitution is there for a reason, because even the most innocent information can be either misinterpreted or misused.
This is why you use Firefox, to disable ActiveX. You also use a better firewall than that provided with XP; one that warns you when a program wants to "call home" and allows you to decide if you're going to let it.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
It's interesting that parent was modded troll, when what he posted was for the most part accurate.
If it is illegal for (spam) companies to glean such information, why would it be legal for Microsoft to gather such info for their own marketing purposes - or those of their affiliates (which broadly covers everyone using Windows Live Search)?
Spam, above is in parenthesis because I am indicating companies, who through similar actions have been considered spam companies.
Though the Linux point may make parent seem like a troll, it too is accurate - and one of the few PC based alternatives... so perhaps to make parent not considered by the over-sensitive on /. a troll, the last paragraph should have read...
These people are getting freaking spooky. We really need to shut them down and fast. Stop frigging buying Microsoft products. Protect your security and your privacy by using Linux, eComStation, MacOSX, or any other OS not from Redmond .Though perhaps that too seems like a troll... but the fact is, if MS has it's way, the only other alternative is to not use the Internet - which isnt going to happen... the truth is not a troll post. The only part of his post that may be inaccurate is the part about the NSA - though the government did request such code be installed in Windows, I dont know if anyone actually ever proved such an occurrence happened, and though MS claimed they would not do such a thing (which we've learned means nothing in the real world), there oddly are enough back doors in Windows to make one wonder.
Mod parent up... just my opinion. You dont have to like what someone posts to realize the validity of it.
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
Dang, I like small tits so I'm going to be a cinch to identify :-(
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So you're saying they can see you when you're sleeping? And they know when you're awake??
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
I tend to think this is all overhype, because even if true it isn't something new for tons of companies.
I also find it amazing that the same people that are being so hard on the allegations of what MS is doing are the same ones that for the past year have defended companies like Google for DOING THE EXACT SAME THING, except the Google twist is they have been using FireFox and GMail in addition to searches for tracking people and marketing data. (FireFox users, if you don't already know this, you are stupid.)
Again, tell me why this is a big deal when they accuse MS of doing it, but something to shrug off when Google is doing it, has admitted to doing it, has ties with Firefox to specifically gather data on ALL platforms, and even goes through people's GMail and anyone that sends something to someone using GMail?
This is not to even mention the 1000s of advertising companies that ALREADY do this for every freaking AD on the internet, even here on SlashDot, you are being monitored based on the ADs you click on.
For the GP post, the NSA and Windows Myths are crazy, part of the reason Uncle Sam was pissed at Vista is MS wouldn't make a backdoor for BitLocker, so if you think MS is cooperating with the NSA beyond the standard obligations that OSX and even Linux has complied, you are high.
Besides if the NSA wants information, having a hook inside an OS would be the LEAST effective way of getting it. They could gleam 10 of 1000s of times the data from just monitoring network traffic, which they already do and have done since the 1980s.
And thanks to ignore the Law Bush and Gonzo, the NSA has been doing this with all domestic traffic and voice communications now too without any warrants. If people want to bitch about Big Brother, they should look to Washinton DC, not Washington State.