more cookie-related security problems

[jrtom]

In a previous post, I linked to an article on automated "price customization" using cookie information. Turns out that even if you're deleting your cookies regularly, you may not be . . . .

via /.: Marketers seek to make cookies more palatable

The most disturbing part doesn't technically involve cookies at all:

One Internet marketing-services company that uses cookies, New York-based United Virtualities, says it has chosen to fight fire with fire rather than try to engage antispyware makers in talks. When antispyware companies use a "technology trick" to zap cookies, "the response has to be technological," says the company's founder, Mookie Tenembaum.

The company has begun marketing a technology known as a persistent identification element, or PIE. The tool uses features in Macromedia Inc.'s popular Flash software, which is used for designing and viewing animated online ads, to secretly make backup copies of a user's cookies before they are deleted. A handful of Web publishers and advertising companies are using the technology to track users, according to Mr. Tenembaum, though he declines to name them.

("Mookie"?)

The article also mentions that Macromedia provides instructions for turning off PIE. Those are here (I had to go hunting for them). Haven't tried applying these instructions yet.

Comments

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

Mookie Tanembaum, was a shady character in a science fiction novel. This makes me suspicious.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

Interesting. However, I believe that I have verified that the technology is there in Macromedia to do what they discussed (and the corporation mentioned exists) so while the name does seem a bit odd, I'm inclined to buy the story in general.