http://www.winextra.com/forums/tags/privacy Bring back the eXtra in Windows en-US Thu, 23 May 2013 08:36:14 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.2 q http://www.winextra.com/forums/search.php http://www.winextra.com/forums/topic/9873#post-49183 Fri, 10 Dec 2010 14:58:53 +0000 Nate 49183@http://www.winextra.com/forums/ <p>Honesty is NOT the best policy? &lt;img src=&quot;http://www.winextra.com/forums/my-plugins/smiley-choice/Default Smiley/icon_twisted.gif&quot; title=&quot;:twisted:&quot; class=&quot;bb_smilies&quot; /&gt; </p> <p>(Couldn't resist.) </p> http://www.winextra.com/forums/topic/9873#post-49178 Fri, 10 Dec 2010 01:03:40 +0000 Steven Hodson 49178@http://www.winextra.com/forums/ <p> &lt;img src=&quot;http://www.winextra.com/forums/my-plugins/smiley-choice/Default Smiley/icon_smile.gif&quot; title=&quot;:)&quot; class=&quot;bb_smilies&quot; /&gt; ya saw that earlier somewhere. I don't think I'll be using it though LOL </p> http://www.winextra.com/forums/topic/9873#post-49176 Fri, 10 Dec 2010 00:35:59 +0000 Nate 49176@http://www.winextra.com/forums/ <p>It's open source, too!</p> <p><a href="http://www.itworld.com/print/129778" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.itworld.com/print/129778</a></p> <p>"At COMPANY _______ we value your privacy a great deal. Almost as much as we value the ability to take the data you give us and slice, dice, julienne, mash, puree and serve it to our business partners, which may include third-party advertising networks, data brokers, networks of affiliate sites, parent companies, subsidiaries, and other entities, none of which we’ll bother to list here because they can change from week to week and, besides, we know you’re not really paying attention.<br /> We’ll also share all of this information with the government. We’re just suckers for guys with crew cuts carrying subpoenas.<br /> Remember, when you visit our Web site, our Web site is also visiting you. And we’ve brought a dozen or more friends with us, depending on how many ad networks and third-party data services we use. We’re not going to tell which ones, though you could probably figure this out by carefully watching the different URLs that flash across the bottom of your browser as each page loads or when you mouse over various bits. It’s not like you’ve got better things to do.<br /> Each of these sites may leave behind a little gift known as a cookie -- a text file filled with inscrutable gibberish that allows various computers around the globe to identify you, including your preferences, browser settings, which parts of the site you visited, which ads you clicked on, and whether you actually purchased something.<br /> Those same cookies may let our advertising and data broker partners track you across every other site you visit, then dump all of your information into a huge database attached to a unique ID number, which they may sell ad infinitum without ever notifying you or asking for permission.<br /> Also: We collect your IP address, which might change every time you log on but probably doesn’t. At the very least, your IP address tells us the name of your ISP and the city where you live; with a legal court order, it can also give us your name and billing address (see guys with crew cuts and subpoenas, above).<br /> Besides your IP, we record some specifics about your operating system and browser. Amazingly, this information (known as your user agent string) can be enough to narrow you down to one of a few hundred people on the Webbernets, all by its lonesome. Isn’t technology wonderful?<br /> The data we collect is strictly anonymous, unless you’ve been kind enough to give us your name, email address, or other identifying information. And even if you have been that kind, we promise we won’t sell that information to anyone else, unless of course our impossibly obtuse privacy policy says otherwise and/or we change our minds tomorrow.<br /> We store this information an indefinite amount of time for reasons even we don’t fully understand. And when we do eventually get around to deleting it, you can bet it’s still kicking around on some network backup drives in somebody’s closet. So once we have it, there’s really no getting it back. Hell, we can’t even find our keys half the time -- how do you expect us to keep track of this stuff?<br /> Not to worry, though, because we use the very bestest security measures to protect your data against hackers and identity thieves, though no one has actually ever bothered to verify this. You’ll pretty much just have to take our word for it.<br /> So just to recap: Your information is extremely valuable to us. Our business model would totally collapse without it. No IPO, no stock options; all those 80-hour weeks and bupkis to show for it. So we’ll do our very best to use it in as many potentially profitable ways as we can conjure, over and over, while attempting to convince you there’s nothing to worry about.<br /> (Hey, Did somebody hold a gun to your head and force you to visit this site? No, they did not. Did you run into a pay wall on the home page demanding your Visa number? No, you did not. You think we just give all this stuff away because we’re nice guys? Bet you also think every roomful of manure has a pony buried inside.)<br /> This privacy policy may change at any time. In fact, it’s changed three times since we first started typing this. Good luck figuring out how, because we’re sure as hell not going to tell you. But then, you probably stopped reading after paragraph three."<br /> I am hereby open sourcing this privacy policy. Feel free to use it on your own sites or suggest it to any that seem deserving (but I’d appreciate a credit and a link, if you’re so inclined). </p> http://www.winextra.com/forums/topic/9234/page/2#post-45387 Fri, 21 May 2010 13:03:53 +0000 Nate 45387@http://www.winextra.com/forums/ <p><blockquote><a href="http://static.whattheinternetknowsaboutyou.com/results.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://static.whattheinternetknowsaboutyou.com/results.html</a></blockquote></p> <p>None of the links on this page that I've tried work for me. </p> http://www.winextra.com/forums/topic/9234/page/2#post-45386 Fri, 21 May 2010 12:57:57 +0000 Nate 45386@http://www.winextra.com/forums/ <p>Yesterday I received an email sent to all employees that the only browser we could use on our government computers, unless we have requested and received explicit permission to use another, is the IE provided for us. It mentioned that there were security concerns with some browsers, especially early versions, and mentioned Chrome among others.</p> <p>We use IE6! It will be replaced by a customized IE8 someday ... </p> http://www.winextra.com/forums/topic/9234/page/2#post-45379 Thu, 20 May 2010 20:28:42 +0000 Billy 45379@http://www.winextra.com/forums/ <p>"Congratulations, we did not find anything in this category in your browser history.<br /> Feel free to try our other browser history tests."</p> <p>As I said, I think the current privacy rage is focusing too much on the type of rope that people are selecting to hang themselves and very little attention is being put on individual behavior.</p> <p>Don't GIVE them your personal info, and they can't TAKE it. </p> http://www.winextra.com/forums/topic/9234/page/2#post-45378 Thu, 20 May 2010 20:01:06 +0000 James 45378@http://www.winextra.com/forums/ <p>Interesting bit of information I ran across via "Schneier on Security"</p> <p><a href="http://static.whattheinternetknowsaboutyou.com/results.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://static.whattheinternetknowsaboutyou.com/results.html</a></p> <p>We analyzed the results from over a quarter of a million people who ran our tests in the last few months, and found that we can detect browsing histories for over 76% of them. All major browsers allow their users' history to be detected, but it seems that users of the more modern browsers such as Safari and Chrome are more affected; we detected visited sites for 82% of Safari users and 94% of Chrome users. </p> http://www.winextra.com/forums/topic/9234/page/2#post-45356 Wed, 19 May 2010 10:12:01 +0000 Billy 45356@http://www.winextra.com/forums/ <p>To hell with Internet privacy policies. If you don't want your info spread all overt the net..think twice before you type it in the first place. </p> <p>/troll </p> http://www.winextra.com/forums/topic/9234/page/2#post-45344 Tue, 18 May 2010 16:42:28 +0000 Pierre 45344@http://www.winextra.com/forums/ <blockquote><p><cite>PaulOFlaherty <a href="http://www.winextra.com/forums/topic/9234#post-45342" target="_blank">said</a>:</cite><br /> I'd love to hear your take on how Facebook, Twitter and Google treat privacy the same because I see three very different approaches. </p></blockquote> <p>It's not the privacy policies. It's how they're actually implemented. There are horror stories all over the 'net, even though Google seems to have started correcting their attitude. </p> http://www.winextra.com/forums/topic/9234#post-45342 Tue, 18 May 2010 14:02:36 +0000 Anonymous 45342@http://www.winextra.com/forums/ <blockquote><p><cite>Google seems to have the same regard toward its users' privacy as Facebook or Twitter…<br /> </cite></p></blockquote> <p>I'd love to hear your take on how Facebook, Twitter and Google treat privacy the same because I see three very different approaches. </p>