Web bugs:
What are they and do they need to be worried about?
Have you ever wondered how that person who keeps sending you all that unwanted e-mail ever got their hands on your e-mail address?� There are several ways that a SPAMer (SPAM stands for Send People A lot of Mail) gets hold of your e-mail address and other personal details.
Firstly they can be given the address by a friend of
yours or a business associate, this can be deliberate; that is someone has sold
your details to the SPAMer, the SPAMer could also have brought a list of names
or you could have been sent a web page to view as a �gift�, the comical. E-card
or pornographic page would then read your personal details and e-mail them to
the SPAMer.� Remember, nothing happens
for free in the business world, there is always a hidden agenda.
So, how can the SPAMer use web pages that you may
visit on to gain information about you?
Using a type of code known as a Web Bugs or Clear
GIFs, which are small invisible images that web page designers place onto pages
to track who has visited their site and what other sites that visitor has seen.
A web bug can deliver to its master all sorts of
information about you, in fact just about anything that you have stored on your
computer, your e-mail address, name, address, company name, IP address to name
but a few.� This information is valuable
and in turn can find itself on-sold to other SPAMers, who try to market to you.
Some web bugs are little more than marketing tools
and only report to their master the basics, such as how many time you have
visited their site and what adverts you have already seen, this is really quite
good for it guarantees you a fresh set of adverts each visit.� Used right Web Bugs like this can make your
internet experience far more pleasing, used wrong they violate your privacy in
the extreme.
If you value your privacy, and some people have a
legal reason to want to protect their privacy for they visit sites that are
either illegal under Australian law or are the kind of site that the Australian
authorities are hostile too.� Say for
instance that you visit web pages that proclaim that the Holocaust is a hoax
and that there were not even six million Jews in Nazi controlled Europe, let
alone gassed there in impossible structures and numbers.� Well that is the type of site that you do
not want the government to know you are visiting, for while it is not unlawful,
it is going to bring government attention.�
The same is true if you try to find out the other side of the news, and
read what the �terrorists� are saying, or if you visit racist sites,
anti-abortion sites or pro-civil rights sites.�
None of this is �illegal�, but it all places the viewer under a
spotlight� of unwanted attention thanks
in� part to Web Bugs.
Then there is the computer user that visits an adult
site, even a legal one that does not show animals or children or any kind of
perversions.� This user has a need to
protect their privacy for without privacy they will find themselves receiving
offers of free membership to pornographic sites all over the net.� Of course there is no such thing as free
porn (excluding newsgroups) all of the internet based porno sites are
commercial and sooner or later they will either sell your personal information,
ask you for a credit card number or worse yet; offer you free and direct access
to their �private� site, all you have to do is click on a dialer link, your
computer will then phone South America or some other distant place at $9.90 per
minute.� There is no such thing as a
free perve.
OK, so then problem is evident, we all visit some
sites that we don�t want the world knowing we�
have been to, and the good news is that we can do something about it.
If your computer has enough capacity to run Internet
Explorer (IE) 5.5 you can get some great protection tools for free from �The
Privacy Foundation�, they distribute a program called Bugnoise and Bugnoise
gives an audable alarm (�Uh Oh�) when it finds a Web Bug on a page.� You can download this very useful tool from www.bugnoise.com and by clicking on the INSTAL
button.� The Privacy Foundation also
have a great FAQ that will answer more questions than you have thought to ask.
If you run IE6 you will see that the browser has
some powerful built in protection features.�
The World Wide Web Consortium also known as W3C are the people who set
many of the webs standards and the new �Platform for Privacy Preferences� or
P3P for short is shaping up to be the standard for privacy on the web and IE6
already supports it.� Privacy problems
are not a small issue, just click on this link and you will see an extensive
list of recorded problems sites:- www.w3.org/P3P/complaint_sites
or just visit www.w3.org for more P3P
information than you thought you needed.
With IE6 you can use P3P without downloading
anything, it is a feature of the browser:�
Just choose TOOLS � INTERNET and click on PRIVACY to adjust the settings
to meet your needs, the default is Medium, but this only ensures that
information is sent only to the web page you are visiting and not to another
site.� Total protection and privacy is
better.
It is too soon to see if P3P will become �the�
standard, but as Micro$oft is behind it 100%, the smart money says that it will
become the standard.
Netscape has been blocking cookies since version 4.7
of their browser, and once again that was before IE even thought about it.
To use this feature in Netscape go to EDIT � PREFERENCES,
then select COOKIES under the PRIVACY AND SECURITY settings, check ENABLE
COOKIES FOR THE ORIGINATING SITE ONLY and then click OK.
This will make you quite secure, but not 100%.
Take the time to visit the www.bugnoise.com and if you think this
article alarmed you, well be prepared to be alarmed.
Never forget that once you are on the Internet, that
you are part of a great Network of computers and at the mercy of many
others.� It pays to update your security
often, especially the all important anti-virus program.� So much can be done via hidden internet web
page code.
Chris J. Bartle
December 26, 2001