Showing posts with label Web Browser. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Web Browser. Show all posts

August 19, 2011

Supercookies Are Super Invasive


You're alone sitting at the computer surfing the web, you're looking up health, financial, entertainment, shopping, and other personal things.

You feel comfortable doing your thing...you have your privacy and can be yourself without someone looking over your shoulder.

But is the sense of safety real or an illusion?

For the most part, when we are online, we are not safe or in private.

Like at work, where you get the warning that you are being monitored, when you are browsing the Internet, your actions are being tracked site by site (but this is done without warning)--by cookies--or data packets exchanged between web servers and user's browsers.

On the plus side cookies are used for identification, authentication, preferences, and maintaining shopping cart contents; but on the negative side, they are installed on users computers to track your activities online.

The Wall Street Journal (18 August 2011) reports that now there are Supercookies! and "history stealing."

- Supercookies are not cookies with that can fly or lift locatives, but rather they are more difficult to locate and get rid off your computer, so they track your activities, but are hidden in different places such as in the web browsers cache.

- "History stealing" is done when you visit certain websites, and they use software to mine you web browser history to determine where you've visited and then use that to for example, target advertising at you. Imagine though what other profiling can be compiled by categorizing and analyzing your browsing history in aggregate.

Currently, the online ad industry has established self-imposed guidelines to supposedly protect privacy, but they seem wholly inadequate such as "collecting health and financial data about individuals is permissible as long as the data don't contain financial-account numbers, Social Security numbers, pharmaceutical prescriptions or medical records." But knowing people's household finances, credit histories, and personal medical histories is okay--by whose standard?

According to the WSJ, web tracking is not only alive and well, but flourishing with "80% of online display ads are based on tracking data."
Why should anyone have the ability to track our personal web surfing?

We don't need ads targeted at us--we are not targets! We are very capable of searching online for what we what we are interested in and when we are interested in it--thank you!

Session cookies that expire at the end of ones web browsing for session management is one thing; but persistent cookies that collect and mine your personal data--that's should be a definite no-no.

Like with the advertisements that come unwanted in the traditional mailbox and get routinely and speedily placed in the garbage, online advertisements that are based on intrusive website tracking is not only a nuisance, but a violation of our privacy--and should be trashed as a concept and a practice.

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September 15, 2009

Happy Birthday Internet

On September 2, 2009, the Internet celebrated its fortieth birthday.

ComputerWorld (14 Sept. 2009) reports that 40 years ago “computer scientists created the first network connection, a link between two computers at the University of California, Los Angeles.” This was the culmination of research funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the 1960s.

This information technology milestone was followed by another, less than two months later, on October 29 1969, when Leonard Kleinrock "sent a message from UCLA to a node at the Sanford Research Institute in Palo Alto, California."

While the Internet conceptually become a reality four decades ago, it didn’t really go mainstream until almost the 1990’s—with the founding of the World Wide Web project in 1989, AOL for DOS in 1991, and the Mosaic browser in 1993.

Now, I can barely remember what life was like before the Internet. Like the black and white pictures of yester-year: life was simple and composed, but also sort of lifeless, more boring indeed, and less colorful for sure. In other words, I wouldn’t want to go back.

Also, before the Internet, the world was a lot smaller. Even with connections to others far away—by phone and by plane—people’s day-to-day connections were more limited to those in close proximity—on their block, down on Main Street, or in and around town. It took an extra effort to communicate, share, deal, and interchange with people beyond the immediate area.

At present with the Internet, every email, chat, information share, e-commerce transaction, social media exchange, and application are a blast across the reaches of cyberspace. And like the vastness of the outer space beyond planet Earth, cyber space represents seemingly endless connectivity to others over the Internet.

What will the Next Generation Internet (NGI) bring us?

ComputerWorld suggests the following—many of which are already with us today:

  • Improved mobility—like “showing you things about where you are” (for example, where’s the nearest restaurant, restroom, or service station or even where are your friends and family members).
  • Greater information access—“point your mobile phone at a billboard, and you’ll see more information” about a particular advertisement.
  • Better e-commerce—“use the Internet to immediately pay for goods.”
  • Enhanced visualization—Internet will “take on a much more three-dimensional look.”

I believe the future Internet is going to be like Second Life on steroids with a virtual environment that is completely immersive—interactive with all five senses and like speaking with Hal the computer, answering your every question and responding to your every need.

It’s going to be great and I’m looking forward to saying “Happy Birthday Internet” for many more decades, assuming we don’t all blow ourselves out of the sky first.


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July 19, 2009

Battle of the Tech Titans

Google and Microsoft are going head-to-head, and they are going for the jugular.

ComputerWorld stated in the July 6/July 13, 2009: “Google Set to Wage OS War with Microsoft.” Wired wrote in August 2009 issue according to CEO Eric Schmidt, Google is the “anti-Microsoft”.

According to Wired, the two companies are fighting for the title: King of Technology.

Here’s a quick breakdown:

Google

Microsoft

Web Browser

Chrome (& FireFox distribution)

Explorer

Operating System

Android, Chrome OS

Windows, XP, Vista, Mobile

Business Productivity Suite

Apps Suite

Office

Search

Google

Bing

Online Advertising

Adwords, Adsense, Doubleclick

aQuantive

On one hand, Google is the undisputed master of the Internet delivering 78.5% of search results in the U.S. (versus 8.2% for Microsoft ) and pulling in $22 billion in revenue in 2008 for text ads. On the other hand, Microsoft owns the personal computer environment with 90% of the operating systems for all laptops and desktops yielding $16 billion in 2008 sales and $14.3 billion in 9 months for it’s productivity applications (versus Google which mostly gives away is email and other online applications); further Microsoft has 70% of the browser market to Google 2% for Chrome. (Wired July 13, 2009)

So is there really a full tech war going on or are Microsoft and Google just chipping away on the edges of each others territory, using so-called guerrilla warfare tactics?

It’s a little of each. Both companies are technology behemoths trying to be the king of the tech jungle. But they have very different approaches. Microsoft believes that computer software is the key to tech kingdom, while Google believes that the Internet is the path to people’s technology hearts.

Google is willing to give away software to challenge Microsoft on its home turf, and Microsoft is investing in its new search engine to erode the core strength of its competitor. It’s a jab for jab face-off where I would imagine we would continue to see the corporate fists flying for as long the two are standing.

From a strategic point of view, Microsoft has such a dominant position on our computers both in our homes and businesses, it is hard to imagine them being easily dethroned. Microsoft also has a war chest and the ability to replenish it to fight a darn good fight. But many companies have been smug and have lost to a determined challenger.

Google is coming out strong for its innovativeness and can’t turn down offer of free products. If the television business is any predictor of a winner-take-all, television’s advertising revenue built an incredible entertainment industry that we all enjoy and which still largely dominates today.

And now I think I will go watch 60 minutes on my big flat screen TV.


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