[OT] Re: alexa - google toolbar behaviour

[Times Enemy <times () krr org>]

Greetings.

In order for me to search for the old news and tools you have requested, 
i would have to use a search engine.  However, if i decide to use a 
search engine, then they will know that i am looking for that 
information and those tools, and may place more value to those results.  
Heaven forbid.  So, in an effort to refrain from such insanities, i have 
decided to not submit myself to such an invasion of privacy, and must 
ask that, should you still desire these old digital clippings and these 
registry "hacking" tools, you search for them yourself.

Along with the information regarding alexa, and the registry utilities, 
perhaps search through the plethora of data having to do with spyware.  
In particular, the definition.  If you find that the Google Toolbar is 
in fact such, i believe you will have a very interesting story to sell, 
and some very disappointed shareholders, and more importantly, 
disappointed geeks.  I hear geeks can be quite the idealists.

I like your statement, "Google knows everything."  If it didn't have 
such a creepy feeling with it, then it would definitely be something for 
the Google Marketing team to consider.  And the paranoid in me can dream 
up a lot with this kind of material.  Actually, this too would make for 
some interesting searches, should one be of the ignorant class that uses 
such demonized tools.  Hehe, maybe something like, "If we could, we 
would," and have them indexing weird things, like home videos, and what 
someone eats at a restaurant, and that really evil thought you had but 
because of your mad poker skills face no one ever would have guessed.

Honestly, i am glad to see that you have uninstalled the applications 
you believe to be spyware.

For the proverbial record, i thoroughly enjoy Google.  Just remember, 
"*6. You can make money without doing evil."*

.te


Mehmet Buyukozer wrote:

> Answers are inline
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Times Enemy [mailto:times () krr org] 
> Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2005 9:11 PM
> To: Mehmet Buyukozer
> Cc: security-basics () securityfocus com
> Subject: Re: alexa - google toolbar behaviour
>
>  
>
> > Greetings.
> >    
>
> Greeting Times, thank you for replying.
>
>  
>
> > Isn't Alexa spyware, or somehow related to spyware?  I remember they 
> > used to have some sort of issue that caused me to ban them from systems.
> >    
>
> Actually I did not know Alexa is placed in spyware category, it seemed
> innocent to me when I read their aim in their website.
>
>
>  
>
> > I have not tried this of late, but not too long ago, it used to be 
> > possible to tweak what the browser was claiming.  There even used to be 
> > "tools" that did this, however they were probably in cahoots with Alexa, 
> > and ... oh wait, i already mentioned what i think about them.
> >    
>
> I'll be glad if you can give some example for these tools.
>
>  
>
> > Regarding google as spyware ... hehe, that is a very interesting 
> > statement.  Sure they could be lying, but i am dubious this is the 
> > case.  Their shareholders would not be happy, nor would i.
> >    
>
> It might not be in spyware category but what makes a software spyware? It
> will send information to you and your activities on the net right? So what
> makes google toolbar different in this perspective? As I sent in my previous
> mail, it is sending all your url's to google including your phpmyadmin and
> control panel addresses!
>
>  
>
> > How did you think that the google toolbar would be able to conduct a 
> > search, and do other things like display page rank information?
> >    
>
> Yes I agree with you, best way to get the information is letting users to
> use your toolbar and get that information. But as I said before, these urls
> include your administrative pages, control panels and configuratin pages. So
> it seems to me that google knows everything, and uses some of them for page
> ranking.
>
>  
>
> > Why would you voluntarily install spyware, if you believe it to be 
> > such?  If you do not like it, uninstall it.
> >    
>
> I uninstalled them after I sent mail.
>
>  
>
> > I am still trying to figure out if you were just trolling this list or 
> > otherwise.  Either way, you should probably be more concerned with 
> > Alexa, or the www.realist.gen.tr link which you are using on your site, 
> > than Google.
> >    
>
> I am not trying to trol this list, I had a query in mind and asked it. For
> realist thing, sharing your web site statistics is more different than
> sharing your surf activities. You are right about your doubts, cause that
> site is collecting nearly everthing about visitor but it is giving very good
> reports. I choose them for that. I would like to hear what you thinking
> about such websites and toplists.
>
> Best regards.
>
> Mehmet
> www.sonofnights.com
>
>
> Mehmet Buyukozer wrote:
>
>  
>
> > Hi All
> >
> > Lately, I saw several webserver statistics showing exact number of browsers
> > and operating system's that the visitors using so decided to analyze what
> >    
> my
>  
>
> > browsers (IE, Opera, Mozilla) are sending to webservers. I was using google
> > toolbar and alexa toolbar addons on IE and when I checked what IE sending
> >    
> as
>  
>
> > User-Agent, I saw the result in below. It might seem normal that Alexa adds
> > its print to IE's agent properties but I already disabled from "Add-on
> > Management" . And also another thing is www.k2pdf.com has anybody idea what
> > this comes from? Is there a way of hacking these headers from registry or
> > somewhere else?
> >
> > Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; www.k2pdf.com; SV1; .NET
> > CLR 1.1.4322; Alexa Toolbar)
> >
> >
> > Another thing, as I already accepted the legal issues for google toolbar as
> > spyware, I was not expecting such a behaviour.
> >
> > It sends all your surf information to google.
> >
> > An example for this:
> > http://toolbarqueries.google.com/search?client=navclient-auto&googleip=O;13
> >    
> 0
>  
>
> > 2&ch=62317384429&iqrn=3neB&orig=0H8Hr&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&features=Rank:FVN&q
> >    
> =
>  
>
> > info:http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Esonofnights%2Ecom%2F
> >
> > Regards
> >
> > Mehmet
> >
> > www.sonofnights.com
> >