Interesting People mailing list archives
IP: Fwd: if this is true, it is serious stuff -- why not send a query to IP?
From: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 20:26:22 -0500
This was sent to me third hand. If it is accurate AOL needs attitude adjustment, if it is wrong they need an appology . In either case I will let you know. Now let me know, you can ask for anonymous reporting if you like Dave
Unlike all previous versions of America Online, version 4.0 puts something in your hard drive called a 'cookie'. (AOL members click <A HREF="a ol://4344:1047.g334.8411481.532897009">here for a definition). However, the cookie we found on Version 4.0 was far more treacherous than the simple internet cookie. How would you like somebody looking at your entire hard drive, snooping through any (yes, any) piece of information on your hard drive. It could also read your password and log in information and store it deep in the program code. Well, all previous versions, whether you like it or not, have done this to a certain extent, but only with files you downloaded. As me and my colleagues discovered, with the new version, anytime you are signed on to AOL, any top aol executive, any aol worker, who has been sworn to secrecy regarding this feature, can go into your hard drive and retrieve any piece of information that they so desire. Billing, download records, e-mail, directories, personal documents, programs, financial information, scanned images, etc ... Better start keeping all those pictures on a floppy disk!
_____________________________________________________________________ David Farber The Alfred Fitler Moore Professor of Telecommunication Systems University of Pennsylvania Home Page: http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~farber
Current thread:
- IP: Fwd: if this is true, it is serious stuff -- why not send a query to IP? Dave Farber (Nov 11)