The Tracking Cookie You Can’t Kill

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
Although the name "zombie cookie" may sound kinda funny, I can assure you this is no laughing matter. :eek:

An online advertising clearinghouse relied on by Google, Yahoo and Facebook is using controversial cookies that come back from the dead to track the web surfing of Verizon customers. "We are trying to use the most persistent identifier that we can in order to do what we do," Max Ochoa, Turn's chief privacy officer, told ProPublica.
Click to expand...
 
The problem is because Verizon tags all your outgoing activity over Mobile data with a unique tag. The idea is that websites would pay verizon for your identity. Verizon periodically rolls over to a new number.

I figured it wouldn't take long for a 3rd part to start assembling their own database and with help from their partners they can defeat Verizon's refresh of your identifier.
 
"We are trying to use the most persistent identifier that we can in order to do what we do," Max Ochoa, Turn's chief privacy officer, told ProPublica.
Click to expand...
Wow they aren't even trying to throw up any good publicity for themselves, they're basically saying "hey we know we make an evil product, but it's your carriers that are using it not us"
 
So glad I gave this assholes the finger years ago


LwUnFRz.png
 
HO LEE SHIT Verizon. Here's the best part, referring to the tracking "tag":

"In November, AT&T stopped using the number. But Verizon did not, instead assuring users on its website that "it is unlikely that sites and ad entities will attempt to build customer profiles" using its identifiers."

Thick headed optimism at best. OF COURSE they will use that data, since that data can be used to make money.
 
Gweenz said:
HO LEE SHIT Verizon. Here's the best part, referring to the tracking "tag":

"In November, AT&T stopped using the number. But Verizon did not, instead assuring users on its website that "it is unlikely that sites and ad entities will attempt to build customer profiles" using its identifiers."

Thick headed optimism at best. OF COURSE they will use that data, since that data can be used to make money.
Click to expand...



That reminds me of Sonys response to people complaining about DRM on their musics cds several years ago and saying "Why should people care or know about DRM anyway?" We all know the shit storm that followed after that...
 
I have been considering changing cell providers anyway. I got Verizon because of the poor coverage of the competition at the time. Since then Verizon's coverage has become worse, and the competition has improved. This is just another reason to change.

I wonder if they are trying this on their FiOS and DSL connections as well. I'd imagine it would be more difficult to do, as there are often multiple users per account all on the same router, so the data would be mixed together.

That being said, they DO provide home routers, and if they control your routers, it would be possible for them to give each machine on the LAN it's own unique identifier, and insert it just like they do on their wireless networks.

This is all terrible. Anonymity was one of the founding concepts that made the Internet great. The more it is eroded, the more we lose something special, and in some cases even crucial.

I strongly feel the government needs to start regulating what personal information can and can not be tracked, and how the tracked data is anonymized to prevent tying it to an individual user, and how it is stored so it is not compromised.

I recommend something like this:
1.) All data sharing by end users must be opt in.
2.) Services provided for "free" must be provided for free to all users, regardless of whether or not they opt in.
3.) All default settings must be at the level which shares the lest amount of data.

Problem solved.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Wow they aren't even trying to throw up any good publicity for themselves, they're basically saying "hey we know we make an evil product, but it's your carriers that are using it not us"
Click to expand...

Well at least they are being honest... Essentially saying "We're dicks, we know it. Have a good day!" :D
 
CaptNumbNutz said:
How exactly is this thing "undeletable"? Rootkit? Hidden file?
Click to expand...

It's not technically undeletable, more zombie.

You delete it, it comes back the next time you visit a site.

Verizon Wireless inserts a unique identifier packet into data sent over their network.

It is inserted on their side, not on the phone side, so it can not be disabled by hacking the phone.

The website sees this identifier in the packet, and creates a cookie based on it.

If you delete the cookie, it remembers the cookie and recreates the same one based on Verizons unique identifier.
 
I'm not knowledgeable enough when it comes to TCP/IP packets and proxies to know if this packet unique identifier survives when passed through a typical proxy.
 
CaptNumbNutz said:
How exactly is this thing "undeletable"? Rootkit? Hidden file?
Click to expand...
Your verizon identifier is not on your machine, if you go out to the internet the Verizon system adds it based on your Phone's Identifier and your account. Nothing you can do with your phone can block it since its never on your phone to begin with.

Reportedly going through WiFi, this doesn't happen.
 
If it doesn't, I guess you could circumvent this by setting up a proxy server on your home ISP, and routing your mobile data through it.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041361751 said:
It's not technically undeletable, more zombie.

You delete it, it comes back the next time you visit a site.

Verizon Wireless inserts a unique identifier packet into data sent over their network.

It is inserted on their side, not on the phone side, so it can not be disabled by hacking the phone.

The website sees this identifier in the packet, and creates a cookie based on it.

If you delete the cookie, it remembers the cookie and recreates the same one based on Verizons unique identifier.
Click to expand...

They don't even need to use cookies, your Verizon ID will be how they track you.

Say everytime you access Yahoo Mail on your phone, they assume you are accessing you own account and the Verizon ID belongs to you. They save that ID out to this 3rd party database for everyone else to learn who you are.

Say Verizon refreshes your Verizon ID, you access Yahoo Mail again, they see a new ID associated with your account and they note the time stamp. They save that out to the 3rd Party Database again. Everytime you get a new Verizon Identifier one of these companies identifies you from its own information saves out your info with your Verizon ID and the timestamp. So all these member contributing to this database they can accurately deduce your Verizon ID history and therefore can let websites know if you've been there and they can share that info or keep it for themselves. Basically this is to just cut Verizon out of the picture. The difference is that you have aggreements with Verizon, you don't with this 3rd Party database holder..
 
I find it funny that they used the 'can NSA use it' pull in the article lol.

The people who are worried about NSA tracking them are exactly the people that need to be tracked.
 
B00nie said:
The people who are worried about NSA tracking them are exactly the people that need to be tracked.
Click to expand...

Please spare us the "nothing to hide" or "if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear" bullshit argument.

Whenever data is collected it can be misused.

It can be stolen by hackers, it can be abused by corrupt government officials, or scorned government workers, (or the companies and employees hired by the government to collect the data) etc. etc.

There have been documented cases of NSA data - for instance - being misused by scorned lovers, etc. etc.

link

We know, for example, that there have been abuses of this data in few instances by NSA employers stalking their exes (jokingly called LOVEINT, the way signal intelligence is called SIGINT and human sourced intelligence is called HUMINT). As far as the NSA knows, these instances were few; but the reality is the NSA doesn’t know because these violations were not uncovered by NSA tracking but by employees who confessed.
Click to expand...

And that's not to mention that it also implies perfectly trusting the agenda of your government. I find it amusing that many people using the argument that they need guns to protect themselves from a tyrannical government, are perfectly OK with government surveillance...

We all have information we either need to or would rather keep secret. If it is not poor behavior, it could be medical records or credit card numbers, tax forms, etc. etc. etc.

Privacy is crucial for this reason, and no one except the individual whose information it is can be trusted to keep it. Not private companies, and not the government.

In the end, in a free country, the legitimate needs of privacy outweigh the risks of abuses and covering up poor behavior.

Besides, I doubt any of us would like to be judged solely by the single worst thing we ever did.
 
B00nie said:
I find it funny that they used the 'can NSA use it' pull in the article lol.

The people who are worried about NSA tracking them are exactly the people that need to be tracked.
Click to expand...

Wow. You are naive. Do you still believe in Santa Claus? lol.
 
I love the blowback on that one lol!
But yeah this stinks for Verizon users and its just another sign of corporations not giving a rats ass.
 
I don't think anyone is genuinely worried about web tracking anyway. If they were, Google would have to do a lot more than sending Eric "mining ur dataz" Schmidt to mess up at making damage control attempts during interviews that nobody outside the tech industry even acknowledges. Verizon's new ever-track-free-candy-cookie is like the Pepsi One of watching what you do compared to just having any Android device or using Chrome to browse the web.
 
Arct1c0n said:
That reminds me of Sonys response to people complaining about DRM on their musics cds several years ago and saying "Why should people care or know about DRM anyway?" We all know the shit storm that followed after that...
Click to expand...

You mean the PS4 sold millions more than competitors and everyone said MS spies on you?
 
I think the only way to kill this is to stuff their databases with junk data. Is there a browser extension out there which will report all sorts of fake data to all the tracking services?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top