7 ms·

Code Known as Flash Cookies Raises Privacy Concerns

14 points by wallflower 16y ago

dinedal 16y ago
Oh so now it's a big deal? These have been around forever people, c'mon!
- SanjayUttam 16y ago
  My thoughts exactly. I guess that is the way it goes though...
- logophobia 16y ago
  They've been here forever, but there is still no good (user friendly) way to delete them. No easy way to define a privacy profile (delete cookies when I close my browser...). I don't understand why flash doesn't hook into browser privacy settings by default. Instead, you have to install custom software like the firefox betterprivacy extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6623/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6623/.
  - copper 16y ago
    I believe the new flash player versions do respect the private browsing modes of browsers. Back when I used to use windows, I used to touch two files called "#Security" and "#SharedObjects" in the flash player app data folder, which prevented it from downloading anything at all. In retrospect, it was an overly heavy-handed way of doing things :)
ojbyrne 16y ago
“Instead of going to Amazon, I’m going to the local bookstore.” Of course when there, she pays cash, doesn't use a rewards card and makes sure she doesn't appear on any security cameras.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
adolph 16y ago
“The core function of the cookie is to link what you do on Web site A to what you do on Web site B,” said Peter Eckersley, a technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “The Flash cookie makes it harder for people to stop that from happening.” I think the technologist intends to refer to third-party cookies.
- MartinCron 16y ago
  No. Third party cookies do something similar, but don't always work with all browsers/privacy settings. Specifically, Safari won't accept third party cookies from non-blessed domains (one the user didn't navigate to on purpose). Some IE flavors needed the cookie to have a compact privacy policy in the header, something that was never audited or checked...total honor system. This was a big problem at my last job, trying to get an accurate count of unique visitors to a network of around 50 distinct domains. Nothing nefarious, just trying to get a sense of which visitors on site A were the same (anonymous) visitors on site B. Flash "cookies" work with more desktop browsers, although they always felt like an ugly hack.
rmorrison 16y ago
I also think Adobe is somewhat responsible, it seems like yet another case of them not looking out for there users best interests. Also, I'm writing this post from my Flashless iPad, and it makes me feel even better about Apples's decision.
nostromo 16y ago
Now that browsers ship with "anonymous mode" I imagine the fact that you're not anonymous at all on any page that has flash is completely confusing to the average internet user.
- mike-cardwell 16y ago
  You might be interested to know that the Tor project is helping Google and Mozilla with this very problem: https://blog.torproject.org/blog/google-chrome-incognito-mode-tor-and-fingerprinting https://blog.torproject.org/blog/google-chrome-incognito-mod... They have a lot of expertise in this area
Nick_C 16y ago
On *nix systems including Mac you could do what I do: a cron job that runs every week to delete everything in the ~/.macromedia/Flash directory. Windows users can achieve the same thing with an event schedule, the directory is probably in something like %USER%\App Data\.

14 points by wallflower 16y ago

dinedal 16y ago

Oh so now it's a big deal? These have been around forever people, c'mon!

SanjayUttam 16y ago
My thoughts exactly. I guess that is the way it goes though...
logophobia 16y ago
They've been here forever, but there is still no good (user friendly) way to delete them. No easy way to define a privacy profile (delete cookies when I close my browser...). I don't understand why flash doesn't hook into browser privacy settings by default. Instead, you have to install custom software like the firefox betterprivacy extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6623/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6623/.
- copper 16y ago
  I believe the new flash player versions do respect the private browsing modes of browsers. Back when I used to use windows, I used to touch two files called "#Security" and "#SharedObjects" in the flash player app data folder, which prevented it from downloading anything at all. In retrospect, it was an overly heavy-handed way of doing things :)

ojbyrne 16y ago

“Instead of going to Amazon, I’m going to the local bookstore.” Of course when there, she pays cash, doesn't use a rewards card and makes sure she doesn't appear on any security cameras.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

adolph 16y ago

“The core function of the cookie is to link what you do on Web site A to what you do on Web site B,” said Peter Eckersley, a technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “The Flash cookie makes it harder for people to stop that from happening.” I think the technologist intends to refer to third-party cookies.

MartinCron 16y ago
No. Third party cookies do something similar, but don't always work with all browsers/privacy settings. Specifically, Safari won't accept third party cookies from non-blessed domains (one the user didn't navigate to on purpose). Some IE flavors needed the cookie to have a compact privacy policy in the header, something that was never audited or checked...total honor system. This was a big problem at my last job, trying to get an accurate count of unique visitors to a network of around 50 distinct domains. Nothing nefarious, just trying to get a sense of which visitors on site A were the same (anonymous) visitors on site B. Flash "cookies" work with more desktop browsers, although they always felt like an ugly hack.

rmorrison 16y ago

I also think Adobe is somewhat responsible, it seems like yet another case of them not looking out for there users best interests. Also, I'm writing this post from my Flashless iPad, and it makes me feel even better about Apples's decision.

nostromo 16y ago

Now that browsers ship with "anonymous mode" I imagine the fact that you're not anonymous at all on any page that has flash is completely confusing to the average internet user.

mike-cardwell 16y ago
You might be interested to know that the Tor project is helping Google and Mozilla with this very problem: https://blog.torproject.org/blog/google-chrome-incognito-mode-tor-and-fingerprinting https://blog.torproject.org/blog/google-chrome-incognito-mod... They have a lot of expertise in this area

Nick_C 16y ago

On *nix systems including Mac you could do what I do: a cron job that runs every week to delete everything in the ~/.macromedia/Flash directory. Windows users can achieve the same thing with an event schedule, the directory is probably in something like %USER%\App Data\.