Everyone is watching what you do online. How user tracking with cookies works

Post by die_fault_user » Wed, Jun 13, 2018, 3:41 PM UTC

zeta0134 wrote: post #10

die_fault_user wrote: post #5

Where is this information stored on my computer? Is there a central location for the information that I can look at or software to read the cookies?

The information is stored within your web browser, so the instructions to view it will depend on what OS and browser combination you use. In Google Chrome for example, you can view cookies in the Developer Tools (F12, or Menu -> More Tools -> Developer Tools), under the Applications tab. This will show you the cookies visible to the website in your current browser tab. Firefox's developer tools have similar capabilit…

Post by giggles_giggles » Wed, Jun 13, 2018, 3:47 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #8

This revelation should be front page on every newspaper. That IT companies have been hiding these things inside our computers is a violation of our privacy, even our property rights. How muck electricity has been used by these things, electricity I pay for. Either Google needs to reimburse me for hosting their "cookies" or we need to ban cookies altogether. https://torproject.org/

Post by ealhad » Wed, Jun 13, 2018, 3:54 PM UTC

lucb1e wrote: post #15

airstrike wrote: post #13

I vaguely remember using a Firefox extension a long time ago that allowed one to whitelist / sticky a handful of domains that would be spared from the usual "delete every cookie", giving the user a renewed sense of control over what the web knows about them. Nowadays with online fingerprinting¹ this may amount to nothing more than placebo, but I do miss it. __________ 1. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology…

Called self-destructing cookies. It broke with web extensions and cannot be replaced (like many other add-ons I use) because the web extension APIs to provide the functionality do not exist. I'm still on Firefox 55 though, so I can still use it (like firegestures, quickjava, no close buttons, vertical tabs, and others that are labeled as legacy). I always find it very creepy when I looked something up on someone else…

Post by sandworm101 » Wed, Jun 13, 2018, 4:02 PM UTC

bcoates wrote: post #17

sandworm101 wrote: post #8

This revelation should be front page on every newspaper. That IT companies have been hiding these things inside our computers is a violation of our privacy, even our property rights. How muck electricity has been used by these things, electricity I pay for. Either Google needs to reimburse me for hosting their "cookies" or we need to ban cookies altogether. https://torproject.org/

How do you think HN logins work? Cookies are the basis of session management. If you don't want to store cookies for Google, don't. It's a feature right there in your browser. There are lots of shady tracking systems in the world and cookies aren't one of them: they are clear, user-visible, and in the user's direct control both in theory and in practice. Tor isn't relevant to this. If you're using Tor to block cookie…

Post by taurine » Wed, Jun 13, 2018, 4:07 PM UTC

aerotwelve wrote: post #7

What's the best way to circumvent this? Is it even possible? I'm no expert (which is why I ask), but I assume that blocking third-party cookies in your browser won't prevent situations like the tracker example the author provides. That is, since you visited tracker at least once, their cookie would have been set during that visit as a first-party cookie, and therefore the http requests to retrieve the 1x1 transparent…