IP: Fwd: if this is true, it is serious stuff -- why not send a query to IP?

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

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