U2 can B Incognito On The InterWebs!

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I was just thinking of this today: InterWeb surveillance. Being not exactly friendly toward the "We Must Know ALL!" attitude of the US government and marketing morons, along with "The Customer Is CRIMINAL" attitude of the Corporate Oligarchy, I simply want to be left the frack alone to my personal privacy. No one ever has the right to 'watch' me. I don't deal with peeping pervs at my house, or over the InterTubes.

Therefore, I don't deal with Google collecting data on me wherever I go on the net. I've written about Tracking Cookies here on the blog and how to subvert them. But I get really tired of various websites still attempting to load Google Analytics.

Then I clicked over to Intego's Mac Security Blog this evening. (You'd think they'd pay me for all the PR I give them! ;-) To my synchronistic joy I found a great little article about a niffy kewl Safari extension that does ALL the Google blocking for me. It blocks FaceBook surveillance as well! And here it is:

INCOGNITO

Incognito is a Safari extension that prevents Google and Facebook from following you on the web.

It's a jungle out there
When browsing the web, you are continuously being tracked. Not only by the websites you are visiting, but also by major companies that embed their 'content' into other websites through ads and analytics.
As a result, companies like Google and Facebook have an almost complete picture of your online activity.

Your online counterspy
Incognito protects your privacy by blocking Google Adsense and Google Analytics on non-Google pages. In addition, it allows you to optionally block Facebook content on third-party websites as well as embedded YouTube movies outside of the YouTube website.

No ad-blocker
Although effectively blocking Google Adwords, Incognito is no dedicated ad-blocker. It simply prevents companies from gathering information outside of their own website.

It's FREE.

A similar tool for Firefox is Google Sharing.

The Firefox Addon for the GoogleSharing system. GoogleSharing ultimately aims to provide a level of anonymity that will prevent google from tracking your searches, movements, and what websites you visit.

It's also FREE.

BTW: I also use Safari AdBlocker. And Safari Cookies. I also frequently use software from The Tor Project (formerly The Onion Project), including Vidalia and Tor Button for Firefox, which provides excellent proxy anonymity on the TubeWebs.

IOW: I am the boss of my Internet browsing, not the government, not Google, not the Red Hacker Alliance, not hacker/crackers, not Apple, not Microsoft, not the Neo-Con-Jobs, not nobody, not no how but ME. It is in keeping with my Positive Anarchy point of view. I make all the honest, responsible choices I wish to with total disregard for the extraneous interests of others. Control freaks: Go have an aneurism over it. :-P

Speaking of which: Over at my MacSmarticles blog this coming month, I'm going to be providing lesson articles on how to setup and use Tor, via Vidalia and Tor Button for Firefox. Sorting out how to use tools is a huge PITA if you're not a computer geek. Therefore, I shall be translating the methods into human-speak for mere mortals. Because this is geek level technology, it's still a bit time consuming. But once you get the hang of the protocol and set it all up for the first time, it ain't no big deal.

You too can be 100% INCOGNITO on the Webnets!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

MenInBlack
The Stranglers
� 1979

We're not here to destroy
We are here to employ

We have come to make you function
So we can eat at our functions

We are the meninblack ...

Information can destroy
So we'll treat you just like toys

Healthy livestock so we can eat
Human flesh is porky meat...

We are the meninblack...

We don't approve of artificial food
We grow you for our own good

First we gave you the wheel
Then we made you live to kill

So the best stock will survive
We eat you all alive

We are the meninblack ...
~~

GarageBand v5.1: Tracking Cookie Security Patch

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Apple is now offering an update via 'Software Update' to GarageBand version 5.1, available for users of Mac OS X 10.5.7. You can read about the included security patch HERE.

To quote Apple:

Impact: A user's web activity may be tracked by third parties and advertisers.

Description: When GarageBand is opened, Safari's preferences are changed to always accept cookies. The default preference is to accept cookies only for the sites being visited. The altered setting may allow third parties and advertisers to track a user's web activity. This update addresses the issue by not changing the preference setting. Users who have run previous versions of GarageBand should confirm that their Safari preferences are set as desired.


What's going on:
GarageBand is allowing what are called 'Tracking Cookies' to be accepted by Safari. This type of cookie is used for marketing purposes to watch your individual behavior on the net. IOW you are under surveillance. This is essentially the same as having a chip implanted in your brain that collects data on your interests. It triggers off advertisements that 'fit your interests' as you visit further web pages. I personally find this form of marketing to be invasive and disrespectful. I never allow it.

If you think you've been messed over by this bug in GarageBand, here is what I suggest:

1) Update to GarageBand v5.1.

2) Just to be safe, make a backup of Safari's 'Cookies.plist' file. You will find it here:

~/Library/Cookies/Cookies.plist

3) As Apple suggests, go into Safari's Preferences and hit the 'Security' tab. Change the 'Accept cookies' setting to "Only from sites I visit". This stops any 3rd party cookies from being dumped into your browser, killing off any chance of being infected with Tracking Cookies.

4) Click the "Show Cookies" button. It is just below the settings in #2.

5) Either painstakingly go through your cookies and 'Remove' those you don't want, or simply hit the 'Remove All' button. This makes certain that all Tracking Cookies have been deleted along with all your other cookies.

There are of course complications after tossing your cookies. The most common result is not being able to automatically log in to sites where you have an account or membership. If you haven't kept track of all your IDs and passwords then you're hosed and will have to create new accounts. My solution is to keep a personal list of my net IDs and passwords in text file stored on the encrypted .DMG volume that loads when I log into my user account. I also keep my IDs and passwords encrypted inside the application 1Password, which is a shareware super form of keychain. I've mentioned it here on the blog several times.

In the worst case scenario where you MUST have something that was stored in your cookies, you can always swap back in your backed up Cookies.plist file from step #2 above.

Tracking Cookies aren't actually malware, and having a few buried in your cookie pile won't kill you. Nonetheless, they are a form of spyware. They are also IMHO of no benefit to anyone but marketing companies.
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