full-disclosure - Is the FBI using email Web bugs?

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Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.53.0401090215010.5746@test1900.meganameservers.com>
From: todd at hostopia.com (Todd Burroughs)
Subject: Is the FBI using email Web bugs?

On Thu, 8 Jan 2004, Gary E. Miller wrote:

> Yo Todd!
>
> On Thu, 8 Jan 2004, Todd Burroughs wrote:
>
> > I was wondering what "Web Bug" was, got figuring that it was simply
> > clicking (or automatically clicking) on a link.
>
> A web bug can be much more than that.  When you read an HTML email or
> web page your workstation can send back gobs of information aount you.

I didn't explain myself.  I probably shouldn't being sending this,
as it is noise on the list but I can't resist...

This "web bug" (fucking marketing people, that's where this name came
from) thing is obvious and has existed for a while.  (like since they
invented the Internet...)  (and don't tell me how it is different now,
the concept has been there all along)

As I mentioned, if you send information to a server, do not expect
that that information  will not be used.  I said that at a *minimum*,
they would get your IP address.  Obviously, they will get much more.

The whole situation boils down to: if you send *any* server *any*
information, they can use it as they want.

READ THIS MS USERS
If you use mail clients that send information (I mean anything) back to
a server without your express consent, DO NOT EXPECT PRIVACY.  This is
the way the Internet works.  BTW, this is not exclusiove to MS users.

I work in the hosting business, we harvest info from web logs to determine
a lot of things.  If I wanted to be malicious, I could easily and trivially
do a lot more.

I'm bitching about the length of this thread, not that someone started
it, we need to be open about everything, but if it becomes useless,
it needs to be moved to private email, etc.

Todd