"Real" Privacy

[t byfield]

> Date: Sat, 20 Nov 1999 11:00:57 -0500
> From: sawicky at epinet.org (Max Sawicky)

> It's hard to surf w/o cookies, isn't it?

not especially. it's certainly not as 'transparent' or 'convenient'
as giving sites carte blanche to read and write cookies, but, then, 
i expect that companies with meticulous pychographic data based on 
years of microinteraction records) will prove to be 'inconvenient.'

most (Worst Word Ever) browsers allow you to set policies for cook-
ies: accept/reject this one, accept/reject all from this site, ask
about each cookie, and so on. the last version of netscape which i
bothered to check didn't have this feature, which was a big reason
i switched to MSIE. 

so, if you configure it to (a) ask you about cookies on a per-site
basis, and (b) reject them all, you'll do OK. the reason for doing
it this way is: they're quite convenient for some sites i actually
trust (e.g., slashdot), and some sites simply won't work without a
cookie (e.g., the NYT). this means you'll have to fob off a few at
each site, but that just means consists of keeping a finger cocked 
over the escape key (i.e., 'reject' or 'decline'). 

> Exactly while file(s) should be deleted?

i only work on macs and unix, but by and large there'll be a 'user
profile' directory somewhere obvious, named something like 'cookie' 
or 'magic cookie.' for example, for netscape under macos, the path 
is something like this: 

   HD/applications/Netscape/Netscape Users/some_user/MagicCookie
   HD/System Folder/Preferences/Netscape/Netscape Users/some_user/MagicCookie

if you're using windows, just use whatever file-search app to find
anything with the substring 'cookie' in it (e.g., 'MagicCookie').

there are gobs of little freeware/shareware apps for scrambling or
exterminating them, for example, when you shut down your confuser.

cheers,
t