NP A little Privacy Rant (long)

[stuck outside of mobile with the memphis blues again]

Spencer Thiel writes:
>>They may also be able to look at the log files, find his username, and know
>>that he came from Yahoo, he looked at 14 different clubs before he bought
>>one, and then he left the site.  Notice, once Bob leaves the site, he
>>disappears from the log files,
>
>What?  Where are you getting this information from?  This is wrong 
>also.  If you logged on to www.website.com, clicked around, chatted, and 
>left the site, one could very easily find out how long you stayed on each 
>page, what you typed into the chat room, what you bought, and where you 
>went once you left.  I could do this 20 years after you visited the site if 
>I was so inclined.

I think she meant, disappears as far as future activities are concerned.

And re ZIP codes: I mostly use a text-based web browser from a unix
machine that I telnet into remotely. The machine may be in a building
in Ames, IA, but who knows where I am? IP -> ZIP code is not at all
reliable. Plus, blocks of IP addresses are reassigned at the drop of
a hat, in sharp contrast to the ZIP codes for areas which AFAIK stay
constant.


Josh

-- 
josh blog: http://www.public.iastate.edu/~kortbein/blog/
      tdr: http://www.public.iastate.edu/~kortbein/tdr/