But these are (interesting) points about security and the integrity of the browsing platform. Again, not strictly to do with tracking or advertising.

The point I'm trying to make is: If someone wanted to watch you, would they tell you everything? Do you tell people everything you are doing? How do you reprogram the firmware in these chips? Most people don't know and it isn't documented because they want secure systems and they don't want you to know. But there are people exploring and trying to figure it out on the internet and they are publishing what they found.

And then there is Chuck Peddle who programmed the datasette port in the C-64. He innocently didn't write the code down so we don't know how it is coded.

How hard could it be to disassemble the ROM and reason it out? Lee Davison and several others probably already did many years ago.

Just sayin' ...

Mike B.

You can use both as well. I've not had problems doing so.

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WFDis Interactive 6502 Disassembler
AcheronVM: A Reconfigurable 16-bit Virtual CPU for the 6502 Microprocessor

Firefox is bound very tightly to Google (go to about:config and search for "google" - and be scared). If you don't turn off search term suggestion 'feature', some entity monitors every keystroke for searches that are never even completed. The google 'safe browsing' feature actually reports every http fetch to google.

If you think cookies are the only way the bastards track you, visit https://panopticlick.eff.org/ My browser's signature is pretty unique - 1/8000 or so. Combined with an IP address, my laptop can be tracked very easily through a large city.

Then there is DNS. Unless you use opendns, your internet provider is compiling a large dossier on you and your browsing habits.

Don't forget https everywhere plugin - it helps with ISP snooping too. Oh, I see you have it.

A friend of mine works for a US company that cross-correllates cable-tv subscriber data, ISP data, census data and other public databases for a complete profile. They can positively identify each member of the household as they watch TV just from browsing habits, and provide the cable carrier with age/gender/annual income data, ostensibly to feed them more enticing ads.

Yuck.

Edit: - Darn it - I've been forgetting to turn off the 'beacon'.

Also, turn off http-referer ...

This site seems to have some useful tips: http://www.rationallyparanoid.com/artic ... urity.html

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In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. ...Jan van de Snepscheut

While panopticlick is interesting, I don't know how many people use it. Looking at simple feedback such as YouTube recommended videos, simply blocking cookies does make it forget who you are, so I don't think they're even doing IP tracking, at least for that visible portion of their per-user analysis. Adblock, Ghostery, etc, hopefully prevent many of the 3rd party tracker sites from even perceiving a connection from the browser environment.

I do quite a bit of browsing from a Tor connection, though nothing that requires a login.

_________________
WFDis Interactive 6502 Disassembler
AcheronVM: A Reconfigurable 16-bit Virtual CPU for the 6502 Microprocessor