Letters to the Editor

--- Following message extracted from FIDONEWS @ 1:18/14 ---
By Christopher Baker on Tue Oct 21 09:16:23 1997

From: Mike Bilow
To: Christopher Baker
Date: 19 Oct 97 10:31:57
Subj: AOL "cookie" rumor is a hoax

* Forwarded (from: Netmail) by Mike Bilow using BilowMail0.2.
* Original dated: Oct 19 '97, 10:25

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Copyright (c) 1997, Mike Bilow. Unlimited royalty-free distribution of the following text is permitted for any purpose and by any means, provided that the text is reproduced unedited and in full (including this copyright notice).

You are receiving this message because your address was listed as a prior recipient of a warning message about AOL v4.0 software and "cookies."

DO NOT FORWARD THAT MESSAGE ABOUT AOL AND "COOKIES" -- IT IS A HOAX.

Anyone who wants the official story about the "cookies" message and similar hoaxes should check:

http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html

This is a web site about computer security issues maintained by the Computer Incident Advisory Capability (CIAC) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, operated by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy.

In reality, a "cookie" is a marketing device, a bit of data that a web site sends you that you then send back to that web site when you visit it again. The real purpose of a "cookie" is to allow web sites to track repeat visits, but they cannot otherwise identify you or get any information because of it unless you specifically give it to them. While "cookies" do raise some legitimate privacy concerns, they are NOT a means of tapping into your computer and reading your hard drive. Netscape publishes a "Cookie FAQ" at:

http://search.netscape.com/assist/security/faqs/cookies.html http://home.netscape.com/security/basics/privacy.html?cp=sspmid [URL moved [jb 4/24/01]]

Netscape also publishes the technical specification for "cookies" at:

http://search.netscape.com/newsref/std/cookie_spec.html http://home.netscape.com/newsref/std/cookie_spec.html [URL moved [jb 4/24/01]]

Please remember that the vast majority of warnings about "magical" programs are hoaxes. While destructive or invasive software does exist, major public companies such as AOL are obviously not going to take the legal and public relations risks associated with distributing it.

-- Mike Bilow, N1BEE

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Origin: N1BEE BBS +1 401 944 8498 .FC/V.32bis/HST16.8 (1:323/107)

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X-Sender: garyg@mail.oeonline.com
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 14:29:00 -0500
To: cbaker84@digital.net
From: gary gilmore <garyg@oeonline.com>

Could you drop a blurb in the Fidonews...

The Region11 website is decked out for Halloween. Let me know what you think. ;-)

http://oeonline.com/~garyg/region11/

Requirements for "best effect":

MSIE 3.x or better
Decent sound card that can play MIDI and WAV files. (SB32 or better suggested)

The site will remain this way until next week.

Enjoy! :-)

--gary

We are the keepers of the sacred words: Ni, Ping, and Nee-womm!
Fidonet: (Yes, fidonet) 1:2410/400 BBS: 1-313-582-0888
The Maximus Home Page: http://www.oeonline.com/~garyg/maximus/
The W32_FDN Home Page: http://www.oeonline.com/~garyg/w32_fdn/

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