Cookies Not scanned

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Guest

Hiya , The program scans RAM , My files and the system Regsitry , but not
cookies and it use to do ,

why doesnt it any more?
 
tai19 said:
Hiya , The program scans RAM , My files and the system Regsitry , but not
cookies and it use to do ,

why doesnt it any more?
Click to expand...


It used to do? In WHAT version of MS AntiSpyware did it *ever* check
cookies?
 
Probably thought that since the program was produced by Giant Company, and
Giant AntiSpyware did scan for cookies, then MSAS Must scan for cookies as
well!

My dad told me some good advice to keep in mind when you assume things:
"The first three letters of assume are what people tend to make of themselves
when they assume things."

I wish more people would heed this advice when they assume things, as this
is what *does* tend to happen when people assume things. It also might help
end the threat of terrorism since too many people assume they know what's
best for the rest of the world, yet they are totally unaware of what these
people really want or need, and terrorists thrive on doing things to us since
we assume we know better than the people living in these parts of the world
what is best for them.

Alan
 
Alan said:
Probably thought that since the program was produced by Giant Company, and
Giant AntiSpyware did scan for cookies, then MSAS Must scan for cookies as
well!

My dad told me some good advice to keep in mind when you assume things:
"The first three letters of assume are what people tend to make of
themselves
when they assume things."

<snip>
Click to expand...

The old mot went "When you assume, you make an ASS out of U and ME".

Cookies are just text files. They are no more harmful in and of themselves
than .txt files. Something has to actually read the cookie file to use the
contents recorded therein, so whatever executable that is reading the cookie
file is the target to check if it is malware or not. It is possible that
Giant did not provide a decent and intelligible document that provided exact
definitions as to what qualified as a good and bad site regarding cookie
usage. Without knowing the qualifications for what is a bad cookie,
Microsoft wouldn't bother identifying any until they came up with their own
rules. I haven't looked at the beta IE 7 to see if it provides any better
cookie handling than before.

Of course, the current released version of IE does permit you to customize
how cookies are handled. I set mine up to allow first-party cookies, block
3rd-party cookies, and allow per-session cookies (these expire when you exit
IE so they get deleted). That still means first-party cookies. There are
cookie managers available that will let you decide which cookies to keep
(i.e., they let you define a whitelist of domains). All other cookies are
deleted or blocked. Usually it is preferrable to allow the cookie but
delete it after exiting IE because many sites won't function correctly
unless you save their cookie even if only temporarily (and probably another
reason why Microsoft doesn't yet block cookies). However, most cookie
managers remain loaded and consume memory even when you are not browsing. I
use PopUpCop. Besides being a far superior popup blocker than the one in
IE, Google Toolbar, Yahoo Toolbar, and several commercial popup blockers, it
also provides for cookie whitelisting. PopUpCop only loads when IE loads
which is the only time you need to worry about cookies and to block popups.
By whitelisting the few domains whose cookies you do want to retain, you
don't have to bother doing later scans to clean out the lingering garbage.
You can still permit them to get saved but they get deleted upon exit from
IE, so all non-whitelisted cookies are forced to be per-session cookies.

By the way, Flash also leaves cookies on your computer in the form of .sol
files. You can configure its cache (to zero it out) so no .sol cookies are
left on your computer (except for one .sol file which is the configuration
cookie where you defined your settings, like the zero cache size). I
remember when one user was making a bunch a noise about a security breach
for Flash because of some new method of using the .sol files to track you,
but the user hadn't a clue about how to configure Macromedia's Flash player.
See:

http://groups.google.com/group/alt...._frm/thread/817c6264e3a55bba/4afb243178360bff

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.privacy.spyware/browse_frm/thread/d0a7c879dd17acd6

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.laptops/browse_frm/thread/51949de6a737c22/

Oh, my God, they're everywhere, they're everywhere. Amazing how users that
are too lazy to configure the client programs can be frightened. BOO! When
Halloween comes, they probably think all those witches and goblins roaming
the streets are for real.
 
I know that Microsoft has taken a different philosophy to spyware from
others, but does anyone know of any plans to include cookies at all, at
least some of the worse offenders? Or is this totally off the table?
 
Hi

It´s mission impossible for a company as MS to remove these
tracking cookies when "allieds" are using them.

And there is no alternative solution to use to track down
users/user groups and present it within beutiful powerpoint
presentations for a company board. Or to get paid for ads......... ;)

Cookies are a really stupid solution......!

The bad guys using them to track down for example "Zombies".

regards
plun
 
I think this is off the table for Windows Defender. I'm not knowledgeable
enough about the details of IE7 to know whether there are sufficient
improvements in the details of cookie handling there as to be satisfactory
to those finding this a concern.

I should say that the official statement--I believe reiterated recently in
something that I read--a Windows Defender related document--states that
cookie handling is still "under consideration" and they are reviewing
customer feedback.

Yep--here's a quote from the faq at the website:

Q. Why doesn't Windows Defender (Beta 2) detect cookies? Does Microsoft plan
to detect these in future versions of the software?

A. Because many cookies are used for legitimate purposes, Microsoft plans to
refine the approach to cookies based on customer feedback received during
the beta period. You can currently manage cookies through your Web browser.

They've been saying this for more than a year.....


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