"David Arnstein" <arnstein@panix.com> wrote in message
news:d2kbmp$5ts$1@reader1.panix.com...
> This article from Yahoo/techweb describes a spying technique that uses
> features of Macromedia Flash:
>
> http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp..._cmp/160400719
>
> If the link doesn't work, the title of the article is "Company
> Bypasses Cookie-Deleting Consumers."
>
> Apparently, the company United Virtualities uses Flash "shared
> objects" in place of cookies. The article links to a Macromedia web
> page that explains how to control "shared objects." I thihk that I
> will just remove Macromedia software instead.
>
> I hope that the anti-spyware vendors will provide features to control
> these "shared objects."
> --
> David Arnstein
> arnstein+usenet@pobox.com


Visit http://www.macromedia.com/ or any site that shows Flash content.
Right-click on the Flash content and select Settings. Click on the
Folder icon button. Set their cache to zero and check the box to
remember your setting. Flash uses its own cookie files which have the
..sol filetype.

If the web page you visit with Flash content has disabled user
configuration of some settings, visit Macromedia's online settings
manager at
http://www.macromedia.com/support/do...manager02.html
(they have yet to deliver a seperate utility that you can run locally).
Unlike UI applications that open their own window, the mouse cursor will
not change when you hover over clickable objects in that web page; i.e.,
you click on the tab buttons to change between panels but you won't see
the mouse cursor change to indicate they are clickable. If you use the
Website Privacy Settings panel (5th tab) to clear the Flash cookies
(.sol files), not all are deleted as a file search will shows some still
around, one of which retains the settings you configured.

I use PopUpCop as my popup blocker (works better than the rest that I've
trialed) but haven't yet managed to convince its author to include .sol
files in its cookie whitelist feature (the author isn't familiar with
Flash cookies enough to want to touch them yet).

You don't need anti-spyware to eliminate the shared objects (i.e., .sol
cookie files that different domains can access). Just set the Flash
caches to zero then you have no locally saved shared objects.


--
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