Senior fellow Barton Gellman’s latest in the Washington Post discloses the NSA’s use of Internet users’ cookies from Google to pinpoint potential hacking targets. These new revelations bolster concern from privacy advocates about the use of these types of tracking tools, including location data.
Excerpt:
“According to the documents, the NSA and its British counterpart, GCHQ, are using the small tracking files or ‘cookies’ that advertising networks place on computers to identify people browsing the Internet. The intelligence agencies have found particular use for a part of a Google-specific tracking mechanism known as the ‘PREF’ cookie. These cookies typically don’t contain personal information, such as someone’s name or e-mail address, but they do contain numeric codes that enable Web sites to uniquely identify a person’s browser.”
Read the full article at the Washington Post.
Tags: hacking, internet, pref cookie, edward snowden, privacy, nsa, privacy advocates, national security, barton gellman, washington post, national security agency, security, google
NSA Piggybacks on Users’ Cookies
Senior fellow Barton Gellman’s latest in the Washington Post discloses the NSA’s use of Internet users’ cookies from Google to pinpoint potential hacking targets. These new revelations bolster concern from privacy advocates about the use of these types of tracking tools, including location data.
Excerpt:
Read the full article at the Washington Post.
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Tags: hacking, internet, pref cookie, edward snowden, privacy, nsa, privacy advocates, national security, barton gellman, washington post, national security agency, security, google