At the risk of sounding like the boy who cried wolf, I offer to you the following fresh disclosure. Internet traffic has been monitored at the White House’s website. And to make this slightly more disturbing, the claim is that this has been done without the knowledge of the administration.
Link
(CBS/AP) Without the knowledge of the Bush administration, an outside contractor has been using Internet tracking technologies that may be prohibited to analyze usage and traffic patterns on the White House’s Web site, an official said Thursday. …
The White House Web site uses what’s known as a Web bug to anonymously keep track of who’s visiting and when. A Web bug is essentially a tiny graphic image – a dot, really – that’s virtually invisible. In this case, the bug is pulled from a server maintained by WebTrends and lets the traffic analytic company know that another person has visited a specific page on the site.
This follows the disclosure that the NSA website was placing cookies on the computers of visitors. (This was the subject of my diary about the NSA site yesterday here.)
Last week, the National Security Agency halted its cookie use after a privacy activist complained and Wednesday, agency officials acknowledged they had made a mistake. …
Until Tuesday, the NSA site was creating two cookie files that do not expire until 2035 — likely beyond the life of any computer in use today.
David Almacy, White House Internet Director, who is either clueless or a liar, had this confidence-inspiring quote:
“No one even knew it was happening,” Almacy said. “We’re going to work with the contractor to ensure that it’s consistent with the OMB policy.”
Prior policy was established against use of web bugs when combined with cookies.
Web bugs themselves are not prohibited, but when they are linked to a cookie so that a site can tell if the same person has visited again – a federal agency using them must demonstrate a “compelling need,” get a senior official’s signoff and disclose such usage, said Peter Swire, a Clinton administration official who helped draft the original rules.
Cookies are widely used at commercial Web sites and can make Internet browsing more convenient by letting sites remember user preferences. For instance, visitors would not have to repeatedly enter passwords at sites that require them.
But privacy advocates complain that cookies can also track Web surfing, even if no personal information is actually collected.
WebTrends Link has many large corporate customers. From the “About WebTrends” section of the WebTrends site:
Thousands of web-smart organizations worldwide, including more than half of the Fortune and Global 500, depend on WebTrends to improve their web site conversions and optimize their marketing performance for maximum return on investment.
As the worldwide market leader for web analytics, WebTrends has become the trusted standard not only for award-winning technology, but also for a full range of consulting services and unmatched industry expertise.
Trusted is hardly the word that comes to mind.
Yeah, it’s a good racket they have going in being the ‘third party’ interactively working together. A different site or server can access the files created by webtrends or more commonly the various databases are mined for information.
CIA learned how to make a few bucks on it.
Another day, another revelation.
You ever get the feeling that people’s outrage is misdirected? It almost looks like the government does it on purpose to keep the public focused on the wrong issues.
Exactly Rumi. To me they are saying see, it’s ok it even happens to our web site. What a bunch of distracting BS.
One of our Embassy’s was closed today due to an unspecified threat. Just in time for the New Year and all that will be headlines(hopefully) again once the House and Senate are back in session.Distract, distract, distract. I’m not buying it at all!
The problem I see is that our elected officials allowed the conditions that enable the CIA-FBI-NSA to spy on us, legally. Then, the outrage is directed at possible illegal surveillance under Bush’s direction. It looks more likely that he’ll claim an interperatation of laws Congress passed as justification for what he’s done. The misdirection by the MSM and others allows the real violations to slip by again and quietly approved by the elected officials.
Now, Bush-Gonzales is calling for an investigation to find out who leaked and prosecute them. Of course, if it was a serious crime he should have done this a year ago. Still, it allows him to throw a smokescreen to divert attention from the fact that we’re all monitored in many wrong ways.
Like we’re really supposed to believe that Darth the Dick didn’t know about this, yeah right. What was that I said yesterday about all the government sites having cookies/being monitored…
That’s the thing about creepy paranoid assholes pretty soon they are spying on everyone, even themselves.