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| A bit about Web Bugs |
| By this time many know about Cookies
and the tracking possible with the use of them, however far fewer
know about Web Bugs. These are very small and very hard to detect.
Most are 1 pixel by 1 pixel image files that contain tracking
information and some even have programing to report data back to
their owners. Many sites, indeed ones such as Tripod, Geocities, and
many others have and use webbugs. Chances are if you have ever been
to a webpage that is not being paid for by the author, there are some
banner ads on the page they more than likely have web bugs in them.
If you wish to read up a bit more on what a web bug is by someone who knows a lot more than I do about these things here is a excellent article by a source I use for many Security matters. www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/man.200206/webbug.html Web Bugs are a bit hard to detect but they are not impossible. http://www.bugnosis.org/ offers a free web bug detector for Internet Explorer 5.x and 6.x versions which is a plug in to detect possible web bug content on a webpage. You can go a bit more and try WebWasher ( http://www.webwasher.com/en/products/wwash/download_license.htm ) which will selectively filter many possible web trackers. Since most webbugs are also dependant on Cookies to be useful, it is also possible to thwart their effectiveness by use of a cookie control program such as the Freeware program CookieWall by AnalogX.com These will help most get around the more commonly used web tracking devices. Hope you found this page a helpful. Additional Reading Web Bug Site List
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| @copy 2002 by joanna (aka
easy2confuse Last revised : Tuesday, May 11, 2004 |