Need Techs To Explain Possible Tracking Of DU Website Visits:

[Zorra]

(Please forgive my lack of technical understanding and language in my descriptions.)

Here's the deal. I have been researching a certain phenomenon that occurs when I visit DU. There are certain data mining cookies that are placed into my computer when I log onto some websites. If I visit these websites before I visit DU, and get their cookie, I will get a pseudo "pop-up" that will not register as a pop-up, but will appear in the bar at the bottom of my screen horizontally to the right of where the "Start" button is when I visit DU. In order to close this pseudo "pop-up", I have to right click my mouse on the pseudo "pop-up" and click on "close" to make it go away.

These pseudo "pop-ups" only appear if I do not clean my computer with ad-aware prior to visiting DU.

I believe that these cookies are specifically designed to track my visits to DU. These pseudo "pop-ups" do not appear when I visit any other website. They only appear when I visit DU.

I have three different different "cleansing systems" on my machine: Spybot, Spyware Blaster, and Ad-Aware. My machine is immunized.

My question is: Are these cookies specifically designed to track my activity when I visit DU?

Does anyone else experience this phenomenon?

Here are the data mining cookies that I recently blasted after I got the pseudo pop-up when I visited DU:

C:\windows\cookies\me@maxserving<1>txt.

C\windows\cookies\me@0<1>.txt

Can we bust these data miners somehow?

Are they tracking my visits to DU?

What can I do to prevent this from occurring?

If I am not clear in my questions and explanations, please let me know.

Thanks!

Note: The number 1 in the cookie description appears in brackets [] and not in<> but after I posted, this is how they appeared on my screen.

[ConsAreLiars]

1. DU has an ad pop up that will appear

when you first visit. I use Firefox as a browser (which blocks them unless instructed otherwise) and suspect that you are just seeing this ad and not a victim of spyware. Try switching to Firefoz and see if it still happens - I would guess not. Then enable pop ups for DU (via Tools/Options/WebFeatures) and see if they return. If so, this is just the DU ad pop-up.

[Zorra]

2. But the pseudo "pop-up" does not appear unless I have a data miner

present in my machine.

If I clean my machine before I visit DU, I do not get the pseudo "pop-ups".

[ConsAreLiars]

6. You need to use a cookie blocker

to prevent maxserving.com (and doubleclick.com and all the rest) from putting cookies on your site. Firefox and Mozilla have this (and I think Internet Exploiter may have recently added this option if you are stuck with it).

[Zorra]

11. I have three different cookie blockers: Ad Aware, Spybot, and

SpywareBlaster.

And my machine is going wacko right now!!!

[Nomad559]

8. I use Internet Explorer

and I never get pop-ups here at DU.

[ConsAreLiars]

9. It shows up when you first hit the "Home" page

but not if you go directly to forums. It's actually a "pop-under" so you may not notice it at first.

[jukes]

16. firefox rulez!

i have a spyware scrubber & p/up blocker through earthlink. haven't had a spyware install since i switched to mozilla.

[Robbien]

3. Are you using a firewall such as zonealarm? eom

[Zorra]

12. Have a network provider with a hacker blocker.

[PeaceProgProsp]

4. I just posted something about something similar.

Here's my ATA post:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

On this thread, I got a cookie from the OP's web site (the gore site). I didn't click on anything, however. So how'd I get the cookie? Is the cookie embeded in the picture? Or is this done with DU's cooperation -- does it come from DU?
I've noticed that I also got a comedy central cookie while reading DU, but I couldn't figure out from whose post that one came.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=120x19925

[shockingelk]

7. see post #5

If you don't want to accept cookies from third party websites, find that setting as explained.

(you don't need to click on anything for a cookie to be sent or received, it just comes as part of the response to your request for a web-page. And once you have it it's sent back every time you request a file from the website that sent it)

[shockingelk]

5. Cookies aren't the problem

Pay attention to what site you're leaving when you visit DU. If a site wants to it can throw up a popup, no cookies necessary.

The maxserving cookie keeps track of what ads you've seen across websites, and probably logs what site it was loaded from.

If you're concerned about privacy, in your browser or internet preferences, you want the setting that fits the concept "only accept cookies from sites I navigate to" or "reject third party cookies". That way information is never shared across websites.

If you don't want popups, the best thing to do would be to chose just about any browser other than Internet Explorer and find the "block pop-up windows" setting.

[Zorra]

10. No. this is not the problem.

And since I made my original post about this problem, my access to DU has been totally off the wall. Messages from Linux apache server, this page can not be displayed, weird DU graphics, inability to access discussion forums, etc.

[Andromeda]

13. Zorra, I started getting the Linux Apache server test page...

today and I notified the webmasters. This page comes when they're working on the website and should be corrected soon. I get DU on the second try so you might want to try that.

I'm also having the same problems you're having accessing the forums and when I try to post or read the messages. I get url not on this server and page not found error messages.

When I tried to post this in the technical forum it was immediately deleted which only means there are a lot of duplicate posts about the same problem and Elad is aware of it.

Everytime I access DU I also get a popup which is very annoying to say the least, especially when my popup controls don't have any effect on it.

[Zorra]

14. Thanks. Do you know why the cookie blockers and the pop-up

controls do not have any effect?

If DU is advertising for funding, I don't mind. But I am not getting advertisements. I am simply getting a pseudo popup in the "Start" bar, horizontally to the right. I have to right click on it, and then hit "close" in order to close it. If this is advertising, why isn't it a popup that I can see?

I use Internet explorer.

[dbt]

15. Zorra, you ought to give Mozilla (Firefox) a try.

I'm using version 1.7 and it just kicks IE back to the wagon. I haven't seen a pop-up ad in WEEKS now. It also gives you a lot of ways to manage cookies.

Also, consider getting Spyware Blaster. It "vaccinates" you computer against a bunch of data miners.

:hi:
dbt

[mmonk]

17. Despite having

a firewall and two spyware blockers, an adware has gotten on my computer under my firewall. Once that happens, the only thing that can be done is to remove it from the registry. Maybe this has happened to you. The adware 'Looktome" will write to your registry continually until it is removed from the registry. Ad Adware and others can only remove the things it writes to your hard drive, but you have to remove it yourself from your registry.