Is MS big bro keeping track of us? (attn Bloom)

[10Bears]

Hey Bloom,
  My friend Pete told me about this site, it like Big Brother.. He was so paranoid he didn't want to send me link in email.

Can you tell me if theres anything to this?


SUMMARY:
There are folders on your computer that Microsoft has tried hard to keep secret. Within these folders you will find two major things: Microsoft Internet Explorer has been logging all of the sites you have ever visited -- even after you've cleared your cache, and Microsoft's Outlook and Outlook Express has been logging all of your e-mail correspondence -- even after you've erased them from your trash bin. (This also includes all incoming and outgoing e-mail attachments.) And believe me, that's not even the half of it.

When I say these files are hidden well, I really mean it. If you don't have any knowledge of DOS, then don't plan on finding these files on your own. I say this because some of these files/folders won't be displayed in Windows Explorer at all -- only DOS. (Even after you have enabled Windows Explorer to "view all files.") And to top it off, the only way to find them in DOS is if you knew the exact location of them. Basically, what I'm saying is if you didn't know the files existed, then the chances of you running across them is slim to slimmer.

To give you an example of how sneaky this is, there are some hidden folders that may contain your name, address, phone, all the sites you've visited, every single e-mail you've sent/received, every attachment you've ever sent/ received, everything you've searched for in a search engine, every filename you've downloaded, names of documents containing "sensitive" information, copies of all your cookies, full readable e-mail from your hotmail account, your PGP keys, and more.

Funny that Microsoft would make no mention of this on microsoft.com.

link here

[mietla]

Still playing with it. Most of this stuff checks out, except of the visibility. On some of my boxes the system behaves as described, but on others WE shows all those hidden folder/files without any extra tweaking.

In other words, on some of my systems the "stealth" of this scheme does not seem to work (but it behaves pretty damn "stealthily" on others).

The fact is, all this info actualy survives a five level delete.

1. "Clean History" in Internet Options
2. "delete files" in Internet options
3. "view files" in Internet Options and a delete from there
4. A manual, WE "delete" from the "c:\windows\Temporary Internet Files"
5. A subsequent "Clean recycle bin".

All your files are still good and ready.

That's pretty f* scary.

It also seems to accumulate all this info forever.

The good news is that if you use an alternative shells (I'm using Thompson Toolkit and Hamilton C-shell), all those desktop.ini or -s attributes lose their voodoo power. Everything becomes visible and accessible.


The puzzle is, why the hell would they store this crap locally (waiting to be discovered). They could just as well (and maybe they do) forward this gunk to microsoft.com or directly to irs.gov, TedKennedy.gov and JessyHelms.gov.

BTW, WE = Windows Explorer

[ 08-31-2001: Message edited by: mietla ]

[10Bears]

Wow! cc that mietla

A chill went down my spine reading this guys web page. Your right.. scarry stuff here.

Wonder if MS will try and stop this guys site.

Wonder if MS could use/sell personal info to say.. the gov. Maybe in exchange for dropping a lawsuit?

This sounds too much like 1984 for real.

Wish Bloom would check board, he the real DOS expert here.

I had to print out page.. too much dos commands to write down.
10B

[-lynx-]

Blimey - another MS conspiracy *yawn*...

Of course it keeps all the sites you've visited - that's what cookies are for, turn them off if you don't want your computer to remember anything...

Something that only DOS can see? Oh please... There's no DOS under W2K - it's an emulation.

I presume the next stage would be to expect Microsoft heavyweights knoking on your door in the middle of the night to inspect your harddrive since they are not getting it sent to them    .

Here's another "theory" to ponder on - format anything in NTFS and you'll get unaccessable/undeletable/unformattable 8MB junk on your harddisk - what do they hide there???  

It's so much like the crap with Y2K and dates in Windows - lots of noise and huh-hahs and e-mails and websites proving MS conspiracy to cause worldwide computer collapse and all one had to do was to change the date format and Bob's your uncle, all was suddenly OK.    

Oh brother... People with too much time on their hands and nothing productive to do should be locked up            

p.s. What cheeses me off more is the W2K insistence on istalling all sorts of crap like MS Frontpage, Netmeeting etc - I had to "hide" the whole folders as you can't delete the darn things and I didn't want them cluttering the Programs listing...

[ 08-31-2001: Message edited by: -lynx- ]

[bloom25]

Sorry it took so long for me to reply guys, been pretty busy lately.

I don't really see much to be worried about here.  (Other than a cookie I need to remove from my work computer from that link.   )  Temporary Internet folders store pictures and article text from recently accessed pages to speed up how fast a page appears on your screen.  For that reason - of course there are copies of the pages you've been too.

Cookies are used just about everywhere on the internet.  They are text files that are only readable (for the most part) by the site that created them.  They allow personal prefrences to be stored.  The AH bbs uses one to keep track of what threads you've looked at.

The other file he mentions is the swap (paging) file.  This is hard drive space that is used for extra system memory.  This file is OF COURSE going to have lots of information in it.

Those little blocks of code he has there are ( probably ) just ASCII text coded in hexadecimal.

[1776]

NOW THE TRUTH COMES OUT!!!!

Blooom25 is deeply inbeded in the "conspiricy".  How can we turst him again!!  Nothing to worry about yet the sky is falling.  Yes, the sky is falling and everyone knows where you have been on the internt!!  It's the "new world order"!!!  HELP, HELP, save us all!!!
 

[mietla]

Let's not trivialize the issue. It's not the cookies (and/or all the random files created on my system "behind my back"), that worry me. It's the undocumented backstore that does. The point is, that if the average Joe Blow is informed about...

- enable cookie
- use cookie
- delete cookie
- DO A REAL BYTE_BY_BYTE DELETE
- commit delete in Recycle Bin

... at some point in time it is perfectly reasonable that our Joe expects the files to be really gone.

I would rate myself above avarage Joe Blow, I am fully capable to detect, find and trully eradicate crap on my system (sinister or not). But I have a real problem with having to watch the hands of my OS provider.

I'm prepared for attack from viruses conconted by some sicko's, but if you tell me that my OS provider creates an undocumented back store with all the data I use (including passwords), it makes me worry. If they do it locally, and we accept it, what is to keep them from keeping the data centralized somewhere else.

Every implementation of a cache has to have a flush function. If it does not, something is fishy. It's an attempt to create a "History of the World".

You see, I'm not worried that I was screwed. Everybody can be screwed once. I'm worried that this will become a matter of fact. Just because it is technologically possible, let's do it.

- There is nothing to worry about.
- It is for your convienience, the MS Word will load faster (but we enable it as a default, and you need a MS CS to disable it, and Donald Knuth to discover it).

I'm not panicking, but I am worried.

[-lynx-]

Mietla

This is not how "delete" actually works - all that happens (and it always has happened this way!) is that a note in made in a file allocation table that a place previously occupied by a file in question is now available.

All the information contained in that file is still there until a new file happens to be written over the same space. With 10-40GB harddisks on average the likelyhood of that place been overwritten immidiately is quite remote.

Regular defrags can help to clear to a point it but since nothing is transmitted anywhere - why panic?  

[Naso]

ah, the old DOS, when delete put a @ at the beginning of filename in FAT, and you can recover the file just writing the correct initial, unless a new file wrote on the original positions.

What? win ME is still under FAT convention?  

Wonder how NTFS really work in this cases, any info?

Have a FAT, of something similar (remembering old VTOC for IBM/36) ?

[jihad]

It's a fact that I.E. stores all the info on your browsing habits in a DAT file that NEEDS to be deleted when it grows larger than 256kb in size.

When the dat file gets beyond 256kb it causes I.E. AND Windoze to run slower and causes system freezes and can crash Explorer as well.

The only way to clean the dat file up is in DOS mode, boot your computer into DOS mode and at the C:\Windows prompt type exactly the following, nothing will be harmed and windoze and explorer will be a bit faster and more stable.

C:\windows>deltree c:\windows\tempor~1
When prompted type Y and enter.

When it finishes deleting the dat file and the C:\windows prompt reappears <might take awhile if the dat file is large> type:

deltree c:\windows\history again type Y and enter when prompted.

Then give it the 3 finger salute <ctrl-alt-delete> to reboot, windows will rebuild the two directorys as it boots.

[Dawvgrid]

Does this mean that MS knows,how many dirty sites I`ve visited  

[1776]

Well, should we all move to Linux or another operating system?  Is it really possible to contain all the information from all the puters around the world in one location and for what reason?  I have a feeling we just might be over reacting.

[bloom25]

I think you are overreacting.  Look at this from the standpoint of Microsoft:  There is no way possible they could be collecting and storing information on every site you visit.  Nor would they want to.  There are companies, however, that do attempt this like Gator.

The reason all that stuff is on your computer is because that's just how web browsers work.  Those temporary files are there to speed up page loading times.  Cookies are used to store information about your browsing habits on your computer and can only be accessed (or understood rather) by the site that created them.  In this regard you may be surprised to learn that the recently released IE6 allows you to block 1st and/or 3rd party cookies seperately and even manually select to only allow cookies from certain sites.

You should also understand that deleting files does not actually remove the entire file.  It just marks it as available space on the hard drive.  As long as the drive isn't full already that data is still there and can be restored.  Now the NTFS file system that winNT or win2000 uses is an encrypted file system and is much more secure.  (Not to mention somewhat faster.)