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Microsoft Working To ID You - 5/23/2007 7:22:22 AM

outlier

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http://www.newscientisttech.com/article.ns?id=mg19426046.400&feedId=being-human_rss20

Does anyone besides me find it interesting that they are doing this from China?

"It could make a good guess about your identity from your browsing history"

"Previous studies show there are strong correlations between the sites that people visit and their personal characteristics, says software engineer Jian Hu from Microsoft's research lab in Beijing, China. For example, 74 per cent of women seek health and medical information online, while only 58 per cent of men do. And 34 per cent of women surf the internet for information about religion, whereas 25 per cent of men do the same.

While each offers only a fairly crude insight, analytical software could use a vast range of such profiles to perform a probabilistic analysis of a person's browsing history. From that it could make a good guess about their identity, Hu and his colleagues last week told the World Wide Web 2007 conference in Banff, Canada.

Hu's colleague Hua-Jun Zeng says the software could get its raw information from a number of sources, including a new type of "cookie" program that records the pages visited. Alternatively, it could use your PC's own cache of web pages, or proxy servers could maintain records of sites visited...."

Outlier

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RE: Microsoft Working To ID You - 5/23/2007 7:50:29 AM

farglebargle

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I saw that. They'll be extracting profile information from your PC's cache and cookies, too.

If you care about your personal privacy, don't use Microsoft products. You cannot have a product which both ensures users privacy and security AND meets the goals of a for-profit like Microsoft.

User Privacy and Security will *always* be an afterthought.

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RE: Microsoft Working To ID You - 5/24/2007 3:07:11 AM

Vendaval

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It comes as no surprise that Microsoft cares more about marketing their products
than protecting the privacy of users.

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