[UPHPU] Walt Mossberg says I am wrong. Is it true?

[Richard Miller]

Walt Mossberg of the WSJ wrote about cookies in his column today.   
The tone of his article came across as a bit alarmist to me, so I  
wrote to him to say so.  See my email to him and his reply below.   
I'm curious what you all think.  Specifically, is there such a thing  
as the cookie he's talking about that can track the sites (plural)  
you visit?  From a PHP developer standpoint, I personally know of no  
way to access another site's cookies.  I don't see what the big scare  
is about cookies.

The article is here:  http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20050714.html

Richard


Begin forwarded message:

> From: Walt Mossberg <mossberg at wsj.com>
> Date: July 13, 2005 9:31:50 PM MDT
> To: Richard Miller <richardkmiller at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: in response to July 14 column on "cookies"
>
>
> You're wrong. Some cookies are like your description, but the ones  
> I am talking about track your activities, without you doing  
> anything overt.
>
>
> Walt
> ======================
> Walt Mossberg
> Personal Technology Columnist
> The Wall Street Journal
> mossberg at wsj.com
> http://ptech.wsj.com
>
>
>
> On Jul 13, 2005, at 11:24 PM, Richard Miller wrote:
>
> Mr. Mossberg,
>
> I use a Mac, so while I am not subject to other spyware (as of  
> yet), I do accumulate cookies in Safari.  As I understand them,  
> cookies can only be read by the site that placed them on your  
> computer, so they can only contain information that you give away.   
> (It might also contain your IP address, which you implicitly give  
> away by visiting a site.)  It seems inaccurate to compare cookies  
> to a TV set that tracks what you watch.  They're more like a TV set  
> that notifies CNN when you've watched CNN before, but doesn't know  
> you've watched Fox News or ABC.
>
> Safari also has the option to "Accept Cookies Only from sites you  
> navigate to", which I believe is the default.  If cookies are  
> written and read only by the sites you navigate to, with no "cross- 
> pollination", what's the big deal?  Am I missing something?
>
> Regards,
> Richard Miller
>
>
>
>
>
>