I agree, but I was just curious as to "how big of a deal" this really is.

Then again, I would imagine that many people are not as computer savvy as your average TnT user and who do not have Firefox set to dump cookies every time at exit. That would mean their tracking abilities are biased towards collecting usable personalized info on the less tech-savy or the naive.

We can talk all we want about changing IPs and deleting cookies, but that won't help. The whole point is that the combination of the powers granted to Department of Homeland Security combined with Google's ability to track and organize data make for a deadly efficient combination. J. Edgar Hoover would giggle like a schoolgirl meeting Harry Potter at the candy store at the very prospect of having that much personal information on 75% of the American people.

Google tracks what ad was served to what account at what IP. Your ISP tracks what IP was assigned to what PC at a specific time (that's how the RIAA decides who to sue). You can delete your cookies and you can bounce from IP to IP by piggybacking on other people's Wifi, but the moment you log into an account that can be tied to you (like the ones we're using right now), all Homeland Security have to do is query the database. Are you carrying a cell phone? Your physical location is tracked by your cell provider any time your phone is on.

At the same time, let's remember that the Department of Homeland Security have an amazingly poor track record. They don't seem to be able to find any actual terrorists, just wannabes. They never seem to find any guns or bombs on airplanes, even plants sent through by DHS to test the system, so they settle for confiscating water bottles, nail clippers, and iPods. Then there's the Terrorist Watch List with 320,000 names of suspected terrorists and the No Fly List that includes Senator Ted Kennedy, the wife of Senator Ted "Series of Tubes" Stevens. How efficient do you think they'll be when the DHS has your entire life to peruse for "suspicious" behavior?

So what? You downloaded some porn and a few mp3s. You wanted to see if there really are recipes for nitroglycerin all over the internet like Bill O'Reilly says there is, so you googled it. You emailed someone about getting some weed for New Year's Eve back in '99. This isn't a matter of proving guilt or innocence in a criminal trial, it's National Security. They're looking for suspicious behavior. You don't actually have to have done anything. Consider the Miami Morons, who were so inept that they asked the FBI Informant to be their leader. They're being prosecuted as terrorists even though the most cursory examination of the facts shows that they weren't capable of blowing up a balloon.

From the story:

"Here's the deal: Airport DHS scrutiny is a gating function. It lets the spooks narrow down their search criteria. Once you get pulled aside for secondary at the border, you become a 'person of interest'--and they never, ever let up. They'll scan webcams for your face and gait. Read your mail. Monitor your searches."

"I thought you said the courts wouldn't let them..."

"The courts won't let them indiscriminately Google you. But after you're in the system, it becomes a selective search. All legal. And once they start Googling you, they always find something. All your data is fed into a big hopper that checks for 'suspicious patterns,' using deviation from statistical norms to nail you."

Greg felt like he was going to throw up. "How the hell did this happen? Google was a good place. 'Don't be evil,' right?" That was the corporate motto, and for Greg, it had been a huge part of why he'd taken his computer science Ph.D. from Stanford directly to Mountain View.

Maya replied with a hard-edged laugh. "Don't be evil? Come on, Greg. Our lobbying group is that same bunch of crypto-fascists that tried to Swift-Boat Kerry. We popped our evil cherry a long time ago."

If you look long and hard enough at anyone's past you'll find something suspicious. If they have their entire life at your disposal, you can bet Homeland Security will find something to freak out about. And if you do something to merit attention, say, by telling the Vice President to go fuck himself, you can bet you'll be a "person of interest" for a long time.

-=Logan
Research, facts, a Republican needs not these things.

1. Permit Cookies - Set Firefox not to accept cookies, and this handy extension easily allows you to manage exceptions. A little "C" icon in the status bar gives access to simple "Allow / Session / Block / Remove" options. It doesn't clear all cookies automatically, but it makes it easy to browse the internet without accepting cookies willy-nilly.

2. NoScript - Although this discussion is about maintaining privacy from the operators of websites, a bigger concern is vulnerabilities from cross site scripting (XSS) attacks that target cookies. NoScript prevents XSS attacks. You also benefit from blocking the (mostly unnecessary) Javascript nonsense that so many sites use these days. NoScript allows you to whitelist the sites where you need to use scripting to get useful things done.

Firefox 2.0.0.7 (My current version) -->Tools-->Options-->Privacy-->Cookies-->Keep until: I close Firefox. Also-->Tools-->Options-->Privacy-->Private Data-->Always clear my private data when I close Firefox. Additionally, it's not difficult to make the choice to have an ISP that at least nominally respects your privacy a la Earthlink.

Personally, I'm tired of the nanny state and don't want to do anything additional to "ensure" google's theoretical state of double plus unevilness. It's an open market (right now). Demand the market stays open, reward those politicians who will keep the market open and reward those companies within the market that provide the services you want. Google may go evil but I've still got Earthlink I can use as an ISP and non-microsoft options for my own software. That diversity allows you to mitigate risk and time to turn to other options should one of your service providers go in a direction you dislike.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

Theoretically, in a market society, somebody she see their success and try to copy it, thus making them less singularly powerful.

Copy it and create your own search engine? That takes too much time. Eh, here's what you're gonna do.

Create a plugin that hooks into IE, firefox, or whatever and runs while the browser is open. In addition to dumping the cookies every time the browser shuts off it intermittently fires off queries to google in the background using random dictionary words and phrases.

Distribute it to enough people and you've poison-pilled their database. Happy Christmas!