Re: Netscape inside scoop on "Smart Browsing"

Natrificial's "Brain" product did the same thing, silently, or at least via a nonobvious option setting that was not explicitly documented. The transmittal of all your URL's to the mother ship was how they would inform you that you were hitting a page specially enabled for their S/W. Totally unnecessary, as the page, if so enabled, would be perfectly capable of notifying the browser with the addition of a trivial plugin, e.g. or other thing. I raised the issue of disclosing this kind of thing and got the usual "we're technology users too and we'd NEVER do anything with that information..." response, like it's no big deal. I stopped using and recommending the product, even though it looked like with the proper option setting I would no longer be reporting my bizarre habits to Natrificial. This shit's outta hand .....

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* IS SMART BROWSING REALLY SO SMART? (contributed by Mark Joseph Edwards, http://www.ntsecurity.net) Many of you are aware of Netscape's new versions of its Navigator Web browser. But do you also know that, starting with version 4.06, the product's Smart Browsing feature can report to Netscape every Web page you visit, including addresses to private sites on your internal network? And are you aware that when you download a secure version of Netscape's browser, the process places a cookie on your system that can ... etc ...

Rick Desautels Sr. Systems Engineer Rival Computer Solutions rivalcs@ma.ultranet.com

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----------------- Robert A. Hettinga Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism http://www.philodox.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'