please help

please help as i have concern about privacy

everytime i run my AVG antivirus it detects tracking cookies, everytime i remove them they come back.

when i looked deeper into the matter and looked in the bios it has a computracker system enabled and i cant remove it, also i managed to gain access to the text document logs, although i dont know what they mean im wondering why i was denied access to them.

im only learning and any answers would be nice, should i be concearned about all of this or have i just stumbled accross something silly???

kind regards
Ian

 

This seems to be a regular topic/question on here, and I too had to go back and study up a bit, to make sure I understood the different *kinds* of cookies--as suggested by Mark--and what they are used for...as I got spanked for yapping on about it, without really knowing the difference. Humbling, but deserved, as I wasn't very specific...

what I do is not as effective, in that I might carry illicit cookies for a few days, but easier for me, than managing up front, as I found it too slow when websearching, to constantly be deciding whether or not to "accept" or deny every cookie that my browser was new to...

My own way of managing cookies is to *accept* all cookies, simply for speedy websearching, and to run ccleaner, about once a week, and use the "options" button, and then click "cookies" and and see if there are any *new* cookies I want to "add" to the "cookies to keep" side...

This only works if you use ccleaner regularly--I do--for all the other good reasons, and *do* check the cookies option periodically to see if there are any new ones I want to add to the "cookies to keep" side...and also know the difference between tracking cookies, and "helpful" site-specific cookies...

Interesting topic, and I agree that cookies should not be just "left alone" as my attitude is that eventually more devious sites will find away to do more malicious things w/cookies...if they haven't already...

Hope this helped...and that I'm not sent back to school again :cry

 

I am in the same league as Duck in that i run CCleaner on a regular basis 2 or 3 times a week, but then i am surfing all over the place for most of the day.

Once a week i run Spybot search and destroy and clean anything it finds,this will find any tracking cookies.

Both these programs are free and can be downloaded here.

Spybot
http://www.majorgeeks.com/SpyBot-Search_&_Destroy_Tools_d2471.html

CCleaner
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4191.html

 

[ok that information is perfect, what about the computrack software in the bios, its enabled but if i try to select the option in simply wont let me. its my computer n i am blocked from it, its shocking. i think thats where the tracking cookies are originating from. it says it a security thing for if my computer is stolen but i realy dont like the idea

 

I found 2 tracking cookies (Webtrends) in AVG a few days ago and couldn't remove them in AVG. Did a search and removed them that way.

If you removed these tracking cookies in AVG itself, how did you do that? I tried several ways but no success. Thank you.

 

Here is a link to a Hewlett Packard description of how CompuTrace works. I son't think it could be enabled unless you are paying for a subscription.

Edit: Gosh busy thread! Laura beat me to an explanation of Computrace.

 

ah you are all stars, as for the avg question i didnt exactly remove the trackers with it, i just moved them to the vault, the heal option was not available

but i will start looking for the containing folder as they are in a different location to the usual cookies..

and again thanking you very much for all of your help

many many many many thanks
Ian

 

You're welcome

However, now I am slightly paranoid about CompuTrace being built in to new computers. I'm less security conscious than most here but I find the ability to remotely delete sensitive data rather creepy. It kind of necessitates that your private data is accessible to the "CompuTrace Team" whenever it wants to see it. No chance of abuse by bad employees or here in the U.S. by the NSA, ATT, Verizon or various other Bush/Cheney/Gonzales cohorts. rolleyes

 

Yep. One of the reasons I follow the "cookie" topics so avidly, is because I'm kind of of the opinion of marktrent, that cookies may not execute malicious *code* on my computer, but that they are still a form of spyware. And now I'm talking about the little hitchhikers that "are just text files" etc., and I also agree, that "catching cookies" is often how *anti* spyware programs impress people, when really, these are pretty easy to "catch.." so far...

My concern is actually weirder, and even a bit paranoid: it's that *eventually* that serious bad guys, will find a way to turn "text" cookies, into apps, say by combining two "innocent" cookies into dialup pimps or combining them with text on websites--which could be written to kick in Perl or java, etc...and creat an *executable* file, in order to see what your *password* is, on banking, paypal, newegg, ebay, or anywhere where crdit cards are used.

The only reason I say this, is because I'm fixing to setup vista, and I'm going to quit removing cookies "after the fact" like I described above, and take maybe a little more time up front to only allow cookies I *know* are friendly, and not let the others ones hop on in the first place...which means setting it up the way marktrent suggests above, and I agree: most days I go to the same sites, I'm *not* searching all over the web, and even then, I tend to go to sites I know are reputable, and don't inundate me/w ads...

I know I tend to beat this subject to death, but I just have a weird feeling that "cookies" will eventually carry more than just "an innocent text file," and all the other problems of spyware cookies that we *do* know about: that they create databases on you, and eventually get yer name and email, and then combine it w/all the info they have, etc....so I tend to think that my usual attitude--and the most common one, I think--is that "cookies are harmless," etc., is becoming less and less easy to defend...

 

Duckfeet
A good cookie removal program can be found at http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/iecookies.html
I have used it for a year on Win Vista Home Premium. Works great.
It will display all cookies and you can select what you want to keep or delete.
Russ

 

I'll check that out, but of course, that's kind of what ccleaner does: I just got thru cleaning it out, and I always go to "options" and cookies, and add any good ones, and remove everything else, when I do "scan"...

But again, I'm fixing to set up an xtra HD w/vista, just cuz my old parents have it, and I picked up a cheap new copy on Craigs, and I want to start doing what MarkTrent suggested above, u know, where u keep'em off in the first place, and that's built in to our OS's already...

Both are reasonable approaches, but since I do think that keeping "bad" cookies, "trackers, etc" for any period of time, will eventually cause us woes, as the hardcase crackers are always trying to find a way to execute code in new ways, and get "under the radar" and cookies are just way too tempting for those evil geniuses not to eventually "find a way..." and then running cookie-removers "after the fact" like I do, might be too late...

Thanks tho, for tip, this is my pet peeve/interest....