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Tom’s Tech Tips

Tom’s Tuesday Tech Tip: Certified Legal Nurse Consultants Should Skip the Cookies – Especially if They’re Flash-Based

Every web browser accepts cookies. These are the innocuous little files kept by your browser from websites you visit. Cookies have a lot of uses. They can keep your web travel history so that when you return to a website it will remember you and key your browser to pull up your login and password. They also keep a history of websites you visit and they help other websites serve you advertising based on your past browsing and purchases across the web.

Depending upon which web browser you use, Internet Explorer®, Firefox® or Chrome®, you have a lot of choices regarding the cookies you keep, or in geek-speak, retain on your computer. In my experience, it is best to set your browser to accept cookies (from the originating site only – i.e., the one you’re viewing) but I reject third-party cookies (which are usually “set” by advertisers). You have to set your own preferences and see how it affects your web-browsing enjoyment.

There’s a new type of cookie in the store though. It’s called a flash cookie or in geek-speak a “local shared object” or “LSO.” These are cookie-like data stored by Adobe® Flash Player® on your hard disk. LSOs can be put there by banks, advertisers and other web-based merchant or sales sites. They allow that site to see how long you visited and how you navigated the site. I’ve read that only the website that set the flash cookie can read it but that any website can read the “directory,” or master list, of stored flash cookies and see where you’ve been. They can then use that data to tailor advertising, special offers or perhaps even worse to you.

Unlike other cookies, which can be temporary or easily deleted when exiting your web browser, flash cookies are permanent, that is they must be specifically located and deleted. This is one reason to use the Firefox browser. There’s a Firefox add-in called “Better Privacy” that allows you to automatically delete any accumulated flash cookies each time you close or finish your browsing session. I haven’t seen a similar control for Internet Explorer yet, but I’m sure one will be created soon. Google’s Chrome browser doesn’t directly offer protection from flash cookies but, if you fish around and go to “Tools,” “Options” and then “Under the Hood,” there is a link to Adobe’s Global Privacy Settings Panel. There you have the opportunity to globally set your flash cookie storage settings for all your browsers (because Flash Player is what stores them). I’ve set mine to deny third parties but accept them from sites I visit (until Firefox deletes them – Hah!). I did notice that to keep my login to my customized Yahoo! homepage, I had to specifically put an exception into Better Privacy’s “Edit Protection List.” It’s listed now as “my.yahoo.com” and allows Yahoo! to store an LSO on my hard drive. Facebook has the same issue so I entered it as “facebook.com” in my protection list and it saves that login now. I guess two permanent LSOs are okay.

Is there a danger to LSOs or flash cookies? I can’t say for sure. I don’t go anywhere on the web I shouldn’t, but I don’t like the idea of anyone tracking how I use a website(s). There’s a joke that even paranoids have real enemies. I’ve blogged in the past how unpatched Adobe products often provide an attack vector for Internet villains. There’s a real need to keep your Adobe products updated, patched and locked down. Maybe that’s why Steve Jobs won’t allow Flash on Apple® products.

Keep on techin’ (safely),

Tom

One thought on “Tom’s Tuesday Tech Tip: Certified Legal Nurse Consultants Should Skip the Cookies – Especially if They’re Flash-Based

  1. Thank you very much for the info. You have helped me understand a lot more about computer stuff than I knew before. As an “older” nurse, I am not as well versed in computers as my kids are. Sometimes when I ask them about something I learned from you they give me weird looks as if to say, “Where did Mom learn that?”

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*The opinions and statements made by Vickie Milazzo, the founder of Medical-Legal Consulting Institute, Inc. are based on her experiences and expertise, should not be applied beyond the specific context provided, and do not guaranty or project actual results. Vickie Milazzo is no longer involved in the operations or management of the business, but is involved as an independent education consultant.

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