Look Behind Your Webpage
Published in
3 min readJun 27, 2018
- Cookie Syncing — is just a fancy way of saying your identity is being sold. The different trackers are playing a matching game between all the User ID’s they have captured. Upon matching User ID’s, your identity is decoded. The most common practice for cookie syncing is to allow real-time bidding between companies to purchase your User ID.
- Respawning — is the process of recreating browser cookies from information that has been deleted.
- Flash Cookies — are pieces of information, provided by Adobe Flash, that are stored onto your computer to support flash applications. The problem, companies are using Flash to save the continuing flow of information on your computer in data files.
- 3rd Parties — These are small scripts placed on the hard drive of your computer by the server of a website that you visit. The cookie is placed there for the purpose of recognizing your specific browser. All cookies have an owner, the owner is the domain name specified in the cookie. If you visit 123.com and you see a cookie that reads adsplus.com then this is a 3rd party.
- Trackers — When you visit websites, they transfer tracker files to your computer in order to gather data about you. The trackers use technology to monitor your keystrokes, searches & shopping habits, adding this data to your profile.
- First Party Cookies — are small pieces of data stored on your browser by the website you are actively visiting. These cookies are needed in order for the web page to work correctly.
- Evercookies — are cookies that just won’t go away, they are there for”ever”! These persistent cookies are stored in your browser and resist deletion by copying themselves. The Evercookie takes your data and saves it in several storage locations on your browser. They can be recovered, re-established, & reused.
- Web Bugs (a.k.a. Web Beacons) — are teensy tiny objects embedded into web pages that you visit. They monitor your behavior by tracking your time & activity on websites, the IP address of your computer & the type of browser used to access the websites.
- Canvas Fingerprinting — is generated from your browser’s distinct profile; it’s screen resolution, language, installed plug-ins, fonts & actual browser type. The fingerprint is used to create a user profile generated by browsing activity.
- Digital Footprint — The digital footprint is the data that is left behind by users on digital services. There are two main classifications for digital footprints: passive and active. A passive digital footprint is created when data is collected without the owner knowing. An active digital footprint is created when personal data is released deliberately by a user for the purpose of sharing information about oneself by means of websites or social media.
- Malware, the malicious, badware, software nobody wants. — This software is used to disrupt a user’s computer operating system. It steals information and spies on unknowing computer users for an extended period of time and sometimes redirects their browser traffic to malicious websites. Anti-virus, anti-malware, and firewalls are used to protect against activity identified as malicious. Malware can be embedded in harmless programs or downloaded covertly from websites.
