New Web spyware eschews cookies

By Gwendolyn Mariano, ZDNet US, 16 May, 2002 14:48

Daily Newsletters

ANALYSIS

The technology came to light when it was chosen as one of 40 technologies funded this year by the Scottish Enterprise, Scotland's economic development agency. The University of Strathclyde received the award for an undisclosed sum on Thursday. Dr. Lykourgos Petropoulakis, who is heading the 18-month research project, declined to comment on the technology, calling it "highly classified" information. Web surveillance software has drawn intense interest from consumer advocates, who fear the interactive nature of the Internet can provide unprecedented power for governments, corporations and individuals to trample people's privacy. Several monitoring systems have been developed for use by law enforcement agencies that remain cloaked in secrecy, ostensibly due to security concerns. The FBI has battled privacy groups seeking information on its DCS1000 Web monitoring technology, also known as Carnivore, which is installed on systems run by Internet service providers. The European Union, meanwhile, has lobbed espionage charges at the U.S. government and some of its allies over an alleged surveillance system known as Echelon, which incorporates satellite and undersea cable wiretaps, according to an EU investigation. "Technology like this, once it's spread around, means people can be tracked from site to site," said Lee Tien, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Whatever (the Scottish Enterprise) is doing, this is part of a long-standing practice by governments to fund the development of spying technology or, more generally, technology that facilitates law enforcement and national security." The Scottish Enterprise called the technology being developed by Petropoulakis' team a "breakthrough," outpacing any other technology on the market by allowing a more detailed profile of a Web user's activity. According to a statement, the technology traces Internet use via "sensors" rather than cookies, or bits of code that sit on computer hard drives that have long been used by Web sites to monitor people's travels on the Web. The technology can be operated on any Web server and can monitor Internet use in real time. In addition, the software can block access to sites, e-mails and documents. The Scottish Enterprise added that the technology might find legitimate uses from government, education and commercial organisations as well as Web marketers. Possible uses under consideration, it said, include monitoring of employee Web surfing in the workplace and monitoring of children's Web use by parents. The agency added, however, that it cannot be used without the explicit consent of the Web user. The Scottish Enterprise said that in conjunction with the development of the technology, appropriate safeguards will be created to prevent misuse. Details of the technology remain scarce, but some security and privacy advocates said they question its novelty. "If there's no software installed on the user's computer, then there's nothing new here in the sense that you can't track people anymore than what the Web protocols already allow you to do," said independent Internet security consultant Richard Smith. "All these technologies (such as cookies and Web bugs) have been around for a long time." A representative for the Scottish Enterprise said the University of Strathclyde was selected along with nearly 40 other recipients to receive the award, which totaled $8.78 million (6 million pounds). The Proof of Concept awards are given to projects that the Scottish Enterprise sees as being commercially viable once the research period is over. "All we do is promote ideas and try to get them onto the market for the benefit of Scottish companies and Scottish universities," said a representative for the Scottish Enterprise. "We play a facilitating role by finding good ideas and trying to commercialise them and provide money for the process."

Have your say instantly in the Tech Update forum. Find out what's where in the new Tech Update with our Guided Tour. Let the editors know what you think in the Mailroom.

Post your comment

In order to post a comment you need to be registered and logged in.

You can also log in with Facebook. Log in or create your ZDNet UK account below

By signing up for this service, you indicate that you agree to our Terms and Conditions and have read and understood our Privacy Policy. Questions about membership? Find the answers in the Community FAQ

ZDNet UK Live

I agree with the previous commenter wholeheartedly. I couldn't say it better myself. This is very 'Big Brother'. And while I agree with protecting...

14 minutes ago by UnderINK on European e-identity plan to be unveiled this month

Nice to see that Turing's idea of a general purpose computer doing once-hardware-powered tasks in software is now universal ;-) Mary

6 hours ago by Simon Bisson and Mary Branscombe on Software with everything

seriously now. I've only bothered to read a small bit of the comments. do me and the rest of the world a favour. stop saying it does not work or...

9 hours ago by Jason Burchell via Facebook on Music industry negotiating over 24-bit downloads

Read about it and weep, John Donahoe ... In addition to Visa’s V.me, there is now MasterCard’s PayPass digital wallet soon to arrive; another...

14 hours ago by Philip Charles Cohen via Facebook on PayPal takes phone-based payments to the high street

Leslie Satenstein : Where have you ever seen Mozilla even mention this? Firefox is the most popular browser in the GNU/Linux OS, so I don't see...

14 hours ago by apexwm on Firefox rapid release improves Fedora Linux

SHleG: Do you remember building a clockwork scorpion kit (I'm pretty sure I have a photo of it somewhere) — I think it was called something like...

16 hours ago by songmaster on Software with everything

Good I love Yahoo! Their search engine is getting better than Google as of late. I find more of what I want on the first page, and usually within...

17 hours ago by Chris Wortman via Facebook on Linux Mint 13 ramps up for KDE release

openhgs has made the point for Windows 8 multiple monitors without realising it! With Windows 7 you have to switch the mouse and so your focus...

18 hours ago by PatrickG on Windows 8 could speed multi-monitor uptake

Mozilla has threatened to stop supporting Linux. I guess that UBUNTU is going with another browser. I indicated that if Mozilla stops supporting...

20 hours ago by Leslie Satenstein via Facebook on Firefox rapid release improves Fedora Linux

Much as I abhor Microsoft's licensing practices, this is almost certainly down to purchasing IT equipment via 3rd party consultants - you get the...

20 hours ago by Andy Bolstridge via Facebook on 6 million wasted licences and £1,200 PCs: welcome to government IT

@openhgs Windows users have had multiple desktops since Linus started writing Linux. They just haven't shipped as standard because not enough...

2 days ago by Jack Schofield on Windows 8 could speed multi-monitor uptake

@Phil at Cloud4 What, Microsoft gets £1,200 per PC and £1,622 per server? Gosh, I'm amazed....

2 days ago by Jack Schofield on 6 million wasted licences and £1,200 PCs: welcome to government IT

You guys have no idea what is going on at Autonomy. Autonomy could have been a much more profitable organization. The sales operations at Autonomy...

2 days ago by craigsc on HP cuts 27,000 staff as Autonomy chief Lynch leaves

How does this impact on dual or multi booting? Seems to me to more or less prohibit this, from Windows 8 anyway. Will Grub 2 recognise Windows 8,...

2 days ago by Moley on Windows 8 start-up speed forces USB boot workaround

I don't understand why there cannot be a slight pause during the boot process so the user can press a key. Many operating systems do this, even if...

2 days ago by apexwm on Windows 8 start-up speed forces USB boot workaround

You can now buy the Xi3 modular computer in the UK at http://www.ocdistribution.com . This can be bought with the Tand3m software, pricing and...

2 days ago by Gavin Goodman on CES 2012: Xi3 microSERV3R

I agree: Mike Lynch can clearly build a business and manage strategy. I suspect the exit of Mike is more likely the end of a planned handover...

2 days ago by Phil at Cloud4 on HP cuts 27,000 staff as Autonomy chief Lynch leaves

This is unbeleivable government wastage with only one winner... Microsoft 1 - Tax payer Nil!

2 days ago by Phil at Cloud4 on 6 million wasted licences and £1,200 PCs: welcome to government IT

So what do you do when you can't boot into windows? Why can't I just hold Shift while I power up instead of having to boot into windows and click a...

2 days ago by Mispam on Windows 8 start-up speed forces USB boot workaround

I've also seen that Mac OS X for Intel machines is supposed to run in VirtualBox, which would also be a nice solution. I've never tried it though.

2 days ago by apexwm on xTreme Triple Booting: Linux, Mac & Windows

Featured white papers

Latest jobs

New Web spyware eschews cookies

Daily Newsletters

Related stories

Citrix to deliver Windows desktops from the cloud

Post your comment

ZDNet UK Live

Latest in IT Strategy

Citrix to deliver Windows desktops from the cloud

Featured white papers

Latest jobs

Senior Business Analyst

Technical Project Manager

Software Support Engineer

Inside ZDNet UK

Indoor navigation coming to a mobile near you soon

Software with everything

Asus Transformer Pad TF300T

How IT is ganging up on organised cybercrime

HTC One V: First take

SharePoint deployment: The final chapter

Ten IT jobs to save up for those rare lulls

News & Analysis

Reviews

Blogs

Resources

About Us

Member Services

Special Features

Advertising Features

ZDNet UK / News and Analysis / Business of IT / IT Strategy

New Web spyware eschews cookies

Daily Newsletters

Related stories

Post your comment

Get ZDNet UK's daily newsletter

Enter your email address to sign up

ZDNet UK Live

Latest in IT Strategy

Featured white papers

Latest jobs

Inside ZDNet UK

Resources

About Us

Member Services

Special Features

Advertising Features