Honeypots mailing list archives
Re: How do web beacons work?
From: Michal Zalewski <lcamtuf () coredump cx>
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 17:54:54 +0100 (CET)
On Thu, 6 Jan 2005, Lance Spitzner wrote:
Okay, what exactly is a web beacon?
Looks like an euphemism made up by PR drones. It appears to be a classic privacy-invading web bug. Kudos to them; the word "beacon" sounds great - so reassuring and harmless; and so similar to another great word, "bacon". Yahoo! describes two uses of this web bacon thingy: 1) Web bug in a HTML mail - when the file is requested, it would appear that you just opened (and read) a mail we sent you earlier. Can be used to verify addresses used for spamming, or just shamelessly track users. You know, as in: <IMG SRC="http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/lance_just_read_this_mail.jpg" HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1> 2) Third-party domain bug (or banner or whatnot) on a HTML page. A banner from the same supplier placed on various sites can be used, through cookies, to track your activity across domains (checking Referer or unique names in banner URI). See http://www.allaboutcookies.org/faqs/beacons.html and so on. -- ------------------------- bash$ :(){ :|:&};: -- Michal Zalewski * [http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx] Did you know that clones never use mirrors? --------------------------- 2005-01-06 17:41 -- http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/photo/current/
Current thread:
- How do web beacons work? Lance Spitzner (Jan 06)
- Re: How do web beacons work? Thorsten Holz (Jan 06)
- Re: How do web beacons work? William Salusky (Jan 06)
- Re: How do web beacons work? MrDemeanour (Jan 06)
- Re: How do web beacons work? Michal Zalewski (Jan 06)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- RE: How do web beacons work? Bill Ward (Jan 06)
- RE: How do web beacons work? Bill Ward (Jan 07)