Interweb Savvy Help Please

[Vinny]

So I need to make a bunch of interweb submissions that appear to come from different sources. Nothing shady or anything, just need to help out a friend's new store. I know that the site tracks the IP addresses (and potentially mac addresses?? Don't know if this is really possible.) that submissions are made from and eliminates repeat submissions. So can I use a proxy or something to do this all from the same computer and internet connection?

Please help, sorry about the whole rehab thing...

[Zekyl]

Worth a shot. Don't know if this will work or not. You should be able to use a proxy, as well.

[UxKa]

Keep in mind they might track cookies too, so you would have to delete the site cookie each team as well as change your IP. We track cookies, and can tell if you're just changing IPs.

[Uncle Mxy]

I'd start with Tor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_(anonymity_network)

Beyond IP address, there may be things like cookies, Flash LSOs, Silverlight Isolated Storage, etc. that the site may use to track state, especially if a lot of people have acted along the same lines as you to pimp some new store.

[Vinny]

Thanks guys, much obliged.

[geerussell]

An easy way to take care of the cookies issue is to use the incognito feature in the chrome browser. For incognito windows, all browser temporary stuff--cookies, cache, etc--is created and stored in ram and then goes poof when the window is closed. No trace of anything that came before and nothing leftover after.

[Uncle Mxy]

An easy way to take care of the cookies issue is to use the incognito feature in the chrome browser. For incognito windows, all browser temporary stuff--cookies, cache, etc--is created and stored in ram and then goes poof when the window is closed. No trace of anything that came before and nothing leftover after.

It doesn't really work with Flash LSOs (which Google itself uses for tracking, along with classic cookies). Basically, all Chrome can do is advise Flash that it's in "incognito mode" and the Flash plugin actually has to act upon that. Of course, the Chrome people call this "fixed":

http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=158

The simple solution is to disable Flash, but that assumes that the site(s) Vinny submits to don't turn out to need Flash to actually function. That's increasingly true these days. <sigh>

Unfortunately, there's other emerging frameworks that exist beyond the browser instance -- Microsoft Silverlight, Google Gears (part and parcel of Chrome), etc. Most people think of "plugins" as plugging some bit of functionality _into_ your browser. But, it can be the case that you're plugging your browser _into_ some other piece of crap that doesn't give a crap about your privacy.

From a long-term perspective, nothing will get solved soon. Standards like HTML5 are supposed to reduce the need for third-party plugins like Flash. But, those standard also involve caching "state" on the client in ways that Flash and traditional web cookies only wish they could.

[Fool]

Which rehab facility, I mean "store," are you pimping Vinny?

[geerussell]

It doesn't really work with Flash LSOs (which Google itself uses for tracking, along with classic cookies). Basically, all Chrome can do is advise Flash that it's in "incognito mode" and the Flash plugin actually has to act upon that. Of course, the Chrome people call this "fixed":

http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=158

The simple solution is to disable Flash, but that assumes that the site(s) Vinny submits to don't turn out to need Flash to actually function. That's increasingly true these days. <sigh>

Unfortunately, there's other emerging frameworks that exist beyond the browser instance -- Microsoft Silverlight, Google Gears (part and parcel of Chrome), etc. Most people think of "plugins" as plugging some bit of functionality _into_ your browser. But, it can be the case that you're plugging your browser _into_ some other piece of crap that doesn't give a crap about your privacy.

From a long-term perspective, nothing will get solved soon. Standards like HTML5 are supposed to reduce the need for third-party plugins like Flash. But, those standard also involve caching "state" on the client in ways that Flash and traditional web cookies only wish they could.

Good info in that link. One of the posts talked about the flash settings page, which I'd never bothered to find, where you can set whether flash will allow things like flash cookies, cam and mic access, updates, etc. This isn't a browser specific thing or even a local control panel, but rather a webpage for changing flash settings.

http://www.macromedia.com/support/do...manager02.html

[UxKa]

As Mxy said, incognito modes aren't a sure thing.


Have many new accounts been popping up on WTF lately?