Eideard

A legal challenge has been launched in the US against a number of websites amid claims that they were engaged in “covert surveillance” of users. The lawsuit alleges that a number of firms, including Hulu, MTV, and Myspace, used a Quantcast Flash application to restore deleted cookies…

The lawsuit says that the application was creating so-called “zombie cookies” from deleted files.

Quantcast has not responded to a BBC News request for comment.

The term “zombie cookie” was coined after the issue of traditional browser cookies being undeleted by Flash was brought to light in a 2009 paper by US researchers.

The study found that more than half of sites surveyed used flash cookies to store information about the user, with some using it to “respawn or re-instantiate cookies deleted by the user”…

However, while most browsers have simple commands to delete text cookies, Flash cookies are neither listed nor controlled by the browser…

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at the internet security firm Sophos, told BBC News that the source of the trouble was Adobe Flash itself, which he called “one of the weirdest programs on the planet”.

“I think it’s highly unlikely that these large companies have abused Flash cookies – which are different from browser cookies – with malicious intent,” he said. “I think it’s much more likely that the vast majority of users are simply oblivious to the bizarre way in which Adobe allows them to configure the software…”

The security settings for Flash are hosted on Adobe’s own website, rather than your own computer. …These settings are changed by logging onto Adobe’s website, right-clicking on a Flash object and selecting “Global Settings” and then adjusting the security settings via the “Global Privacy Settings” panel.

Golly gosh. Seems thoughtful and easy to me. I can come up with a spare hour or two – just to diddle with Flash cookie settings over at Adobe’s website. Every day!

UPDATE: Predictably, Adobe is a royal PITA. I went to the adobe.com website and logged-in. Fortunately, I’m still registered there from days of yore.

I have no idea – yet – whether this worked; but, it just moves me one-click closer to the Steve Jobs camp on “Flash is useless crap”.

Microsoft Corp joined archrival Apple Inc in criticizing Adobe Systems Inc’s widely used Flash multimedia software, creating a rare bond among the two computing giants.

Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs sharply criticized Flash, which is used to produce videos and games for many Internet sites on Thursday. Apple has banned Flash from its iPhone and iPad.

A Microsoft executive pitched in later that day, saying while the ubiquity of Flash makes it easy for consumers to access video on the web, the standard has flaws.

“Flash does have some issues, particularly around reliability, security and performance,” said Dean Hachamovitch, general manager for the Internet Explorer browser.

He said that Microsoft is backing the same protocols for delivering multimedia content over the Web that Apple is promoting, a group of standards known as HTML5.

But Microsoft was more conciliatory toward Adobe than Apple, saying it works closely with Flash engineers to help fix bugs that it finds in the product.

Steve Jobs, by comparison, said in his open letter that it is time for the industry to move beyond Flash.

Which is what Microsoft said when it became time to move beyond DOS. When a “standard” not only doesn’t progress; but, holds back development of improved standards and protocols – it’s time to move on.

Cripes, I’m sitting here constructing this Post with a browser that has a plug-in to block Flash. I ain’t exactly alone.

That sure was quick: It appears that Adobe has thrown in the towel on further investment in their iPhone-specific Flash developer tools, before they’re even released.

According to Engadget, Adobe’s Flash Packager for iPhone — which converts Flash applications into iPhone ones using something out of the black arts (we suspect) — has had a screeching halt in its development cycle and the company won’t be throwing further financial resources at the project.

As you’ll recall, one of the new developer rules in the iPhone OS 4.0 SDK forbids the use of code written with non-approved tools — which certainly includes the bad magic that Adobe hoped to unleash to its Flash developers to help them port their Flash apps over to the iPhone OS.

Rather than fight a losing battle with Apple, Adobe has effectively waved the white flag in surrender. Principal Product Manager Mike Chambers announced that, while the Flash Packager for iPhone will still ship as part of next month’s Creative Suite 5 as planned, they won’t continue to throw money down a black hole by developing it any further.

They could always return to programming media tools for DOS. Or CP/M.

Let’s not jump to any conclusions. Maybe they just want to redecorate the Cupertino campus, and they thought covering the walls in 8Gb (gigabit, not byte) flash chips would be original and visually appealing.

Actually, that’s probably the last possible reason Apple recently placed a massive order for 100 million 8Gb chips from their suppliers, most of which will come from Samsung, according to DigiTimes, the source of the report. Yes, that is a lot of chips, and apparently the whole industry will feel the strain as the NAND flash supply will be pretty tight up until the end of May, thanks to fairly large orders by Sony and Nokia, in addition to Apple.

In case you didn’t guess, Apple is most likely going to be using the new chips for the new iPhone that’s been all but confirmed as due this June in time for WWDC ‘09. The tiny chips can be combined by Apple into larger configurations of 16GB and 32GB sizes, which is what most are expecting from the new iPhone models. For those still skeptical about the new iPhone’s imminent launch, the same thing happened last year around this time before the release of the iPhone 3G, except that time the order was only half the size. Which doesn’t mean Apple is planning on producing double the launch units, but that those units will almost definitely have double the storage capacity.

No one on the frugal side of the family is considering an iPhone until they get down to that $99 price point. Still – though smartphones are the strongest portion of the cellular market right now – that’s a lot of confidence on Apple’s part.

This week, after Flash-founders Jonathan Gay and Robert Tatsumi have spent more than a year working on their software for home energy management, Greenbox says it has scored a pilot deal with Oklahoma Gas and Electric to test its software with a portion of the utility’s customers using smart meters…

Electricity bills have long been murky data sheets, so you may not realize how much you don’t know about your own energy consumption. Even cell phone bills, with various minute plans, give you more options and insight into how you’re spending. Using Greenbox, customers can see their electricity usage, track it against time-of-day pricing, receive news and alerts about major changes in power and pricing, and receive overall usage reports that point out trends in their behavior.

Another good way to convince customers to cut energy use is through dynamic pricing. Some utilities have started to implement time-of-day pricing, so power costs are significantly higher during times when demand is highest (typically about 2pm to 7pm) than during the early hours or at night. Networked smart meters pick up the dynamic pricing and send it to the energy management interface. In the Oklahoma trial a smart-grid network maintained by startup Silver Springs picks up the pricing every 15 minutes and sends it to Greenbox’s database, then to web interfaces for both the customer and the utility.

The level of detail potentially available to consumers should prove useful. Nowadays, people are hurting enough to reflect upon ways they’re wasting money. The number of miles covered by American drivers has been diminishing steadily in proportion to the increasing gasoline prices.

That doesn’t mean people will stay sharp and consistent. Foolishness is always an easy decision when we get to spend a couple of months with declining prices. But, hopefully, good sense will stick in the brains of a few.

Computer security firms are warning about an attack that hijacks the clipboard where copied text is stored.

The attack puts a hard-to-delete weblink into the clipboard that, if followed, leads people to a website selling fake security software.

The code that inserts the link has been found in flash-based adverts seen on many legitimate websites. The attack on the clipboard has hit both Windows and Mac users of the Firefox web browser.

It seems to work by exploiting Adobe Flash files used to make display adverts in such a way as to endlessly flush the clipboard of other text and constantly re-insert the malicious link in its place.

Getting rid of the link has proved problematic. Some report resorting to re-booting their machine to free themselves of it but others stopped it by killing the Firefox process thread.

Sounds especially dangerous for diarist bloggers. Like me. Though I haven’t run into it, yet.

I do most of my searching, cutting and pasting, using Safari. But, I review the blogs I edit/write for – using Firefox as a matter of course to check on technical readability.