Scary NSA Story Of The Day: A Cookie Controversy

NEW YORK - The National Security Agency's Internet site has been placing files on visitors' computers that can track their Web surfing activity despite strict federal rules banning most of them.

These files, known as "cookies," disappeared after a privacy activist complained and The Associated Press made inquiries this week, and agency officials acknowledged Wednesday they had made a mistake. Nonetheless, the issue raises questions about privacy at a spy agency already on the defensive amid reports of a secretive eavesdropping program in the United States.

"Considering the surveillance power the NSA has, cookies are not exactly a major concern," said Ari Schwartz, associate director at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a privacy advocacy group in Washington, D.C. "But it does show a general lack of understanding about privacy rules when they are not even following the government's very basic rules for Web privacy."

Until Tuesday, the NSA site created two cookie files that do not expire until 2035 — likely beyond the life of any computer in use today.

Alarming!

Here's the NSA's explanation for what happened:

Don Weber, an NSA spokesman, said in a statement Wednesday that the cookie use resulted from a recent software upgrade. Normally, the site uses temporary, permissible cookies that are automatically deleted when users close their Web browsers, he said, but the software in use shipped with persistent cookies already on.

"After being tipped to the issue, we immediately disabled the cookies," he said.

Cookies are widely used at commercial Web sites and can make Internet browsing more convenient by letting sites remember user preferences. For instance, visitors would not have to repeatedly enter passwords at sites that require them.

But privacy advocates complain that cookies can also track Web surfing, even if no personal information is actually collected.

I'm inclined to believe the NSA on this one, and here's why:

First of all, go read the entire article. Notice something missing? Like maybe some evidence suggesting that the cookies put on user computers by the NSA website actually tracked where people were going on the internet? There is a suggestion here that these cookies could have done that, but nothing telling us that they did do that. It would be kind of nice to know, wouldn't it?

You'd think that the Associated Press could have dug up an expert to tell us one way or another. Kind of funny how they didn't, isn't it? I mean, if these cookies never delete then surely somebody must still have one on their computer. A quick analysis by an expert could tell us one way or another, but instead the reporter responsible for this article chose to leave that question unanswered while suggesting, through innuendo, that the cookies were tracking what pages users visited.

The other reason why I'm not buying into this is because the idea that the NSA is tracking the webpages people visit via cookies downloaded openly to their computers from the NSA's official website is just plain silly. Think about it. If the NSA wanted to track which websites you were visiting why on earth would they do it with a cookie that can be detected by anyone with even a modicum of computer knowledge? And why would they distribute the cookie from their own website? Not only is obvious it wouldn't be at all effective.

After all, how many people visit the NSA website in a given day? And what percentage of overall internet users do these people make up? Not very many, I'd say. And how likely is it that anyone the NSA would wish to track would visit the NSA's website and be so dense as to miss the cookie that just got downloaded onto their machine?

To me this story smacks of yellow journalism. A non-story beefed up with innuendo and half-truths aimed at ginning up outrage. Did the NSA break the cookie guidelines? That seems obvious. Was it a nefarious scheme to track the web habits of Americans? That seems pretty laughable. But no doubt this will be picked up by the usual cadre of lefty demagogues and thrashed about as another evil Bush administration tactic.

You can read more from Rob Port at SayAnythingBlog.com