Daniel Brandt – he of Google watching and Wikipedia fiddling fame – discovered a pair of cookies lurking on the NSA’s (National Security Agency) website. The cookies were set to expire in 2035 and could be used to track your online activity. That’s a big no-no under federal rules that forbid the use of most persistent cookies.

The NSA removed the cookies after Brandt brought the issue to the agency’s attention and after the AP started asking questions.

“After being tipped to the issue, we immediately disabled the cookies,” NSA spokesman Don Weber, told the news service.

Government agencies can use cookies of the non-persistent variety but are discouraged from keeping an ongoing watch on citizens.

The NSA? Cookies?

We know, we know. You’re shocked.

No comment.



  1. Incognito says:

    Well surely anyone who wants to see this website must be a terrorist.

    Quick que the “What rights are being violated” people to come in and clean this up by making a bigger mess and comparing you to (Insert dictator’s name here)

  2. Since I’ve been cued, rights aren’t being violated here, not legally anyway. It’s just a cookie and the government wouldn’t be violating my rights any more than dvorak.org did with its three cookies. Even if it were the more malicious tracking cookie, it’s still not a big deal. What’s bad is that they were violating their own policies, which aren’t so much law as good faith and ethical policies. But this is the web, where almost no government sites follow their own policies. Their cookie policy is only one. How many government sites can honestly say they follow the section 508 accessibility guidelines?

    Also, I think the technology really should be separated from what it is used for. Does anybody really have a problem with cookies being stored so that you can remain logged into something? Also, every person on the internet can disable or set to prompt for cookies if they don’t suite their tastes.

  3. Incognito says:

    That’s an awesome follow up.

    Cookies for you 🙂

    Cheers

  4. Awake says:

    Come on… the government is spying on us by using cookies????
    Gimme a break.
    This blog is supposed to be run by a gearhead that can tell truth from fantasy in the technical arena.
    Claiming this is anything like spying or persistent watching is ridiculous.
    If the NSA had secretly placed a keylogger or something similar when we visited specific sites, then there would be reason for this to be even posted as news.
    This blog site is getting really dumb, with almost nothing of real value being posted as news.

  5. John Wofford says:

    Is some one having a bad day? If this blog, site or whatever is so damned dumb then why are you even here? I like the place myself, although the word dumb has been used by uneducated slobs describing my personality and approach to life/problem solving.

  6. Eideard says:

    Awake — really is a misnomer, today. Please go back and read the article. I thought it was so obviously tongue-in-cheek that I felt No Comment was needed.

    We’re not joking when we state — as we often have — that DU participants are ahead of the curve in tech understanding and [sometimes] sophistication. Are you trying to prove us wrong?

  7. T.C. Moore says:

    I think we need a category called “The media don’t get it” or “Eyes a rollin'”, because it wasn’t clear to me that that’s what you were getting at, Eideard.

    So many people are paranoid about cookies, and so few know how they really work and what they are legitimately and illegitimately used for, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume you were serious. Even on a techy website. Ignorance runs deep.

    Before your clarifying statement, I was agreeing with Awake. In fact I still am, because “The media is not tech savvy” is not news.

    On the other hand, if you’d said “Bush Administration wiretapping backfires. Prompts incompetent, malicious scrutiny of NSA.” that would be something to talk about. I say “incompetent” for the media, and “malicious” because obviously Daniel Brandt knows this isn’t a big deal. He’s just playing Gotcha with silly government policies.

  8. Eideard says:

    T.C., I’m always being teased for being too accepting of irony and satire. I don’t dare read The Onion too often. Yet, even I figured out the author of this piece in The Register considered the incident nothing more than a hiccup.

    One of the reasons I even posted it was the possibility of an additional chuckle over the cookies’ lifespan targetting 30 years. Thirty Years? Thirty Years! Some silly programmer must have stuck that in as default. Know anyone planning on using the same computer for the next 30 years?

    On the other hand, your perception of “the media is not tech savvy” has been reinforced by the reception of this absurd bit of news — at least on a number of network TV shows. The AP has a straight piece about it that’s being picked up by editors who never learned to use a Wang word processor very well. The tale has moved on to cookies tracking whether a visitor to the White House website is new or returning. I can see this becoming an urban legend. Of course, that might just be because folks don’t trust governments, politicians and journalists.

  9. Superman says:

    Conspiracy theorists always believe that the goverment is so capable and efficient and anything it does must have some sinister motive. Some dumbass was probably told to update the web server and left some setting on default that he shouldn’t have. Give me a break.

  10. Pat says:

    WOW !!!

    At first I was thinking why would they leave the cookie active for 30 years? Then, while reading T.C.s post I find there is actually a Bush wiretapping that backfired !!! Gosh, I have to read DU more often to keep up with the news. What next ???

    The government has policies?

  11. Eideard says:

    This morning’s chuckle about this non-event has to have Micro$oft pissed. I just noticed that MSNBC has their resident geek, Dan Seeberg, explaining what cookies are, etc..

    He’s using Firefox on his own laptop for the demo.


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