Re: Web Beacons
Re: Web Beacons
- Subject: Re: Web Beacons
- From: "John C. Welch" <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 05 Mar 2012 00:33:30 -0500
- Thread-topic: Web Beacons
Chris, Thanks for responding to my question.
I am not sure that static analysis of an incoming html message for urls can unambiguously reveal web bug servers. You might assume a server that is different from all other servers in the message is web bug server, but that is chancy. On the other hand responding to that url in order to prove it is a web bug is tantamount to loading image files of the original message! The ideal solution, to prevent snooping web bugs from invading your privacy, would be to detect them, erase them, then load image files. Perhaps and active approach is required. An applescript-able, open source, browser could be used to ping, so to speak, candidate urls and analyze what they send back?? :-)
Well, the problem is, what's the difference between a beacon and some other kind of linked image? The answer is, "not very much". There are a FEW things you can check, like if they tell you the size is 1x1px, that's probably a beacon. But that's not needed at all, and so you're stuck with "what makes THIS linked image bad and all the others good"? As it turns out the difference is largely academic, and even URL analysis won't tell you everything.
Is it possible? Probably. Will it ever be worth the effort? Highly doubtful.
-- "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
Dwight D. Eisenhower, April 16, 1953 |
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