Banning of Members

[Prairiefreak]

Cookies are a small file that a browser writes to the disc at the request of a website, storing data that tracks something that you are doing...they can record the sites you have visited, or the data you have entered on that website, etc.

[havalotta]

So cookies are people watching your moves?
Can they get your passwords to enter into anything you can?

[Sage]

Since you are speaking of cyber-stuff, it brought to mind an incident from 8-10 years ago. Buffalo has a large sporting goods store, "Dick's", which by now may be in your area too. Their sign reads,

Dick's
Sporting Goods

In a moment of naivete' while searching for sneakers, from my home computer I entered into the url space, their name (withOUT the Sporting Goods) dot com.

Warning!!! Do not try this at home! Immediately my monitor was totally covered from edge to edge with a patchwork of raw porn sites which kept changing but refused to let me "X" out of the pages!

Eventually I got it stopped. Then I went into the tools/options and deleted all the cookies from that time frame; rebooted and checked again to make sure all traces I could delete were gone from history, cookies, etc.

To get their online store, you had to type dickssportinggoods(dot)com! Who would know!

Now I'm thinking, these "Dick's" are everywhere now and kids are a huge segment of the sports equipment and clothing market who might be trying to get Dick's online. If they type in Dicks(dot)com -

[Fearless Weeder]

Cookies

Web Browser Cookies

Wildlife Gardeners uses them when you login. This way when you go from page to page you don't need to continually login.

[hazelnut]

Sage: I delete cookies by going to tools/internet options at least twice a day.
Wildlifegardeners deletes its own cookies when you log out. Very nice.

[Sage]

Having a cable connection, I never log out except from bank sites, but I always used to delete my cookies daily too. Firefox I think is set up to do it automatically, like Safari. My son now has me using Secunia.

[Equilibrium]

I see what astroturfing is. Makes sense to me. Sage> that's happened to me before too. Dick's sporting goods must be a chain. We've got one and they sell all sporting goods... not just wrestling and soccer stuff. If you get stuck... just pull up your task manager and kill them. I'll check out your Secunia site. milkweed> This is one of the sites I read at and they pegged trolls pretty good, Happy Atheist Forum • View topic - Trolling 101 This is a stitch if you're in for a laugh, How To Behave On An Internet Forum (Technology & Cars: Internet: Useful Tips) It's a video on trolls from that site.

[Sage]

Oh, Lib, gotta check these out later when I come back, esp. Happy Atheist!

[hazelnut]

From the Happy Athiest: trolls are getting labels.

a copypasta troll.

[TheLorax]

Trojans are destructive programs that masquerade as legitimate programs. We unwittingly upload them because we are led to believe they are harmless. Here is a brief explanation-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_horse_(computing)

There many different types of trojans. I located a list that may be helpful understanding what they are and the damage they can do-

• Remote Access Trojans
• Data Sending Trojans
• Destructive Trojans
• Proxy Trojans
• FTP Trojans
• security software disabler Trojans
• denial-of-service attack (DoS) Trojans

Also see The Difference Between a Virus, Worm and Trojan Horse