Re: (Fwd) AOL users Beware!

Lee Daniel Crocker (lcrocker@mercury.colossus.net)
Wed, 22 Oct 1997 00:18:24 -0700 (PDT)


> This message is being circulated throughout the Internet, and I don't
> know where it originated, although it came with attachments coded in
> html. Can anyone render an opinion as to its possible veracity? Can
> cookies possibly be constructed to operate in this fashion?

This has all the usual markings of a fraud, so I see little reason
to take it seriously. But to be honest, there's no reason that AOL
couldn't design their software to do anything they wanted--after all,
the user downloads a native-code browser, so there's no way he can
limit what it does. The use of the term "cookies" here is an
obvious attempt to sound technical and play on paranoia about that
harmless feature of standard browsers. Nothing in the rest of this
message bears any relation to them; what they are describing is called
a "back door", and while they certainly could do it, getting caught
at it would probably ruin a multi-billion dollar company, and even
Steve Case isn't that stupid.

Call it a hoax until they show some proof, like a code offset. Until
then, I assume someone just wants to piss off AOL by starting a rumor.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC