ChrisNeuendorf.com

I am having a damn good laugh today. It is so funny watching some media outlets and some left wing nuts show their utter lack of technical knowledge about the story that the National Security Agency (NSA) was placing persistent cookies onto visitor’s computers.

The “outrage” from this discovery.. (which by the way, was an accident… the NSA had a contractor update some web software, which by default, turned on these cookies. As soon as the NSA was told that this was there, they shut it off.) .. is totally comical, for a few reasons.

(1) These were ‘single-site’ cookies. What a ‘single-site’ cookie does is just track your surfing habits when you visit the site that assigned the cookie. I.E. the NSA cookie only tracks where I go on the NSA site. (Which is pretty worthless because the actual web server logs keep the same data.)

So.. when you go to amazon.com you get an amazon cookie and if you check out prices of MP3 players and other electronics a lot, that amazon cookie on your computer records that so the next time you visit amazon.com you will be presented with ads about mp3 players and other electronics. Pretty damn harmless.

(2) If you are so damn worried about your privacy and cookies, guess what? You can turn off cookies in your browser. But do you know what? All those sites you go to that keeps your user id and password stored and crap? Most of the time that will be gonezo. Maybe you don’t care.. who knows.

(3) To quote the NY Times headline “Spy Agency Removes Illegal Tracking Files” Illegal Tracking Files??? HA, good one. There is nothing illegal about what they did. I got this via Bill @ Spitting in the Wind.

The “ban” on cookies is only for persistent cookies; and was promulgated by the Office of Management and Budget back in 2000.

The ban was placed after a similar uproar when an site commissioned by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (Drug Czar) placed persistent cookies on users’ PCs. OMB reacted by banning the use of persistent cookies unless the head of the agency (read: Cabinet Secretary) personally approved them, and strongly discouraged the use of session cookies (which disappear when your browser session ends).

The cookies placed by the White House site are planted by the site’s use of WebTrends software to measure usage of the site. WebTrends is pretty much the “state of the art” in terms of measuring individual site usage. As such, it seems to be a valid use of a cookie to me at least. Working, as I do, with government web pages, its difficult to do my job properly if I can’t get valid results on how many people use our site. I’m sure the same holds true for the White House.

(4) I got this from Captain’s Quarters Blog Here is a list of some of the top media outlets.. and guess what?? They are putting cookies on your machine as well!!! The horror!!!!

Cookie ………………………………………………….. Expires

ads.guardian.co.uk ………………………………… 12/30/2037
ads.telegraph.co.uk ……………………………….. 12/30/2037
adserver.tribuneinteractive.com ………………. 12/30/2037
adsremote.scripps.com ………………………….. 12/30/2037
ap.org ………………………………………………….. 09/23/2021
bbc.co.uk ……………………………………………… 11/21/2009
cnn.com ……………………………………………….. 05/27/2010
foxnews.com ……………………………………….. 12/31/2010
gannettnetwork.com ……………………………… 12/31/2010
latimes.com ………………………………………….. 12/15/2010
msnbc.msn.com ……………………………………. 11/04/2021
nytimes.com ………………………………… 10/06/2021
usatoday.com ………………………………………. 12/31/2025
washingtontimes.com ……………………………. 01/17/2038

Also, the DNC was doing the same thing until a day or two ago. Howard Dean knows where you surf!!! YeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeHawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

Castaway: the price of abusing cabin crew

Went to Pepper’s tonight in Cedar Falls for a going away party for my buddy Pat Bush. He is a Waterloo cop who is also in the National Guard and was called up to serve in Iraq. He has been in Mississippi the last few months getting ready and on Jan. 2nd he will head back down south for a few months and in March will go to Iraq.

Unless things change, he will be over there for 1 year.

I wish Pat the best of luck and to come home safe!

My buddy Brian stopped by last night with his girlfriend Kelly. Brian and I graduated from Tripoli together. He is one of my best buds and probably one of, if not the, nicest dude I know. This was the first time I met Kelly, and if the preliminary indication holds up.. she seems very nice as well. It seems to be a very good match. We told her some of the embarrassing stories from his past… I have more, but will need to save them for a future time.

Stupid Asian ladybirds…. They are all over the States and it seems they are attacking the Brits..

Click here!

A good read.

The view from on the ground.

P.S. Bears beat Packers to clinch NFC Central and 1st round bye.

Quote of the day from the Futurama XMas episode!! Merry XMAS!!

Santa: You’ve been very naughty, Fry and Leela. I checked my list.
Fry: Well, check it twice!
Santa: I perform over 20 megachecks per second! You’re both naughty for disregarding each other’s feelings.
Leela: But we set things right! Fry even risked his life to get me a present!
Santa: But what about your other co-workers? Did either of you ever stop to think about Dr. Zoidberg’s feelings?
Fry: No! I swear!

Ok, I know I am few days late, but I got the pictures from my Chattanooga trip to watch the Panthers take on Appy State.

A few things…

(1) I’m real lazy…
(2) Wounds already did a good job of writing about the trip..

so…

Visit his post to read about the trip..
http://woundswithwood.blogspot.com/2005/12/panthers-lost.html

BUT….

Visit http://www.chrisneuendorf.com/chattanooga/ to view my photos..

For a long time I have tried to find a good three column template.. I think I have one.. I’ve spent the last few nights tweaking it.. Not done yet… but I decided to put it into production to see how it looks… Let me know if you have any problems viewing it.

It’s also my intention to move my blog from blog.chrisneuendorf.com to just plain old www.chrisneuendorf.com. I’ll give ya’ll plenty of notice and will have my old address redirect. With a good 3 column template I can put more crap on the side bars and can make this my main page.

Click below…

She dances better then her Dad.