Whoaaa, MS spying on IE users?

Hobbes

http://www.****windows.com/content/ms-hidden-files.shtml#1

I've checked my machine and there is clearly stuff there well beyond when I cleaned it.

Hobbes

appears they aren't kidding about the history file either. I can even see what files I have opened.

Victor

For those that can't see around the censor
http://www.fu*kwindows.com/content/ms-hidden-files.shtml#1
http://www.f*ckwindows.com/content/ms-hidden-files.shtml#1

Hmmm, worrisome, but don't go deleting everything just yet.

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Kill, kill, kill the laser mice.

[This message has been edited by Victor (edited 10-08-2001).]

K!LL!@N

Well i found about the outlook stuff about a year ago. A mate in work showed me the files. There was a list of all the programs installed on his C: drive aswell as the emails. I've been using Eudora ever since.
I think it's really underhanded of them to do stuff like this, but i won't be rushing to delete everything from my comp.
I wonder is this mentioned in the license agreement of the software. There's probably something in there about Bill owning the souls of all users once they agree to the license.

dahamsta

Horsefeathers the lot of it. So Windows stores your email and visited sites in hidden files, so what? Unless it's being transmitted over the network without your persmission, or you're stupid enough to let someone access your machine without your permission, who cares? It's pathetic, and smacks of "the cookies contoversy". If you don't like the way Windows acts in this instace, uninstall it, get the source of OpenBSD, do a code audit on it to make sure it's not doing anything behind your back, and compile and install if yourself.

I hate this kind of panicky, outraged conspiracy theorist rubbish, and I'm a bloody conspiracy theorist!

adam

Hobbes

The point is that if you click on Delete history/cache this file still exists.

It looks like some kind of database which isn't being cleaned when it deletes records. So technically it is kind of a security problem.

ConUladh

This is old news really, how many MS apps do you know that don't leave a load of ****e behind them, I have a batch file running on startup that gets rid of most of this cr@p. Idf nothing else it can start digging into your disk space

chernobyl

but Ms are not retrieving these file from your computer, it would be stupid to do so, so im ok with a hidden files being creted within my history, i thought that was old news anyways??

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Ashley Lyn

Ashley Lyn Cafagna

Illkillya

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by dahamsta:
Horsefeathers the lot of it. So Windows stores your email and visited sites in hidden files, so what? Unless it's being transmitted over the network without your persmission, or you're stupid enough to let someone access your machine without your permission, who cares? </font>

i had to do a full virus scan in a hurry on a slow old comp at work here. i deleted temp internet files from internet options, but there was still a load in a folder that wasn't visible called content.ie5
this is probably something different, but its files i can't see from explorer or dos even when "show all files" is ticked.
it was annoying because i wanted to delete all the files before i did the scan, to speed it up, but it spent ages going through all these files that i didn't even want on the computer.



[This message has been edited by Illkillya (edited 14-08-2001).]

Illkillya

when i went to the folder "c:\windows\temporary internet files\content.ie5\" directly and deleted all the stuff, i thought it was done, but then theres also a load of invisible sub directories same as there are in the temp internet files folder, like XSCCPQERY

Pragmatica

Why dont you just use Evidence Eliminaotor (EE) or The Evidence Eliminator Eliminator (E3) or Windows Wahser or Cyberscrub etc ... most of the proggys do the same things ...

There pritty much no point looking @ the files in windows because they isnt actually physical folders .. duh .. it create from a .htt overlay ...

Juat delete the index.dat file from dos if your worried ... btw there are many other places in the os wher data is stored and dahamsta is right for the most part ... the files although maybe a risk security wise if somebody else uses your computer they dont necessarily do anything ...

if you dont want to delete the file you can use a program called cachesendry that will delete leeaked files and url from the cache leaving only vaild files and url's that should be in the cache ...

Look if you visit www.dummysite.com ... the download files are cached and so are the url's ... Ie doesnt delet file's in a specified order (everwonder why you visit a site 5 minuets later and it hasnt been cached ?) that because IE deletes cahced items before the cache limit is reached but it just doesnt delete on a first in first out (fifo) basis and ocationnal file will be missed placed on deletion (leaked)... the same is true of url's in the cache ... chachsendry will sync actual files you have in the cache with the urls ... leaving no trace of url's related files that dont exists or files that are related to url's that dont exists ... and it doesnt use any resources while running ...

But as old as the hills I'm afraid folks ... you better watch out for this one ... the last update of MSN messenger! Installed a file called "loadQm.exe" in you windows folder and it is run @ startup from the registry and it is of fairly recent breaking news or roumour ... not sure which ... i might pass it on to steve gibson @ www.grc.com to have a look but it is report that that file sends unsolicited sensitive information to MS while on MSN messenger ...

Just out of the way happend to have my puter configured as such ... I noticed this file 2 weeks ago and chose not to run it @ startup because i didn't know what it was and i know almost every file on my puter in an intimat way ... LOL

But I only recived the news on tuesday about it's method of getting on to you system and what is supposiday does ?

If you are the paranoid type you can check you computer for it ... it's safe to crtl-alt-del and end the "loadqm" task until further subsainaicl new is available ...

See u later

entropi

I think this is an outrage */me wonders why i have IE5.5....thinks about unix/* And the folders located under the temp internet files, can they be deleted without some sort of windows warning message turning up saying that it's a system folder and it's unsafe to remove?????

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That island has freedom written all over it" Sir, that's Cuba. [url="HTTP://WWW.thesimpsons.com"]look at that smithers!![/url]

[This message has been edited by Death Sentence (edited 23-08-2001).]