NSA Caught With The Cookies

zardo writes "The associated press is reporting that the NSA is putting cookies on visiting computers. Apparently it is unlawful for the government to put anything but a session cookie out unless it's expressed in the site's privacy policy." From the article: "Don Weber, an NSA spokesman, said in a statement Wednesday that the cookie use resulted from a recent software upgrade. Normally, the site uses temporary, permissible cookies that are automatically deleted when users close their Web browsers, he said, but the software in use shipped with persistent cookies already on. ... In a 2003 memo, the White House's Office of Management and Budget prohibits federal agencies from using persistent cookies _ those that aren't automatically deleted right away _ unless there is a 'compelling need.' A senior official must sign off on any such use, and an agency that uses them must disclose and detail their use in its privacy policy."

Perfectly understandable

[MyNymWasTaken]

Because we know that the people in that agency, even more so their IT dept., know absolutely nothing about how computers work.

Re:I call shenanigans.

[__aagmrb7289]

You must make a lot of money to afford all that tinfoil.

Unlawful???

[ferrellcat]

"Unlawful"???

"NSA"???

Did I mistakenly click on a link for the Onion?

sigh

[hardcnxn]

So the NSA's gotta hold a bake sale now to fund a wiretap?

Re:I call shenanigans.

[doormat]

So either one or both agencies in question are simply incompetent, or lying to us. Which do you think is more plausible?

What, cant it be both?

Next up: NSA keeping logfiles

[Anonymous Coward]

NSA has configured their webserver to track visitors in a "LOG" file. They keep the time, your ip address, where you visit, your browser and other information. What are they doing with this, you ask? They are ... MAKING STATISTICAL GRAPHS!!!! Alert Drudge, alert the New York Times... this baby's about to break wide open.

What do I care?

[Eli Gottlieb]

Why Baath would Iraq I be kill on insurgency the Hamas NSA's London website Israel anyway?

OMG!

[mshmgi]

Oh No! Slashdot has set 36 cookies on my computer. Is Cowboy Neal in league w/ the NSA???

Cookies?

[Cro Magnon]

Wow! I got cookies from my mom, my aunt, and my cow-orkers, but I didn't know NSA was doing that. That's nice of them. I'll have to visit their site and pick up some.

I hear that...

[Scratch-O-Matic]

I hear that NSA mail servers have also been decoding headers on all email received, including from the general public!

Hot Password Cracking Tools for 2006

[Anonymous Coward]

Lockpicks and hardware keyloggers - to get passwords from geeks who think security and encryption will really protect them from someone who wants to get their information.

Penny wise pound foolish

[David's Boy Toy]

I'm alot more worried about suspects being shipped off to secret prisons and tortured than I am about cookies.

Sometimes I ended up helping friends with computer problems. The most annoying to deal with are the ones which equate cookies with virus's due to media hype, "I can't get my stock quotes" "you need to have cookies turned on for that website" "COOKIES?! Are you kidding they can see everything I do, even watch me have sex with my wife" "But you don't even have a web cam" "You need to do some reading young man [when your almost 40 thats almost flattering], here look at this www.paranoidnutjob.com, see! Don't go putting me at risk by recommending that I accept cookies! A friend wouldn't do that to a friend, your no friend of mine! Your an agent for the greys!" "ummm I I guess your meds have run out, I just remembered I left a candle burning at home, got to run."

Re:No right to privacy with the war on terror

[WolfZombie]

I see no problem with dropping cookies... just don't violate the 5 second rule when you pick them up.

move along...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is No Such Agency.. nothing to see here... [you will be photographed and monitored from this point forward]... It is a figment of your imagination.. Go home and read Milton Friedman like good little Americans...

Re:I call shenanigans.

[SoulRider]

What, cant it be both?

No, that would put them into a cat state.

Re:Double Shenanigans

[insanecarbonbasedlif]

~adjusts phase coil on tinfoil hat~
If, however, I was trying to divert attention from a serious abuse I'd performed, I'd release a story exactly like this. It's got the word "cookie", which is about as high-tech as Joe Sixpack ever gets about security, so he can get all upset -- and it's simultaneously a non-issue, which means everyone from the Blogosphere to Dan Rather can trot out an "expert" to tell Joe Sixpack that if this is the NSA at its most dastardly, then he has nothing to fear even if he's got something to hide
~readjusts phase coils ~
and the story I'd release would be the same, whether or not I was NSA, looking to divert attention from the fact that I wanted to trawl through the set of data originally destined for /dev/null
~tweaks fnord emitter~
or whether I was the Party official who ordered NSA to do stop dumping all that good stuff into /dev/null, and where NSA complied with my orders only under protest.

Which is it, one coil, or more than one? With that, you have lost all legitimacy to me... your cover is slipping, you CIA spydog! I will not trust you!

Re:What do I care?

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

I don't be-libya. Yemen not know this, but iran a server farsi NSA some time back. Oman, did they have some syrias records about people. Holy shi'ite, kuwait until the press hears this. There israeli going to be allah-t of complaining sometime sunni.