From: "E. ALLEN SMITH" <EALLENSMITH@ocelot.Rutgers.EDU>
Date: Fri, 9 Aug 1996 10:31:42 +0800
To: stewarts@ix.netcom.com
Subject: Re: Stealth cookies
Message-ID: <01I81GMK7QGY9JD3GI@mbcl.rutgers.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


From:	IN%"stewarts@ix.netcom.com"  "Bill Stewart"  7-AUG-1996 06:58:56.42

>However, there's a way to cheat the cookie spec; I don't know
>if this was intentional, but it was realized quickly by the market :-)
>The issue is that your browser sends along an HTTP_REFERRER variable,
>which points to the last page you visited before the current page.
>It's useful for sites to find out where their pages are being referenced,
>and they may (legitimately) want to only give out information if you're
>coming from one of their previous pages.

	Does www.anonymizer.com filter out cookies and their requests? I'd also
be curious if an alternate means of specifying the url (without having to
manually type it in) is possible such that people would have problems doing a
search for all pages connecting to a page. I.e., currently, I can search for
pages connecting to a particular page through the anonymizer via doing an
AltaVista search for link:/page/in/which/i'm/interested.html. If the person had
to realize that, say, they had to do a search for
page__in__which__i'm__interested.html, that could make unfriendly tracing of
backlinks - sensitive backlinks if you're using the anonymizer - more difficult.
	-Allen

P.S. The problem with blank pages from the anonymizer seems to be fixed, or at
least I haven't run into it recently - thanks.