I think I've been boarded!

[Capt. Bo of the WTF co.]

Hey all... I went to clean out the cookies, and found around thirty porn sites. I don't need to go there, and don't. My 14 yr old only uses the computer while I'm sitting right next to him, and my better half is like me on the subject of porn. Have I been "hacked"?

[Caraccioli]

I don't think so. Cookies come from sites visited. Their primary purpose is to store information about what you did when you visited a particular site. Since it's just data, it's of no use except when you visit the site again.

They keep track of your preferences (so that when you revisit the site, the links you've visited are greyed out, or things you "stored" in a shopping cart are still there) or for tracking (to keep track of the number of times you've been to the site and so forth). They're just pieces of data so there would really be no advantage to seriptiously store them on your computer.

The only way they could get on your computer if no one in your household is going to the sites that I can think of is if someone were remotely controlling your computer. (Which seems to me to be a lot of trouble for little value.)

Of course some pages can be sort of sneaky...if someone accidentally wound up on the right porn page and tried to leave, they could wind up with a bunch of pop-up links being created. Then, when they tried to close them, more pop-ups could be spawned and so forth. Pretty soon, without meaning to, you could have truly accidentally visited 30 similar porn websites - creating 30 cookies for porn sites.

I'd suggest cleaning 'em out, not saying anything and checking again in a few weeks.

[Capt. Bo of the WTF co.]

Thanks for the info. It was quite a shock to see all those sites when there was no-one using it here.

[Arthur Richards from Kent]

i agree with mission however, I am a novice but must add that I think certain easy to infiltrate websites are a place where certain deviates online companies do hang out and attach to their incoming list of drop byes and though they came to you in a pop up that might have been stopped by your wall or bolckage protection they still get a fix on you and then can and do come back to find and shoot at you!

[The Doctor]

Porn in your cookies? I'd skip the frosted ones, if I were you....

Get a decent blocker, like Ad-Aware or something similar, and you'll be fine. :)

[Rumba Rue]

Just a wild guess, but some sites I've gone to, while not porn themselves there are ads around that do advertise, and maybe it's possible that they are also being added to the site you are at....well I'm betting any good program maker can probably do it too.

[Capt. Bo of the WTF co.]

well, I feel a bit better than when I first saw them. I'm no prude, but I don't like porn. With three little ones at home we don't need it around. Thanx for all the info mates!

[Caraccioli]

i agree with mission however, I am a novice but must add that I think certain easy to infiltrate websites are a place where certain deviates online companies do hang out and attach to their incoming list of drop byes and though they came to you in a pop up that might have been stopped by your wall or bolckage protection they still get a fix on you and then can and do come back to find and shoot at you!

Yeah, but I don't see where it's to a site's advantage to give you a cookie. A cookie is not a program, it's just a collection of pieces of data to be used when you visit the site. When you go to most sites, they check to see if you have their cookie. If you do, they load your preferences and other information using the pieces of data in the cookie. If you don't, they give you a cookie for the next time you visit.

Unwanted pop-ups are not caused by cookies. They are caused by trojan horse programs you pick up when visiting sites.

Somehow, those sites that the cookies are from were visited by your computer, Captain. It may have been a mistake as I said previously. Or it may not. I'd check your cookies again in a few weeks. If you find more of them, someone is visiting those websites when you're not looking.

[LongTom]

Somehow, those sites that the cookies are from were visited by your computer, Captain. It may have been a mistake as I said previously. Or it may not. I'd check your cookies again in a few weeks. If you find more of them, someone is visiting those websites when you're not looking.

That's not necessarily true. One of the ways a site can be "visited" is by receiving an email with html content. You may be getting cookies just from getting a piece of spam in your email.

That's the reason why privacy filter software blocks the downloading of pictures in emails, because the images get downloaded as a result of an embedded http request to some arbitrary web server (which can then do things like drop a cookie on you).

[Caraccioli]

That's not necessarily true. One of the ways a site can be "visited" is by receiving an email with html content. You may be getting cookies just from getting a piece of spam in your email.

Really? Based on the size of the email files I get I thought pictures were files embedded in emails, not accessed directly from the site.

That could provide a good explanation why he has them.

[Arthur Richards from Kent]

Another way they find you is by attaching to a place where alot of people travel through I get pop ups every G D time I go to anything anywhere in the whole region of shopzilla or the likes!