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"When you Use the Software to open a PDF file that has been enabled to display ads, your Device may connect to a website operated by Adobe, an advertiser, or other third party. Your Internet Protocol address (“IP Address”) is sent when this happens. The party hosting the site may use technology to send... "

That text is from the EULA for the latest version of flash, which is fixing the endless zero day vulnerabilities, from that particular product. Sending my IP is not too cool, especially since I am downloading this to fix their zero day in the patch to fix their zero day.

What steps can I take to ensure that flash's LSO ( flash cookies ) do not broadcast my IP to anyone who wants me to look at some advertising?

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  • 4
    Get rid of it .
    – Sathyajith Bhat ♦
    Nov 7, 2010 at 22:11
  • Doing that, but it's Chrome I'm concerned about. I had no idea that the flash cookies were active, not passive?
    – chiggsy
    Nov 7, 2010 at 22:16
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    I long for the day when flash will just die. We have HTML5 youtube now. I think flash's days are numbered.
    – RJFalconer
    Nov 7, 2010 at 22:56
  • It's dead to me.
    – chiggsy
    Nov 7, 2010 at 23:42

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Other than completely getting rid of Flash (and I too am hoping HTML5 will mature soon enough to replace all client side technologies that require plugins), you can use the oldie but goodie trick of a hosts file with a list of known ad servers, all pointing to localhost (read more, and download a sample file here). This will rid your machine of any access to these servers.

Comment: this assumes you're using a Windows OS. Similar methods are available for Linux based systems as well.

Final comment: Google has already admitted to sending a unique ID from Chrome (allegedly to "follow the installation numbers") - if you value your privacy that much, skip that browser.

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  • I was thinking of copying Ghostery's list, for the ad blocking, I'll try both. Google is unavoidable, I use the search, the API's, App Engine... I can live with them. Good call on the UID, I'll build chromium.
    – chiggsy
    Nov 8, 2010 at 0:37

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