Internet

Big Brother is watching you on the Internet. A couple of weeks after the publication of my letter Software piracy, I started experiencing problems with my favorite sites: Ziff publishers, Die Welt, Financial Times and Apple Computer.

Every time I tried to access them, the MAC crashed with the message: "Netscape error 11" or "Netscape unimplemented trap." I was thinking about ordering Microsoft Explorer -- which is given free of charge -- and getting rid of Netscape Navigator.

But before that, I sent some E-mail to The Economist -- which recently published the article Copyrights and Copywrongs dealing with the subject of intellectual property -- and attached my letter which The Jakarta Post published. (I consider the letter public domain). I kept trying to log in to my favorite sites and a week later, suddenly everything was back to normal. I could log in anywhere I liked.

Last week, the Financial Times -- a sister publication of The Economist -- published an article explaining that companies plant "cookie" programs in your hard disk to gather information about the sites you visit in order to discover your preferences. Information gathering: Cookies leave a bitter taste. Financial Times, Aug. 28, 1996. Companies, the Financial Times informed, will have a source of revenue selling this information.

My hard disk had a cookie called "Magic Cookie". I opened it. It was sent by Netscape. They asked that it not be modified and there was: http://www.netscape.com/newsref/std/cookie-spec.hatml. If you surf the Internet, search your hard disk for your cookie. They are watching you.

OSVALDO COELHO

Bandung, West Java