But the biggest and spookiest issue in this matter is the Wikipedia statement that "Flash Player is also capable of accessing and retrieving audio and video data from any microphone and/or webcams that might be either built in or connected to a user's computer and transmitting it in realtime over the Internet." I would sure like to know more about that.
I went to the Adobe site and did some experimenting with their
Settings Manager . The results were interesting. Clicking on the Global Security Settings Panel brought five choices.
Global Privacy SettingsThis is where you Always Deny or require Always Ask for websites who want access to your camera or microphone.
I selected Always Ask but found, as I did further testing, that the selection wasn't particularly meaningful.
Global Storage SettingsYou can specify the amount of disk space a website can use to store information on your computer. It's accompanied by a Never Ask Again checkbox. The default has the box unchecked.
There are two other check boxes: "Allow third party Flash content to store data on your computer" and "Store common Flash components to reduce download times". I have never been to the Adobe Settings Manager so I found it interesting that the default was that both boxes were checked.
I left the two boxes as is, but reduced the disk space to zero.
Global Security SettingsThis is where one is supposed to be able to restrict access from other sites using an older system of security and Adobe says: "This is usually harmless, but it is possible that some sites could obtain unauthorized information using the older system."
You can choose Always Ask, Always Allow, Always Deny. There's also a box to enter the addresses of trusted locations.
I chose Always Ask.
Website Privacy SettingsYou can change the privacy settings for websites you have already visited and there is a box listing sites that have made a request and it shows how much disk space they have used. You are able to delete websites from the box.
I had five sites and two of the five had placed information on my drive - they were "iViewTube.com" and "media.mtvnservices.com". I deleted all five.
There also are buttons for the Always Ask, Always Allow, and Always Deny options...but they are not operational.
Website Storage SettingsLike Global Storage, you can change the disk space storage settings for sites you have visited. It's also accompanied by a Never Ask Again checkbox, and the default has the box unchecked. I set the slider to zero.
Like Website Privacy, there is a box listing sites that have stored information and it shows how much disk space they have used. You are able to delete websites from the box.
My dull post actually has an interesting ending. After I made the Settings Manager changes, I visited the five sites mentioned earlier. Following each visit I went back to Adobe's site and checked the status of the Settings Manager.
In spite of the fact that I had checked off "Always Ask" and had set all disk space sliders to zero, "iViewTube.com" always put information on my drive.
I was never asked. It wasn't until I went back to the Global Storage Settings and unchecked "Allow third party Flash content to store data on your computer" that it stopped.
After the box was unchecked I again visited all the sites. Most seemed to load okay. The exceptions were "iViewTube.com" which was slow in loading and "media.mtvnservices.com" which simply loaded a blank page.
I am certainly not any kind of expert in web security matters and just put this information up to present the experience of a novice. I leave it to the qualified folks at this site to assess whether any of this is meaningful or not.
ryck
