UPDATE: COOKIES EXPLAINED! SEE BELOW
This is from a reader who asks to remain anonymous. Anyone else in Atlas land have this happening to them? Not sure if this is a blip or if the creepy White House is doing Big Brother really big.
Tell the boys at Politico as well.
UPDATE: I've been getting messages like this one like crazy:
Dear Atlas Shrugs!
Regarding your posting from anon reader - I
just checked my computer files (per your post/reader's screen shot) -
SURE ENOUGH "www whitehouse gov" is in there.
I can assure you -
I totally avoid any and all government websites -and particularly the
WH site - these days... So how/why is the whitehouse cookie on my
computer?!
Vile vipers and thieves!
I did a screen shot/save to word (if you want it i'll be glad to send it)
Best wishes (and knock 'em out in Ohio - Please pass thanks to all those who attend!)
UPDATE: From Tom:
I am a regular reader of Atlas Shrugs. I saw the article on the site about the WH installing cookies onto someone's computer. I found two on my computer from the WH. One was the same name as the one you mentioned on the site; the other had a # in front of the filename.
Egads.
UPDATE: I am getting more and more confirmation:
Regarding White House.gov cookies on people's PCs. I checked into my Mac and founded two suspicious White House.gov cookies in the Flash Player folders within my Mac's Library. Very inappropriate and highly illegal of them to do so since I have not visit the White House website for months. This is pure government surveillance without warrant. Any visitor to your blog (or other blogs) is illegally subjected to government surveillance without cause. It is equivalent to Stalin's domestic spies snooping on citizens for any criticism of Stalin. I removed and deleted these files immediately. Advise everyone to do likewise.
UPDATE: They are coming in fast and furious now:
We are in Canada, and also have whitehouse.gov in our macromedia flash folder. We deleted it, started over and went back to your site again, then checked and--sure enough--it was back again!
Th XXXXX in Winnipeg
UPDATE: James in Costa Rica:
UPDATE: Arun explains:
The White House is not doing any kind of spying on you or your readers. The
reason why people are getting the cookie in their computer is because of the
flash video you have embedded in the following blog post:
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/11/mobama-urges-congress-to-put-off-fort-hood-probe-warns-against-turning-tragedy-into-political-theate.html
You
have taken this video from www.whitehouse.gov and embedded it in your
blog post. Since it is a flash video, Macromedia Flash Player creates a cookie
in a folder named after the website, in this case www.whitehouse.gov. This is totally
harmless and I can assure you 100% that the White House is not doing any kind of
spying on your readers. The cookie is created merely because you have embedded a
video from their website.
Please update your blog post (following link)
and inform your readers that this is a false concern and there is nothing to be
worried about.
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/11/the-white-house-tracking-on-atlas-readers.html
If
you still don't want whitehouse.gov cookies in your readers'
computers, I would suggest you download that embedded video, and upload it into
another website. Then replace the embedded video with the embed of the new
uploaded video.
I have removed the White House video. Let me know if further cookies start bakiing. Chocolate chips or micro chips?
