msie.5.0.cookies.txt

`Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 01:16:36 -0400  
From: Claudio Valderrama C. <[email protected]>  
To: [email protected]  
Subject: MSIE 5  
  
  
Hello.  
I hope this will avoid headaches to system administrators:  
- MSIE 5, when installed, changes silently the setting for the cookies to  
"Accept always" no matter how did you have it in IE4 before. This is because  
M$ changed cookies configuration from the "Advanced" to the "Security" tab.  
- MSIE 5 cannot be used with cookies set to "Prompt before accepting" when  
visiting sites that send many cookies: after choosing NO (reject) to each  
cookie more than three or four times, MSIE will crash with a memory error. I  
was able to repeat the crash in some NT systems: a generic computer, a Dell  
computer, etc. Look for a cookie intensive site, like www.celebsite.com and  
see for yourself. I never saw this to happen on MSIE 4 SP1.  
- MSIE 5 includes a new "Allow per session cookies" setting, that's enabled  
by default. I think session cookies are less dangerous than persistent  
cookies.  
- By default, AutoComplete will offer to save passwords used on sites you  
visit. Be careful, because while you are typing to fill in a form, if you  
continue typing, you may press the "Y" as part of your text just in the  
moment the popup window ask you to save the pw and you won't notice what  
happened.  
- MSIE 5 created a service called "COM+ Event System" no matter I downloaded  
first all files and later I installed custom. What is this service intended  
for? I remember that after installing RDS (part of M$'UDA), I discovered  
some RDS objects where opened to anyone that knew how to connect to them. I  
hope this time, the new service won't open a new security breach.  
  
Note that all computers had NT 4 SP4 installed and it's the US version.  
  
C.  
  
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 09:47:58 -0700  
From: Mark <[email protected]>  
To: [email protected]  
Subject: Re: MSIE 5  
  
  
Late last week, I had made MS aware of the cookie setting configuration  
being reset during installation, in addition to another oddity I was  
observing:  
  
Apparently, if you accept one cookie from a site, all others are also  
accepted without prompting, regardless of the cookie setting.  
  
Also, if you have an old cookie from some site on your disk, and you revisit  
that same site with the cookie setting adjusted to prompt for acceptance, no  
prompt is given, and the cookie is automatically written to disk anyway.  
Ouch.  
  
this was observed on NT Workstation 4.0 with SP4, where I had installed IE5  
as an upgrade to IE 4.01.xxxx  
  
for the record, i've never seen my installation of IE5 crash due to not  
accepting cookies (or any other reason for that matter.) i tried this at  
www.enanet.org, where that sites sends a vertiable truckload of cookies at  
you. maybe they should rename the site after the keebler elves ;-]  
  
mark  
  
  
> I hope this will avoid headaches to system administrators:  
> - MSIE 5, when installed, changes silently the setting for the cookies to  
> "Accept always" no matter how did you have it in IE4 before. This  
> is because  
> M$ changed cookies configuration from the "Advanced" to the  
> "Security" tab.  
> - MSIE 5 cannot be used with cookies set to "Prompt before accepting" when  
> visiting sites that send many cookies: after choosing NO (reject) to each  
> cookie more than three or four times, MSIE will crash with a  
> memory error. I  
> was able to repeat the crash in some NT systems: a generic  
> computer, a Dell  
> computer, etc. Look for a cookie intensive site, like  
> www.celebsite.com and  
> see for yourself. I never saw this to happen on MSIE 4 SP1.  
  
  
`