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[viking60]

I also remembered the flash cookies (LSO=Local Shared Objects). These cookies are rude, and ignore your "I do not want cookies" settings. These cookies can even be used to restore those normal cookies that you have blocked. It seems fitting to mention them here and inform everybody that those cookies are stored in:

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~/.macromedia/Flash_Player/#SharedObjects/

Flash cookies are traditionally used to tell others what flash movies you are watching. And they can be used for bad things too.
I have noticed a tendency among spammers to promote harmless internet flash games. They get a lot of info about what you like to play from those cookies and hopefully nothing more.

Now FireFox has the Better privacy plugin - and that is now obsolete and not compatible with Firefox 10 (Just when you felt safe again ). This will happen from time to time so the best way of dealing with it is to delete the #SharedObjects directory with a cron job.

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EDITOR=nano crontab -e

and add the line

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*/30 * * * * rm -R /home/thomas/.macromedia/Flash_Player/#SharedObjects

This will erase the LSO's every half hour and you will not miss them (maybe with the exception of Skype).
They will be auto-created the moment you start playing a flash game or something again (that places LSO's)

[rolf]

rm -R /home/<user>/.macromedia/Flash_Player/#SharedObjects

Don't you need the -f option? Whenever I rm w/o -f, I get prompted to confirm the removal of every file that is found in the given path.

[viking60]

Hmm that makes sense But (strangely) it works without any confirmation. Using -f could not hurt . just to make sure.
But in any case you inspired me. If you chmod the directory so it is unwritable then the supercookies will be kept out forever I guess. Must try that......

Sneaky little bastards; chmoding does not stop them:

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chmod -R o-r '#SharedObjects'


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chmod -R -r '#SharedObjects'


does not help, supercookies are created anyway is my chmod command wrong?

[rolf]

Maybe Better Privacy is still working for you?

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[rolf@localhost tmp]$ mkdir -p 1/2/3/4/5
[rolf@localhost tmp]$ touch 1/2/3/4/5/file
[rolf@localhost tmp]$ rm -R 1
rm: descend into directory `1'? y
rm: descend into directory `1/2'? y
rm: descend into directory `1/2/3'? y
rm: descend into directory `1/2/3/4'? y
rm: descend into directory `1/2/3/4/5'? y
rm: remove regular empty file `1/2/3/4/5/file'? y
rm: remove directory `1/2/3/4/5'? y
rm: remove directory `1/2/3/4'? y
rm: remove directory `1/2/3'? y
rm: remove directory `1/2'? y
rm: remove directory `1'? y

[viking60]

Caramba!
Yes on this box it does (not on the other Mandriva box I tested earlier - I think). This is strange in FF10 Better Privacy does not work and has status as deactivated, and in FF11 it does work again.
Deactivating Better Privacy on this box and trying again.....

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[thomas@heidi-lap Flash_Player]$ ls
'#SharedObjects'/  macromedia.com/
[thomas@heidi-lap Flash_Player]$ rm -R /home/thomas/.macromedia/Flash_Player/#SharedObjects
[thomas@heidi-lap Flash_Player]$ ls
macromedia.com/
[thomas@heidi-lap Flash_Player]$


Better Privacy is deactivated I wonder if there is some built in evil in that directory. On every other directory you are right of course.
To check go to this site and play a game that one of our dear spammers is recommending. In Dolphin/Nautilus you will see directories popping up in
/home/<user>/.macromedia/Flash_Player/#SharedObjects if you do a

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rm -R /home/rolf/.macromedia/Flash_Player/#SharedObjects


They will disappear - If they don't I'll eat my socks! (Of course the directory will pop right back again once you start a new game. )

[dedanna1029]

Don't you need the -f option? Whenever I rm w/o -f, I get prompted to confirm the removal of every file that is found in the given path.

Interesting it does that to you. The -f option makes it to ignore nonexistent files:

-f, --force ignore nonexistent files, never prompt

My own impression is that -f would make it never prompt for nonexistent files. I wonder if that's why it does that to you without it? I don't know?

[viking60]

I believe forcing is the main function of -f so our Guru is right in principle (he always is), but not in this case afaict.
But this is a rather academic discussion; to make all happy we can do the cronjob like this:

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*/30 * * * * rm -R -f /home/<USER>/.macromedia/Flash_Player/#SharedObjects

That is probably the best thing to do - who are we to question the Guru (He did demonstrate that he is right above - this directory must be special).
In fact it is better to delete the standard Flash_Player directory too that keeps track of the other LSO's so this is even better:

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*/30 * * * * rm -R -f /home/<USER>/.macromedia/Flash_Player

[rolf]

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[rolf@localhost ~]$ alias rm
alias rm='rm -i'

That explains one confusion. Mandr[ake|iva] has always made this alias for 'rm' for safety's sake.

From the manual,

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-i     prompt before every removal

Also,

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-f, --force
              ignore nonexistent files, never prompt


Those are two separate effects of the -f switch. However,

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If the -I or --interactive=once option is given, and there are more than three files or the -r,
       -R,  or  --recursive are given, then rm prompts the user for whether to proceed with the entire
       operation.  If the response is not affirmative, the entire command is aborted.

and that seems to state that -R will trigger prompting for confirmation.

Sometimes, I find the manual to be not in agreement with how the command is currently working, sometimes, there is something like an alias working behind the scenes, or, since this is a cron job, maybe you are just not seeing a prompt for confirmation or cron has special effects....

Can you put a file in that directory and run your original command w/o -f on cli, show the evidence of what happens?

[viking60]

Ah yes good find! Funny thing I do not have that alias in my Mandriva 2010.2 wich was originally installed as 2009 and has been upgraded since.
But it is a default alias in Mandriva 2011.
as you can see the files are removed without -f

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.:[ thomas@thomas-pc : 15:17:55 : ~/.macromedia/Flash_Player ]:.
:) ls
'#SharedObjects'/  macromedia.com/
.:[ thomas@thomas-pc : 15:18:01 : ~/.macromedia/Flash_Player ]:.
:) cd '#SharedObjects'
.:[ thomas@thomas-pc : 15:18:32 : ~/.macromedia/Flash_Player/#SharedObjects ]:.
:) ls
RSRDWEEJ/
.:[ thomas@thomas-pc : 15:18:36 : ~/.macromedia/Flash_Player/#SharedObjects ]:.
:) rm -R /home/thomas/.macromedia/Flash_Player/
.:[ thomas@thomas-pc : 15:19:32 : ~/.macromedia/Flash_Player/#SharedObjects ]:.
:) ls
.:[ thomas@thomas-pc : 15:19:36 : ~/.macromedia/Flash_Player/#SharedObjects ]:.
:)


Now I am going to do it with the rm alias.........

[rolf]

Funny thing I do not have that alias in my Mandriva 2010.2 wich was originally installed as 2009 and has been upgraded since.
But it is a default alias in Mandriva 2011.
Going on with my homework now....

Well, my memory might be faulty but I can't remember a time when I didn't have to add -f or deal with the prompt to verify. No pannekakers until you finish your homework.

[viking60]

finishing ...

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.:[ thomas@thomas-pc : 15:24:35 : ~/.macromedia/Flash_Player ]:.
:) ls
macromedia.com/  '#SharedObjects'/
.:[ thomas@thomas-pc : 15:24:36 : ~/.macromedia/Flash_Player ]:.
:) cd '#SharedObjects'
.:[ thomas@thomas-pc : 15:24:51 : ~/.macromedia/Flash_Player/#SharedObjects ]:.
:) ls
574PR3MN/
.:[ thomas@thomas-pc : 15:24:54 : ~/.macromedia/Flash_Player/#SharedObjects ]:.
:) cd..
.:[ thomas@thomas-pc : 15:25:06 : ~/.macromedia/Flash_Player ]:.
:) ls
macromedia.com/  '#SharedObjects'/
.:[ thomas@thomas-pc : 15:25:07 : ~/.macromedia/Flash_Player ]:.
:) rm -R /home/thomas/.macromedia/Flash_Player/
rm: descend into directory «/home/thomas/.macromedia/Flash_Player»?


And there we have it; the prompting that you describe making the cronjob hopeless

Now with the -f switch forcing the action:

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.:[ thomas@thomas-pc : 15:28:51 : ~/.macromedia/Flash_Player ]:.
:) ls
macromedia.com/  '#SharedObjects'/
.:[ thomas@thomas-pc : 15:28:56 : ~/.macromedia/Flash_Player ]:.
:) rm -R -f /home/thomas/.macromedia/Flash_Player/
.:[ thomas@thomas-pc : 15:29:08 : ~/.macromedia/Flash_Player ]:.
:) ls
.:[ thomas@thomas-pc : 15:29:15 : ~/.macromedia/Flash_Player ]:.
:)


As you can see it went smoothly (there was content in the removed directories). So you are absolutely right it is the alias alias rm='rm -i' that causes this to happen.
SInce it is a security feature of a major distro ( can't remember that I ever removed that alias though ) your are then by definition also right that the cronjob should look like this to fit globaly on all distros:

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*/30 * * * * rm -R -f /home/<USER>/.macromedia/Flash_Player

Pannekaker please

[rolf]

You earned it, Little Thomas



but better not dawdle!