InternetAdobe Phones Home And Irks Customers

The tinfoil hats come out when Adobe apps are found to be quietly pinging an analytics server.

There's nothing like a good conspiracy theory to liven up an otherwise quiet period in the blogosphere. On the day after Christmas, while most folks were struggling with their new iPod or trying to get XBox Live to work, Adobe was accused of spying on its users by secretly pinging a behavior analytics address every time Adobe Photoshop CS3 starts up. The site Uneasy Silence, which was involved in the iPhone spying allegations a few months back, broke the story about Adobe. Thanks to a utility called Little Snitch, Uneasy Silence publisher Dan Dorato found CS3 was pinging the address "192.168.112.2O7," which got his attention as the second to last character was the letter O and not a zero, as is standard in a TCP/IP address. Dorato noted in his posting that 192.168.112.2O7.net is an address with Omniture, which offers customer usage analytics among its services. Faster than you can say "tinfoil hat," the blogosphere erupted with accusations and conspiracy theories. "The "biggest issue" here comes from the fact that a software vendor has the arrogance to think they have some "right" to use my network connection in an app having no business connecting to the internet in the first place," railed one Slashdotter. Others, however, were more sanguine. "When you try to hide what you're doing that immediately raises flags. Why try to hide it if it's innocuous?" argued one respondent on CenterNetworks. "I have no problem with Adobe phoning home - a lot of apps do it. The... [ Read more on www.internetnews.com ]

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