Can Bugnosis tell me if a Web bug is “good” or “bad”?
Not exactly, although the current battery of tests is a good first step in determining the purpose of any Web bug. Generally speaking, a Web bug whose URL or cookie contains a large number, or a lot of random-looking text, is more likely to be used to track your movements than one whose URL or cookie consists mostly of jargon and abbreviations. The reason for this is that numbers and random-looking text are usually engineers first choices when they want to assign a tracking identifier to something (or someone). This is certainly not the only way to assign a tracking identifier, but it is one of the easiest. Because Web bugs are normally hidden by their small size, there is little motivation for an engineer to further obscure the identifier contained within it.
