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WHO IS WATCHING YOU ONLINE?
While we are online, we can never really be completely anonymous. Here are a few pointers on who is watching you, how they do it, and how you can protect yourself.
It's hard to be completely anonymous when we are connected to the Internet. And although this doesn’t mean we are been monitored continuously, there is no shortage of indiscrete observers. From marketing companies interested in your browsing habits to curious webmasters and email thieves, your personal details are likely to interest a large number of people. These curious observers can monitor you at their leisure thanks to the tracks you leave behind – which are not always virtual. And of course they achieve this without having to exploit the slightest security weakness!
Cookies
Cookies are basic text files and are simply used to recognise who you are the next time you visit a website. They give little cause for concern that you are under surveillance. But because cookies uniquely identify you with respect to a site, this same site can store information on all of your comings and goings throughout the site, including the products you browse, the products you buy and the subjects you are interested in. The day you eventually decide to place an order, and therefore communicate your actual details, you will no longer be anonymous as far as the site is concerned. It will know your consumer habits going back to the date of the last cookie that was saved to your hard disk, and it will now be able to associate these habits with an actual identity. Your online bookseller will know that a number of months ago you read a certain book, the subject of which you may prefer to remain private.
Some protective measures: Remember to regularly delete cookies from your browser (generally from the Options menu), especially before sending your actual details to a commercial website.
Tracks left by your browser
Whenever you access a website, you will leave an indelible trace in your history. The webmaster may well know who you are (thanks to your IP address, which generally indicates your service provider or company), the pages you visited, and most especially, how you accessed the site (by clicking a link in another site or document), and if you accessed the site through a search engine, he or she will know the exact terms you entered in this search.
The first track carries the risk of disclosing private information that may be displayed in the name or location of the document that contains the original link. For example, your second name may be disclosed if you happened to click a link in a web document that was located in your personal Windows folder (for example a link in a document that you had previously saved).
If you access the site from a search engine such as Google, the webmaster will know the name of this engine, which may prove embarrassing if you are attempting to obtain information about somebody else using an IP address that belongs to a competitor.
Some protective measures: Where possible, always copy and paste web addresses into a new page in your browser.
Dishonest employees
In theory, your Internet service provider may know everything there is to know about you. Internet service providers hold your personal details, have information about all your online comings and goings and in many cases, they also store your email. However we have little alternative in this respect and most of us simply place our trust in our service providers. But can we really trust the small-scale webmail service provider that offers us free, quirky and very practical email addresses or an external antispam service for our email? This type of site is generally less well known and is often managed by a limited team with perhaps less regard for ethical considerations (and responsibilities!) than a larger host. And these people can freely access any email stored on their server.
Some protective measures: Never consider that email is private correspondence. Assume that it will be read. If this is likely to pose a real problem, you will need to encode your email. If you correctly encode a Word document and send it as an attachment, nobody but the intended recipient will be able to read it.
[glossary]
IP address:
Digital address that uniquely identifies a computer once it is connected to the Internet. This information can be used to immediately determine the point at which this computer accessed the Internet (host, and may include the geographic area or even the town or company). The courts can even take this one step further and trace back to the actual user by contacting his or her Internet access provider.
Webmail:
Email service that can be accessed from any browser without the need for dedicated software. The most well-known webmail services are Hotmail, Yahoo etc.
Antispam:
Measures aimed at preventing unsolicited email advertising (spam). These generally take the form of software filters that differentiate advertising email from other email, however it can also include a black list system that deletes all email sent by known "spammers".
[links]
Electronic privacy information center (EPIC):
SOURCE
While we are online, we can never really be completely anonymous. Here are a few pointers on who is watching you, how they do it, and how you can protect yourself.
It's hard to be completely anonymous when we are connected to the Internet. And although this doesn’t mean we are been monitored continuously, there is no shortage of indiscrete observers. From marketing companies interested in your browsing habits to curious webmasters and email thieves, your personal details are likely to interest a large number of people. These curious observers can monitor you at their leisure thanks to the tracks you leave behind – which are not always virtual. And of course they achieve this without having to exploit the slightest security weakness!
Cookies
Cookies are basic text files and are simply used to recognise who you are the next time you visit a website. They give little cause for concern that you are under surveillance. But because cookies uniquely identify you with respect to a site, this same site can store information on all of your comings and goings throughout the site, including the products you browse, the products you buy and the subjects you are interested in. The day you eventually decide to place an order, and therefore communicate your actual details, you will no longer be anonymous as far as the site is concerned. It will know your consumer habits going back to the date of the last cookie that was saved to your hard disk, and it will now be able to associate these habits with an actual identity. Your online bookseller will know that a number of months ago you read a certain book, the subject of which you may prefer to remain private.
Some protective measures: Remember to regularly delete cookies from your browser (generally from the Options menu), especially before sending your actual details to a commercial website.
Tracks left by your browser
Whenever you access a website, you will leave an indelible trace in your history. The webmaster may well know who you are (thanks to your IP address, which generally indicates your service provider or company), the pages you visited, and most especially, how you accessed the site (by clicking a link in another site or document), and if you accessed the site through a search engine, he or she will know the exact terms you entered in this search.
The first track carries the risk of disclosing private information that may be displayed in the name or location of the document that contains the original link. For example, your second name may be disclosed if you happened to click a link in a web document that was located in your personal Windows folder (for example a link in a document that you had previously saved).
If you access the site from a search engine such as Google, the webmaster will know the name of this engine, which may prove embarrassing if you are attempting to obtain information about somebody else using an IP address that belongs to a competitor.
Some protective measures: Where possible, always copy and paste web addresses into a new page in your browser.
Dishonest employees
In theory, your Internet service provider may know everything there is to know about you. Internet service providers hold your personal details, have information about all your online comings and goings and in many cases, they also store your email. However we have little alternative in this respect and most of us simply place our trust in our service providers. But can we really trust the small-scale webmail service provider that offers us free, quirky and very practical email addresses or an external antispam service for our email? This type of site is generally less well known and is often managed by a limited team with perhaps less regard for ethical considerations (and responsibilities!) than a larger host. And these people can freely access any email stored on their server.
Some protective measures: Never consider that email is private correspondence. Assume that it will be read. If this is likely to pose a real problem, you will need to encode your email. If you correctly encode a Word document and send it as an attachment, nobody but the intended recipient will be able to read it.
[glossary]
IP address:
Digital address that uniquely identifies a computer once it is connected to the Internet. This information can be used to immediately determine the point at which this computer accessed the Internet (host, and may include the geographic area or even the town or company). The courts can even take this one step further and trace back to the actual user by contacting his or her Internet access provider.
Webmail:
Email service that can be accessed from any browser without the need for dedicated software. The most well-known webmail services are Hotmail, Yahoo etc.
Antispam:
Measures aimed at preventing unsolicited email advertising (spam). These generally take the form of software filters that differentiate advertising email from other email, however it can also include a black list system that deletes all email sent by known "spammers".
[links]
Electronic privacy information center (EPIC):
SOURCE