The tug-of-war between the Department of Justice and Google has made us aware of the traces we leave on the Internet. But there are ways to cover one's tracks.
In 2000, Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy famously said about life on the Internet, "You already have zero privacy -- get over it."
"That was very annoying," says Chris Palmer, chief technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a San Francisco-based organization that advocates for online free speech and civil liberties issues. Palmer emphasizes that while most users can live happily without anonymity, for some people it's crucial -- such as those who criticize repressive regimes, blow the whistle on bosses, or discuss sensitive personal issues.
Fortunately, there are many ways -- from reconfiguring browser preferences to using emerging Web technologies -- to mask one's identity online. "It's all about how great your need is and how much work you're willing to do," Palmer says.
The issue of online anonymity has come into high relief in recent weeks. Microsoft, AOL, and Yahoo quickly complied with a request from the U.S. Department of Justice to turn over search records, which the DoJ wants to use in court to demonstrate how easy it is for minors to access online pornography. Google, so far, is resisting the request, winning plaudits from online privacy advocates.
But even though the records that the DoJ wants would not contain information linking searches to specific people, the controversy has caused average Internet users to ask themselves the reasonable question: Did the search engine really notice when I browsed that website? You know, that one.
For the vast majority of users, the answer is a qualified yes. Generally, online services use two methods to identify users: cookies and Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. Cookies can track what you do online, while IP addresses can reveal where -- and who -- you are.
Cookies are snippets of nonexecutable code, more like a watermark or a token than an application, handed to the browser by a website or an advertisement within the site. The browser stores the cookies and can send them back to remote servers. Cookies can be used for logging in users, or tracking what sites you browse; for example, the online ad company DoubleClick uses cookies served by its ads on various sites to track which ads you click on. The company then builds a user profile so it can target ads that an individual user might want to see. For example, if you browse gaming sites, DoubleClick may serve up an ad for a Sony PlayStation Portable rather than a subscription to Martha Stewart Living.
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Guest (Alan Root)
Another strategy
There used to be a site that explained somewhat precisely how to build a nuclear device. It started with the words: "First, you wash your hands". Just suppose a few million of us infrequently logged on to so-called "forbidden" sites or sent out diversionary email messages. That is just one of several ways we need to develop to win the contest in favor of more privacy and less prying into other people's business under the emotion-laden guise of "national security" or "anti-terrorism".
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Guest (Gabe)
The only time spam is good...
Spam is the cancer of the internet, and we all hate it. But if every user, ocasionally sent out random messages with NSA catch phrases like "assasinate Bush", "blow up Congress" etc., then their electronic hoovering machinery would just get clogged with meaningless stuff. Eventually, they would have to give up monitoring regular citizens, otherwise they'd go bankrupt. This would be a peaceful, electronic civil disobediance against Big Brother.
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Guest (Wade Roush)
Bad idea
The government shouldn't be snooping on average citizens, but I have to say that Alan and Gabe's suggestions sound very bad to me. By spamming the Internet with meaningless, diversionary messages bearing terrorist-related catch phrases, you would just be providing cover for real terrorists, who would be able to slip their own messages through the network more easily.
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Guest (Gabe)
So what is the solution?
Obviously, no normal citizen would ever want to help a terrorist. But governments or corporations snooping on everyday citizens under the pretext of defense is a horrible scenario too. Besides, the privacy methods outlined in this article are impractical for the masses anyway. It's more likely that a terrorist would use them instead. And then we are back at where we started :(
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Guest (hewhoknows)
something
> that's because the war on terror is at least in part, a war on individuals. Those conducting the war are organized. Individuals are not - by definition.
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