Science and Technology : I Always Feel Like Somebody's Watching Me

[spicybrown]

Is it true that the government, and other agencies can e-spy on your net activity, then turn around and trace it?

 

[anAfrican]

and that's no fantasy! whoa!-uh-oh!

Is it true that the government, and other agencies can e-spy on your net activity, then turn around and trace it?

yup!

that's one of the things cookies does for them .. well, they are presented as a "convenience" so that one does not have to enter one's preferences every time one logs into a site. as well, websites can, by reading those cookies, and the "referrer" header that every browser sends to every page that one visits, know where you've been. setting cookies to "session only" allows this "feature" for only as long as one is online. closing the browser, flushes the cookies ... supposedly. `course, there are sites for which one would wish to have cookies retained, such as here. not sure how IE handles this, but mozilla and firefox allow one to set "exceptions" such that all cookies can be blocked except those sites one wishes to allow.

also, every browser will send the IP address of your computer to every page you visit. there are some sites that "are nice enough" to say "hi! your computer name is thus-and-so and your IP address is 207.36.160.51". shoot, i discovered once that internet explorer will even send the ip address of a machine that is behind a NAT firewall!! and, of course, once they have that IP address (assigned by one's ISP), they can supoena that ISP to get the personal data behind the number. ... or just send a properly configured javascript request to internet explorer!!

or just read the registry of one's computer and get all that stuff! every application that one installs reads the registry. and then they offer the opportunity to "register online! it's fast! it's easy!! no personal information will be sent!!" ... er .. but if one is registering a product, one is sending personal information? and, of course, we all know that none of them ever, ever EVER lie about anything, don't we?? well, yeah - there was that time. but they promised that they wouldn't do that again!! just like they said last time!!

nah. i ain't paranoid; these are just "standard business practices"! it's not a matter of me not trusting them; i know that they are stealing from me!!

 

[PoeticManifesta]

yes not only that but certain laws allow emails and such to be stored as evidence if needed.

 

[spicybrown]

Thanx.......

Thanks, Anafrican and Poetic Manifesta for the clarity. much appreciated. Now my goosebumps have gone down some.