Facebook Email – Anyone Else Worried ?
Now I’ve never been a big fan of all the free email accounts like hotmail and gmail, having all your email stored by one single central provider is just to much to trust someone with. But predictions are that these are going to be dwarfed by the new email accounts provided by Facebook. After all they have over 500 million members and so much information on each and every user that it is truly scary. We’ve already heard the stories of thieves and burglars using Facebook updates to pick their victims – what could be easier than selecting a user who is updating their status from a bar in Hawaii.
There are of course some huge benefits of using systems like Facebook to communicate if you ignore the security risks. For one a decent world wide spam filter would make email much easier to use. I don’t know about you but even my most prized accounts are starting to get more and more spam, which also entails tightening up filters – inevitably leading to genuine messages getting lost too. To the extent that email is becoming less of the reliable method of communication it once was, you’re never quite sure if an email has been delivered any more.
But the amount of data about each and everyone of us that Facebook will have is very worrying. The power of those Facebook ads you see on the side of your screen will soon overcome the Google adverts. Imagine advertisers being able to target ads so exactly in the case of peoples location, likes, dislikes, demographics and income levels to name just a few. I imagine if you looked at even all the publicly held data on an avid Facebook user you’d get an extremely accurate picture of that individual. Start cross referencing with all the private data like search phrases, fan pages and browsing history and you’ll know more about an individual than their partners.
I’m not saying that this is the intent of Facebook but the temptation in the face of profit potential will be huge. The threats to the privacy of our data grow by the month it seems, and there is little to stop the threat growing.
What’s the Deal with ‘Hide my IP Software’
Could you imagine why anyone should want or need these IP hiding software? Well actually you may be surprised but there are actually lots of reasons but let me provide you with a small sample.
- There are lots of countries where you actually risk your safety if you speak too freely online
- Many of us resent consistently being spied on and having their privacy intruded on
- Cybercrime and Identity theft are very common crimes
- Lots of individuals object to the fact that absolutely everything you do online is logged and monitored by your ISP
Needless to say there are plenty of people using the greatest innovation (the Internet) of our time for criminal activities. Just as they use other communication mediums like telephones, faxes and the postal service! The irony is that when governments and their agencies monitor internet connections, it’s only the innocent they spy on as the criminals and terrorists all block them.
This is one of the most annoying parts of the ‘well if you’ve got nothing to hide’ – why do you care – type arguments against anonymous surfing. It’s then just that some of us who are subject to the spying and surveillance that is carried out by even the most relaxed western governments. The European Directive instructs ISPs to record and log all the web sites, emails and electronic communications of it’s citizens for up to 2 years.
However it is also worth reminding people that just using a simple IP hiding software, or some super elite proxy you found listed on a web site is not really going to help your privacy. Most of this software does very little, remember HTTP is clear text protocol and that’s where most of your browsing and details are passed. The IP software protects your privacy from the web server you visit but that’s it. But every other details of your browsing is in the clear and traceable to your IP address, sitting in your ISP is a list of virtually everything you’ve ever done online over the last two years or so.
The very worst hide IP software is the little software front ends that search for free proxies when you start them up. They then route all your web browsing through the fastest, free proxy that they find available. It wouldn’t matter if the proxy was being run by a gang of identity thieves (which many of them are) purely to harvest user details, the software would still send you there. You would be much more secure using nothing than one of these.
Simply staying secure online actually does take some work, far too many people are misled by tales of free proxies and they actually put themselves at huge risk. You need to use secure private proxies, you should know who is responsible for them and ensure that the logs are deleted instantly. Any proper security product will also ensure that all your browsing is encrypted as otherwise your details and IP will be visible all along it’s route.
Surf safely, protect your privacy,
How to keep your Internet Surfing Privacy
Everyones getting more concerned with internet privacy and with good reason. A large part of our lives is conducted online, we shop, bank, socialise even date on line in some cases. All that involves information, personal information being transmitted online.
So what’s involved in keeping your internet surfing privacy in tact ? We transmit so much personal information across the internet that it is not surprising that online theft is growing at an alarming rate. The simple fact is that the internets success has been built on a very simple protocol called HTTP (Hyper Text Transport Protocol) which is fast, efficient but unfortunately transmits everything into clear text. Anyone who intercepts this data can pick up an awful lot of information about each and everyone of us.
So how do I get some Internet surfing privacy?
Well there’s a few key areas but these are the most important.
Information Stored on your PC
Your browsing is tracked and monitored and personalised by a long collection of techniques of which the most common are cookies. These little text files are stored on your computer to record account details, preferences and personal details. To be fair they are used primarily to improve your browsing experiences mostly but they still represent an extensive record of your browsing. Fortunately if you are concerned with Internet surfing privacy you can easily delete these records. Most browsers allow you ‘delete browsing history’ which will delete all the cookies, temporary internet files and images stored on your PC. Google Chrome even has an incognito mode which does this automatically.
Hiding your IP address
Every web site you visit has logs, and they will record your IP address in these logs. Everything you do, download andlook at is recorded in these logs which can be tracked down to a specific computer via the IP address. This is also quite easy to fix and it requires using an anonymous proxy server. This server sits in between the web site you visit and hides your IP address so that it canot be recorded. There are anonymous proxy servers all over the internet but be careful, a large proportion of them are hacked virus infested servers which actually steal your information anyway. These are much, much worse than just getting your IP address logged in a web server,never use an anonymous proxy server that you don’t know about as it will be the worse move possible for your internet surfing privacy.
Encrypting your Web Browsing
The most important in my opinion for real privacy in your surfing. All your browsing is conducted in clear text as mentioned above, in fact the most detailed and comprehensive list of all your online activities exists in your ISP. This is why governments across Europe and the world ensure that they have access to these logs and ISPs are legally bound to store them for up to two years. However if you encrypt your connection then these and all other logs of your browsing are unreadable. How do you acheive this, well there are two main methods using an encrypted SSH tunnel or an SSL Tunnel. This creates an encrypted session which can protect your surfing privacy completely.
This is just a starter but probably the most important thing is to be aware, think of the web sites you are visiting, realise that you could be monitored or intercepted. Be very wary of entering any personal details onto any suspect sites sites.