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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.

I’m not sure how this happened but many people online seem to now equate, Internet Proxies with some sort of anonymity. As if the mere act of inserting a proxy into your browser connection settings covers you in some sort of cloaking device which protects your internet privacy.

Well I’m afraid it’s not exactly true. Sure proxies can help protecting your privacy, but then so can a blanket. Perhaps it’s best to think first about what a proxy server is actually doing. I’m world famous (well not actually true) for my completely crap real world analogies which make little sense but here goes…

A proxy server is no more than a middle man in your communication online, so here’s my promised analogies… Using a proxy server is the same as asking someone to deliver and receive all your postal mail.

If you pick an anonymous proxy from a list on the internet – it’s the equivalent to handing all your mail to someone you picked out on the street. Ask him to deliver all your mail and recieve all your post too (for nothing). Now you may get lucky and find someone who does just that, but then again you might also select someone who throws all your outgoing mail over a hedge, and opens all your incoming mail to steal any cheques and valuables.

It’s a pretty good parallel to an anonymous proxy on the internet, it’s pot luck you know nothing about it and you are not paying for a services so fingers crossed.

Of course you could pay for a service, which is the same as selecting perhaps a mail forwarding company who send and receive mail on your behalf. THey take care of you because you’re a customer and they want to keep you. A paid VPN service or a private proxy provide a service and they want you to remain.

The danger of internet proxies is that if you pick one run by hackers or the bad guys (and yes they do set many of these up) it’s incredibly dangerous to your privacy, it is in fact much worse than using no proxies at all. Do yourself a favour and either use a paid proxy service run properly and securely or save yourself the trouble and don’t bother with internet proxies at all.

o we really need to be concerned with protecting our privacy on the internet? Are there really legions of people spying on us and watching our every move. Well hopefully this article will give you some knowledge of the issues that are really involved in priivacy protection on the internet.

So who is likely to be spying on us and why?

Well let’s be clear, internet crime is big, very big, the totals are never going to be exact as we simply don’t have a record but you’d be safe to assume it’s going to be counted in billions of dollars world wide. Many, perhaps the majority of these crimes are not listed, recorded or even noticed so an estimate is all we’re going to get.

There are many major crime syndicates who are targeting the internet. Cyber Gangs in places like Brazil, China and Eastern Europe have very sophisticated criminal networks. Stealing over the internet from you and me is immensely rewarding and relatively risk free. You can see the attraction to the criminal fraternity big rewards, safe and very low risk.

So we know that gangs will routinely target the average internet surfer, furthermore many will be extremely careful in how they steal from you but there are literally endless ways to steal your information and ultimately your money. For instance I have seen a sealed copy of windows XP which looked 100% legitimate bought from Eastern Europe, it was shrink wrapped, had a licence, manual included but it had an extra bonus. The CD contained a version of Windows XP with spyware and trojans already installed, as soon as you used this version of XP your details, accounts and passwords would be passed out to a remote site on the internet.

Just like you lock your doors to protect your possessions and home, many people do the same on the internet. I want my privacy protected because online I pay bills, order goods, do my banking and many other activities which involve my financial and personal details. Do I want these details logged on servers, routers and at my ISP – well no not really.

You see it’s not that hard to steal personal details online, it’s slightly harder to make money from them but not too difficult. It’s certainly the only way a gang of cyber criminals in Rio De Janerio will be able to steal from you without you holidaying in Brazil. If you did discover your bank account has been raided like this, what could you do? IN reality all you can do is try to get your money back from your bank or credit card provider, either way the criminal will be unlikely to pay for his crimes.

As with most things are life, there are always positive and negatives. This is especially the case with the net, the internet censorship debate has many different views.

It is inarguable that the internet has changed the world. It has made the way we research easier; we have the wonders of the world at our finger tips; delight and desires realised at the touch of a button and it has revolutionised the way we shop and keep in touch with one another. This is especially helpful for those in remote places who long to keep connected to the rest of the world.

But there are negatives to the World Wide Web. It is now easier to access inappropriate material and the internet is a scouring ground for criminals to prey on the young and vulnerable.

As the internet has become more mainstream and embraced by society, the powers that be have censored the internet. All countries have some form of censorship imposed upon them; some may be rather lax whilst others take firm control over what can be viewed over the World Wide Web.

No one is disputing that the internet can be a dangerous place full of uncertainties. But the level of censorship that government applies can be questioned.

Within certain countries the internet is totally restricted, the government decides what can and can not be viewed. Impossible, I hear you cry! But it is true. In these countries the government control all computers that have internet connection capability. Now, this obviously is the extreme of internet censorship.

But the government will obviously always argue that censorship is for the good and the welfare of the public. Protecting the young and the vulnerable is the reason for censorship. Yet, when there are no clear definitions of what is offensive or harmful, and then the debate flares.

The reason that there is such a debate over internet safety is down to the impact that this censorship has over the basic human right of Free Speech.

Some argue that censorship of the internet limits free speech and this goes against basic human rights. This is true, however there are laws relating to Free Speech that concern speech when it id classed as harmful, offensive or insights hate.

The problem arises, however, when considering what is classed as offensive. Everyone has a different view point built up by their own beliefs and experiences. If the internet was censored due to what every person found offensive, I doubt that there would be anything left.

This is where the internet censorship debate begins to get stuck. Depending on the individual’s viewpoint depends on whether internet censorship is a positive or negative regime.

The United Kingdom has a quiet relaxed approach to the internet and censorship compared with other countries.

The main area of censorship within the United Kingdom related to images of child abuse. This clearly is something that the general public do not want to see and so there are not a lot of problems with this side of censorship. If a site has been blocked for containing these images, rather than a warning sign being displayed, there will just simply be a sign saying “error”.

So how does UK Internet Censorship Work?

The United Kingdom is censored through a filter called “cleanfeed” which uses data provided by the Internet Watch Foundation to ensure that any banned sites are inaccessible.

The Internet Watch Foundation is a nongovernmental charitable body which offers an online service for the general public.

The role of the Internet Watch Foundation is to report any materials found on the net that are offensive. The group work in conjunction with the police to ensure that the filter and the people responsible for such violations are stopped.

The Internet Watch Foundation was originally set up to focus on the organisations that produce and post child pornography. Recently they have had their remit expanded to cover any posts on the internet that were deemed racist or criminally obscene.

The Internet Watch Foundation are run independently and mostly by volunteers. This is to reduce the possibility of corruption. The Internet Watch Foundation collates all websites that have any material that fall into the aforementioned areas and put them on a blacklist, preventing them from being viewed in the United Kingdom.

In recent years there have been some incidents of UK Internet censorship that have had implications upon the Internet.

One of which being the murder case of Baby Peter, a 17 month old baby. In 2008 and 2009, the media was barred from publishing the names of the people involved in the case, both those accused of his murder and those who should have spotted the neglect. The explanation behind this was to protect the case and the witnesses as fears of reprisals from the general public who were outraged to learn of the murder.

Any websites found to be publishing the names of defendants and the child was subjected to a police investigation for trying to initiate a hate campaign.

This made some of the media, and general public, question just how free speech is in the United Kingdom, and whether the true reason was to protect the case or to protect those who were neglectful of their duty of care towards the child. The presumption is that the UK is a fairly liberal society but maybe UK Internet Censorship is not as relaxed as we imagine.

Censorship in the People’s Republic of China is defined by the suppressing or restrictions of publications. Chinese Internet Censorship is implemented and enforced through the People’s Republic of China’s ruling body, the Communist Party of China.

The censorship of the media is to prevent the masses viewing something that the Communist Party of China does not wish then to view. Their control expands over the television, radio, newspapers and the internet.

The Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs class the media situation that extends to the internet as being “very serious”. They have ranked the government of China among the worst.

The Communist Party of China censors the internet as a way of control. Censorships help to prevent any reformist or rebellions from taking place, or at least helps to minimise this risk.

In February 2009, Li Dongdong, General Administration of Press and Publication, introduced an array of regulations that would govern journalists. Any one who opposed or contravened these laws would be placed on a list and be unable to continue to work as a member of the press. These were designed, so Li Dongdong announced to “to a halt to fake news”. The editor of China Youth Daily criticised the new regulations and was later dismissed for opposing the censor.

Chinese Internet Censorship – some Stats

According to a study carried out by Harvard University, there are over 18,000 websites which are blocked and banned within the People’s Republic of China.

52 cyber dissidents have been imprisoned for their online communications. This is a worrying fact and one where it is clear to see the extent of which some countries will go to, to ensure total control through censorship.

In recent months, discussions and negotiations have taken place to reduce the number of barred websites; Yahoo, Wikipedia and YouTube to name a few, and restrictions on these have been relaxed, although with limitations.

In has been suggested that by banning and restricting the internet access to mainland China, it helps to ensure that their own e-commerce industry booms.

There is also an issue of self-censorship within the internet debate. As some companies from Hong Kong are opting to regulate themselves by the guidelines decreed from the Communist Part of China. This giving them an opportunity to expand in an unsaturated e-commerce industry, this obviously is advantageous for the company, but it does raise some moral questions as to whether regulating themselves in this manner advocated the Republic of China’s regime and the impact that this is having on the inhabitants ability of freedom of speech.