Privacy and the internet. These are things that do not equal
out, sorry, but they really don't. Due to Azar's recent post on
AoL's Privacy... or shall I say lack there of, I decided to make a post
in general, though I'll touch base on my opinion of AoL as well.
In other words get ready for a long opinionated spiel regarding my
opinions and AoL and privacy on the internet.
Since the privacy factor is what originally perked my interest I'll
go with that first. I highly recommend thinking real hard about
the privacy you do or don't have on the internet and weight what you do.
There is so much tracking, spyware, adware, and p2p (pier to pier - i.e.
Napster, Limewire, Kazah, etc) software out there that you just have to
know that very little online is private.
Tracking - There are various types of tracking information
available. Some do nothing but count you as a hit on a site. These
types generally are doing nothing but recognizing your presence on
specific sites. These, however, are becoming more and more rare as
marketing trends can be dictated if you pull a "little" more information
from your viewers. Yes, this includes your "naughty" sites as
well. When I say little I mean IP address, Operating System,
Browser, Browser Version, what you looked at while on the site, how long
you stayed on each page, etc etc so on and so forth. So they know
someone from this Hosting Company (AoL, EarthLink, Cox, Juno, etc) was
on their site, and what type of software they were using to browse their
site. HECK mine will even tell you how you got to my site and
EXACTLY what you typed in to get here. An example of this
for my other site (equine information) Nagle Farms. I would be told that
I was found on page 1 of 25 and the viewer had typed in Famous Horse
Quiz in their Google browser. Oh yes, that's a lotta information.
I'll tell you what though if I ever bother to actually advertise I
guarantee I'll be using it for marketing decisions.
Spyware - This is generally also done for tracking
information, but can also have many more insidious tendencies.
These evil little programs can do everything from execute things, to
track EVERYTHING you've viewed, to actually performing certain functions
that will "monitor" your activity. This includes what you've typed into
forms. Sadly these, IMO, should be considered as bad as viruses,
and many times act just like one. They hog system resources that can
cause your computer to slow down and sometimes not even function
properly. Most of these programs are not even something you will
even notice, and that is their point. They are generally doing
exactly what the name implies: Spying. Whereas tracking information is
generally based on what you've done while on a particular site this can
track absolutely everything! These can even prevent you from going
to one site.
Example: Bobby goes to Yahoo and does a search for Pink Floyd.
He clicks on a site and is told he needs to install something for the
site to work properly OR even worse since he has flash it's
automatically executed on his machine. This program now alters
something in the hosts file that tells his computer when he types in
www.yahoo.com it will instead be
re-directed to *insert web address here*.
I've seen this happen. A customer types in the web address into
the address bar and instead of pulling up yahoo it pulls up some random
porn, gambling, or other various site. The only way to correct it
is to go into your hosts file (should be located in the System 32 file
in most versions of Windows), and either erase everything for good
measure or find the specific offending line, and save. What
a pain in the ass.
Adware - *cough* Gator *cough* I detest Adware as much if not
more than Spyware. It too is a system hog, and the annoying pop
ups telling me that I should buy a certain product just pisses me off.
These programs are usually a combination of Spyware, Tracking, and make
their presence known by randomly popping up advertisements. The programs
also tend to "help" you fill out forms, which can cause problems.
It remembers one thing wrong and BAM, trouble city.
Pier to Pier - P2P programs have definitely swept over the world
like wildfire. Welcome to the newest and potentially largest version
of piracy at this time. ARRRRRRRRRRR. Music, software, video games, and
various other files are now available to all. These programs turn your
computer into it's own fileserver, and share your information with anyone
who's looking for it. This includes your downloads, files, software,
etc. Now granted, you can limit this (and I recommend doing so) and
only share what's in you're "shared" folder, but if you don't pay attention
that little search it does when you install it to search for "media" files
can seriously compromise your security. If it finds media files in
other parts of your computer it may want to "share" them as well. Pay
attention to what files are being downloaded from you as well as what files
you have allowed this/these programs access too. After all, that
connection is literally a connection to your computer.
Privacy Policies - These can be important as they may not allow
you to be as private as you think. Personally I would really be
annoyed to find one of my conversations (no mater how boring) used in
someone's advertising campaign. OR that a company was selling my
information to another company. Pay attention to what these say. I
know it's usually miles and miles of verbiage that you could care less
about, but it may be worth your time to at least skim.
The best defense for this is a good offense. Get some good anti-spyware/adware
programs and use them regularly. Keep up to date on anti-virus updates,
and use a little common sense when visiting certain sites, and
understand that P2P programs (if you don't pay attention) can seriously
expose your computer to access from other areas. Essentially just
remember that you're not as "private" online as you think you are.
Firewalls are a very useful tool as well, but know what they do and what
other issues they can cause. Firewalls if set up improperly can
hinder you from doing things as well. Make sure you know how to
add your favorite sites to your firewall before even installing it.
Otherwise your online secure transactions may no longer be possible.
The average geek is probably already aware of all this, but since I'm
going off on it, I figured I should make it known anyway.
Firewalls personally irritate the heck out of me. This, however,
stems from a laziness that I should probably get over, and the fact that
I don't really like software firewalls. They tend to slow down my
machine and not allow me access to everything I want. I have a
hardware firewall, otherwise known as a router. It's not smart, it
just redirects the internet to all of my various computers. But it
is a block between me and that nasty direct IP address. In the end
I'm not sure it really matters, or that I really care. HOWEVER, if
you like your firewall more power too you.
This article was brought to you by the Pirate Alphabet ~ A
E I O ARRRR ~
Kitty ~ Out
Pirate
I kind of feel when I mentioned this that I didn't way which one it was. There are 2 P2P's.
P2P: Pier to Pier ~ File sharing, Low security! not well used to For actual
communications. Used for Piracy Yeah on a box with no Financial information on it set up just for piracy not a security risk other then to people who think this hundreds of year choice of employment is a crime. Though I can honestly say I never made a profit.
he other P2P: Person to Person. Know as PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) Security Freaking lock down the Base security is so High. This
literally you have to have the other half of the key to decipher what your Dear friends have been sending you and to make it even worse. It was made by revolutionaries of the Cyber age. (Remember that book I mentioned in my Bio...you should Read it) This program runs like Lotus Notes which was ready for use in the early 80's but wasn't released cause the NSA Sat on it.
Honestly Computer Security in the United States is way less then it should be because of the concerns that the NSA and
government had about what was on our little computers. We had Crusaders to get us as Far as we have gotten. But if we had this level of Security back in the 80's and were told we couldn't use it hence bringing the computer security industry to a stand still for 10 years then I don't we have a chance of catching up.
NOW people are concerned about Computer Security. What about in the 80's?
Before I run into a rant on this I wanted to share a Few things with you stuff nice to know in the computer age.
Cryptography ~ Where it all started. Nice to
at least have an outline of the amount of work that gave us security. And then was used to take it away. I still blame the NSA for the 128 bit encryption, they put a ceiling on it long time ago. Since we have been using 128 bit since Windows 98. Everything has gotten better but well the encryption.
MIT Distributed PGP ~ Did you know a lot of the research was done at MIT and Berkley for the Crypto we do have now?
PGP ~ Did you know this Company let a Copy of PGP release as "shareware" in the 80s under the NSA's nose. ha ha ha and they caused all kinds of trouble for it too.
Crypto:
How the Code Rebels Beat the Government~ remember the book I keep mentioning. as I said the First 1/2 the book took me over a month to read and research. I killed more Brain cells on this, most of them
committed Suicide though I think many of them jumped right out of my ear.
OK you have the information to be informed. be informed.
And I still think AOL is the son of Satan!
Azar
