At the dawn of 21st century, advances in technology endanger our privacy in ways never before imagined. Direct marketers and retailers
track our every purchase; surveillance cameras observe our movements; mobile phones report our location to those who want to
track us; government eavesdroppers listen in on private communications; misused medical records turn our bodies and our histories against
us; and linked databases assemble detailed consumer profiles used to predict and influence our behaviour.
Privacy - the most basic of our civil rights - is in grave peril.
Privacy in everyday life is nothing new. When you buy something at the grocery store, no one is going to ask you for some form of ID, and
when you send a snail–mail letter, the Post Office doesn't check if the return address is valid. And who wouldn't be very
upset if they found out that the mailman had been reading their mail?
Although everyone takes privacy in normal life for granted, trying to get the same level of privacy on the
Internet (or even on your own computer) is a little less accepted, and sometimes a bit more complicated. While the general attitude
is hard to change, many ways exist to enhance your privacy online. You can also keep your personal information private and protected with
companies like
LifeLock, where they focus on keeping
identities safe from hackers.
However, on the Internet privacy is regarded a lot less normal. Messages are sent as clear text, so that everyone with a little knowledge
can read them, and there is no built–in way to prevent someone else from forging something in your name, so that you can–t prove
it wasn't you. Even worse, data on your own hard disk can be examined by everyone who has access to your office or room.
Data on your own computer is also not protected. Unless you take special precautions, everyone who wanders by during your lunch break can
copy and read all files on your computer. There are also many ways in which sensitive data can end up on your disk without you knowing it.
There are many resources to help you find out how you got hacked or information stolen due to
computer forensics that are available to people.
Cookies
What are cookies? How do cookies work? Why are cookies useful?
We tell you here.
ETag
A new unique identifier known as an ETag value has emerged as the
latest tracking utility.
Steganography
Steganography simply takes one piece of information and hides it within another. Computer files contain unused or insignificant areas of
data. Steganography takes advantage of these areas, replacing them with information. These files can then be exchanged without anyone
knowing what is really inside of them.
Learn how its done here.
AccountKiller
Not all web sites make it easy for users to delete their accounts. Some make it nearly impossible.
AccountKiller not only gives clear and simple instructions for deleting
accounts at all the most popular sites (Skype, Facebook, Windows Live, iTunes, Twitter, Google), it also uses a colour coded
rating system.
White listed sites make it easy to automatically delete your account.
Black listed sites make it almost impossible or highly difficult to get delete your account.
Grey listed sites fall inbetween.
AccountKiller also includes any links or phone numbers its staff find that might be needed or helpful to finish the job.
People are now checking
AccountKiller before signing up to
a service to check if they are blacklisted or not.
Privacy : Epic
EPIC is a public interest research center in Washington, D.C. It was established in
1994 to focus public attention on emerging civil liberties issues and to protect privacy.
EPIC works in association with Privacy International, an international human rights
group based in London, UK and is also a member of the Global Internet Liberty
Campaign, the Internet Free Expression Alliance, the Internet Privacy Coalition,
the Internet Democracy Project, and the Trans Atlantic Consumer Dialogue.
Privacy : 12 Ways to Protect Your Online Privacy
The Electronic Frontier Foundation
is the leading civil liberties organization working to
protect rights in the digital world. This document, released in April 2002, is as informative
and accurate today as it was then. Even though we face many more dangers today, the basics have
not changed.
Privacy : Privacy.net
Privacy.net provides information and tips about Privacy. Read about credit reports, identity theft, Internet
privacy and more. Demonstrations of your Internet connection and Internet cookies have been recently updated.
Privacy : Protect your identity
Did you know that detailed information about your system is automatically provided to every web
site you visit? This information can be used by hackers to exploit your computer and by
companies to track your activities on the Internet. Why put up with this invasion of your
privacy and security? Anonymizers hide revealing information from the web sites you visit,
allowing you to surf the web anonymously. How does it work? Each time you visit a web site
through
The Cloak, they forward your request to the remote web site from their server.
The web site responds to that server, and they forward the response back to you. To the web
site, it appears as though the request came from them, not from you.
