TheInternethas a way of lulling you into a false mother wit of anonymity . After all , how can anyone recognise your on-key personal identity in a virtual world ? The truth is that simply by connecting to the Internet , you partake in information about yourcomputer , your geographic location and even about the Web website you visit .
The goal of anonymous vane surfboarding is to circumvent the applied science that track your online activity and may potentially display your personal information to others . By surfing anonymously , no one knows who you are , where you ’re plug into from or what land site you are claver .
When people think of surfing the Web anonymously , they automatically link it with extramarital affairs , malicious hacking , illegal downloading and other sordid behaviors . That ’s not necessarily the typesetter’s case . In fact , there are many legitimate reason why someone would wish to remain anon. online :
As you ’ll see in the next part , surfing the World Wide Web anonymously is n’t as wanton as score out your web browser app history . Learn more about computer networks andIP addressesand how they can debunk your personal identity .
IP Addresses and Cookies
Every political machine plug in to the Internet has a uniqueInternet Protocol ( IP ) address , include your figurer . You may have a static IP address or it may change each prison term you go online . Either way , you are tagged with a unique identifier every time you channel-surf the Web .
AnIP addressis necessary for the Internet to work out . It is literally the address of your personal calculator on a vast computer electronic internet – like a single house on a crowded street . The only way aWeb servercan send the content of a vane page to your web web browser is if it has your computer ’s address on the internet .
IP address , in and of themselves , do not turn back any in person identifiable information about you . However , if you ’re signed up with an Internet Service Provider ( ISP ) – which is the fashion most of us get our cyberspace service – then your ISP can easily link your IP destination with your name , home address , telephone number , e - mailaddress and even acknowledgment card information .
Do n’t get paranoid just yet : In universal , ISPs have fairly rigid privacy policies . They wo n’t give out your personal information to any random person who ask for it . However , under laws like the U.S. Patriot Act and through subpoena from the police and Union agencies , an ISP may have no alternative but to supply personal data related to an IP destination .
Cookiesare another way for an outside source to track your Web surfriding habits . Cookiesare tiny schoolbook file cabinet that are bring through in your Web internet browser when you visit a Web site . The file might hold your login entropy , your substance abuser preference , the content of your online shopping pushcart and other identifiers . These cookies make your connection browsing experience more individualized and customizable . They ’re designed to economize you time when you visit your favourite sites . They ’re also design to aid advertisers tailor their messages to your personal preferences .
First - party cookiesare cookie get out on your web browser app from entanglement site you visited . Third - company cookiesare files salt away on your computer from advertisers and other parties that have selective information - apportion agreement with the website you visited . Many citizenry receive third - political party biscuit to be a particularly egregious breach of privacy , since you have no control over who pick up information about you .
In the next subdivision , we ’ll taker a close look at how scam creative person can practice an online data trail to set up together your identity .
Piecing Together Your Online Identity
CookiesandIP addressesalone may not give away your personal information , but when these cue are combined with other entanglement surfboarding datum – like your hunt history – you could unwittingly let on your identity tohackers , scam creative person or government investigators .
hunting engines routinely store lookup queries associated with your IP address . Googlestores search question for nine calendar month and MSN stores them for 18 months [ source : Privacy Rights Clearinghouse ] . By analyze hundreds or thousands of hunt queries from the same IP address , it ’s possible to deduct someone ’s identity , particularly if they have done map search on their habitation address or entered their Social Security number .
Another terror to online privacy need connection atomic number 99 - mail accounts . If you apply the same entanglement site for both your vitamin E - mail service and Internet searches , you might be leaving a very clear track for hacker and cybercriminals to follow when you go online .
For instance , if you use Google as your e - mail provider , then you need to lumber in to Gmail.com for each eastward - mail session . Any Google internet search you conduct while lumber in to your e - ring armour account will be assort with the same IP address as your tocopherol - mail account . From there , it would be sluttish for a hacker or other third company to associate your searches with your due east - post address – and to use this info to ship you customized spam or other tocopherol - chain armour scams .
The simple and most lineal mode for someone to track your web surfing is to view the history on your entanglement browser app . Your World Wide Web web browser keeps a chronological list of every Web website you chew the fat . Most Web browsers will store your graze chronicle for at least a week by nonremittal . If someone wanted to monitor your Web surfboarding , all that mortal would have to do is open your web web browser and seek your history .
If you ’re surfing the Web from a piece of work computer , your boss does n’t need to physically turn on your computer and check your web internet browser history . Since you ’re working on an office web , your employer has the right field to monitor what situation you are visiting .
In the next section , we ’ll talk about anonymous proxy server , one of the most effective direction to enshroud your personal identity online .
Anonymous Proxy Servers
Every clip you type a uniform resource locator into your Web internet browser and click Enter , your computer sends a request to aWeb server , which then delivers the Web varlet back to you . To do this , the vane server needs to know yourIP savoir-faire . So much for surfing anonymously , right-hand ?
Not necessarily : One way to void revealing your IP address to every Web waiter you link is to utilise a proxy server . Aproxy serveris a machine that ride between you and the eternal rest of the cyberspace . Every pageboy asking you make goes through the proxy server first .
Ananonymous proxy serveris a special kind of proxy loaded with software system that erases your IP address from any Sir Frederick Handley Page request and substitute its own . When the Sir Frederick Handley Page is sent back by the Web host , the proxy server then forwards it along to you costless of any additional software scripts that might compromise your identity .
The most democratic kind of anon. proxy servers are World Wide Web - free-base placeholder . All you have to do is go to the World Wide Web site of the placeholder service , infix the desire URL in a especial address boxful and the service will relay the request to the entanglement server anonymously .
There are some downsides to anonymous proxy waiter . Because each incoming and forthcoming page needs to be processed by the proxy server , this can often result in slow page load times . And since the proxy server attempts to delete or bypass any shady elements on the returning Web Sir Frederick Handley Page , a lot of pages will stretch with errors .
Make certain that you use a realize vane proxy with a clear concealment insurance . There have been cases of malicious hackers who have determine up bastard anonymous WWW proxies to compile information from unwitting client . When you use a proxy waiter , the information often travels unencrypted , allowinghackersto see things like usernames , passwords and other raw info [ origin : WhatIsMyIPAddress.com ] .
You should also avoid so - yell " subject proxies . " These are proxy servers that claim to have been abandoned and accidentally left " open " for one reason or another . Many of these proxies are booby ambush put up by malicious hackers who want to steal personally identifiable information . Some clear proxy are in reality living on the computers of unwitting user who have been infected by a reckoner virus .
Now that you have a go at it how to obscure your IP address online , it ’s time to check your Web browser app setting .
Privacy Settings in Your Browser
Anonymous proxy server are a heavy mode to disguise yourIP addressonline , but there is still plenty of entropy about your WWW surfing riding habit stored on yourcomputer . Luckily , it ’s gentle to control your privacy setting now in your vane internet browser .
One of the simplest ways to cover your online tracks is to manually cancel your browser app history . All vane browsers – likeInternet Explorer , Firefox , Safari or Google Chrome – allow you to blue-pencil your web surfing story .
take note , however , that any connection administrator – at the office or even at your ISP – can access your surfriding chronicle on the mesh story , even if you wipe off it on your computer .
you could also control how your browser app handlescookies . The nonremittal setting on most browsers is to consent cookies from all site . you’re able to either block cookies entirely – which might keep you from using certain online banking and shopping internet site – or you’re able to pick out only to block third - party cookie .
Since anonymous WWW surfboarding is becoming more and more popular , the latest versions of Internet Explorer , Firefox , Safari and Google Chrome include special preferences for surf without a suggestion . By enabling these options , your web internet browser wo n’t lay aside your surfing account , search queries , cookies , download history or passwords .
Here is how you set off anon. surfing in some the more democratic Web browsers :
In the next section , we ’ll talk about ways to get around the prickly job of Web sites that force you to show .
Anonymous Registration
Many free and subscription Web sites require you to file before using their services . This normally requires three basic things : an activee - mailaddress , a username and a password .
Aside from the certificate risk of give your e - mail address and other in person identifiable information to a random vane situation , a lot of people simply do n’t want every Web site they visit to lie with who they are , and certainly not how to contact them .
For security aim , experts advocate that you do n’t use the same username and parole to get at all of your Web internet site and services . The danger , of course , is that one of these sites will – either maliciously or accidentally – hand your information over toidentity thieveswho will use your world-wide username and password to get at your online bank account or other extremely sensitive Web services .
Another pain in the ass is that many Web sites have no job with sell your data to third party who will then load your inbox withspam . Some site admit you to opt out of receive e - mail from partners , but it is n’t always clear which boxes to fit or uncheck .
If you do n’t want to give your literal vitamin E - mail computer address to every Web site that require readjustment , you could always create multiple due east - mail account using free services likeYahoo ! Mailor Google Mail . For most vane situation , the only existent purpose of the e - mail reference is to affirm registration , so it ’s o.k. if you never check the east - mail account again .
However , if you register with many different Web internet site and want to keep track of all of your dissimilar usernames , passwords and e - mail addresses , do n’t create an Excel or Word file and make unnecessary it on your computer . If someone is capable to get at that file , they ’d have more than enough information to slip your identity element .
A better answer is to use a untroubled , World Wide Web - based service like ShopShield or Anonymizer . These services mechanically get temporary e - mail addresses with alone usernames and passwords for any web site you wish . Whenever a unexampled e - mail message is receive at one of these temporary story , it is call off for virus and spam and then forwarded to your real e - mail address . you could also delete undesirable accounts with a click of a push .
Another clever solution is a Web site yell BugMeNot.com , in which users brand free usernames and passwords for shared access to popular Web sites like newspapers and television communion sites . If a username and word stops cultivate , it is vote down the listing .
For scads more selective information about on-line privateness and the mechanics of the Internet , follow the radio link on the next page .
