Internet Security.

[Fatguy]

Here in Canada we have lost all privacy with regard to the internet. Before; the sites I visited and contributed were my business and not the government's. After 911 - all that changed and now the government has free reign to examine all (and (unlike before) use that information in a court of law.....) logged and stored data.

My question is: What information can they bring up, and how easy is it for them to do this? I have an old early P2 mother board with a 500meg P3 processor and early Windows98 - and dial-up. With this set-up I can run a google search on my earlier IP address and find someone else's activities (which I like). Is it true that your ISP can bring up every page you have ever visited? Is there a secret cache in computers that store or log sites?

I think more privacy is had with older equipment and programs - am I correct?

[Inka]

Technically I beleive they can monitor all the websites visited. In as much as all internet page requests we make are routed 1st through out ISP.
That said I beleive its unlikely that anyone would be interested in 99.99% of this info & the sheer quantity of it will make it unrealistic to save all this info anyway. Therefore I dont beleive this information is logged. Plus I beleive a court order is still required to get ISP to log & foreward that info.

Other than that if you have a decent firewall then your pc will appear as invisible on the internet .. which will prevent people snooping around in your own pc.

I am in the UK however .. Maybe i am being naive! I cant think that Big Brother is terribly interested in the life of Inka hehe

[Fatguy]

You may think they are not interested in you right now (probably right); but if, in the future, they have reason to "check up on you" (maybe you joined a politically incorrect group or wrote a nasty letter to a politician)- what would they find? There may be so much info on you that they could pick and choose things that make you look very evil for things like a court case or application for a search warrant.

Since I am on dial-up - the fire wall seems to be a bit redundant - or is it? Permanant IP addresses are used on cable subscribers and dial-up changes constantly - am I correct? Are memory caches usually purged, or are they kept forever..... What about my computer and any "travel logs? I need to know.....

[mjc]

Yes, you need a fierwall, no matter if you have an OC3 or a string and paper cup to connect with.....one of the realities of today's internet is that most places you go want more from you than you are really aware of.

Yes, the government can track vast amounts of internt traffic...can they get it all? unlikely

Can they actually do something with it all? Extremely inlikely.

Are they storing EVERYTHING for some future use against people? only if you are a memeber of the tinfoil beanie crowd.

The sheer amount of data makes this task nearly impposible. Just look at some of the publically accessible archive sites.....like the Google cache, they update/purge the cache periodically in order to keep from having to have a storage center the size of a small city.

Yes, it is kind of scary that they can do things like this, but is it really a major concern?

Not really as much as the things that some are trying to do elsewhere to impinge on freedom/privacy/rights.....

[Variable]

If you want to surf if relative safety you could use anonymizer
http://www.anonymizer.com/
I subscribe. There is also an app. called PeerGuardian which blocks IP addresses from known sites that may wanting to check you out for whatever reason. You can add these manually to your firewall if you have a few years. Mine blocks over 52 million IP's, but seems to hog CPU cycles, the newer version may be better. The only somewhat secure way to surf is with anonymizer, it is an encrypted proxy server. Your traffic goes through there servers and it's encrypted both ways. Can this be broken? Yep. Can they subpena anonymizer for information? Probably.
If you want to be totally secure your going to have to not use your computer. If you use it, then your opening yourself up. But, like MJC said there is safety in numbers. With so much traffic it would be hard even for the No Such Agency to track it all.
Big brother is out there to be sure and so are a lot more dangerous cousins. Just try and stay insignificant and off the radar screen as much possible and hopefully you will go unnoticed.


P.S. as a side note Norton IS has a feature to protect information. My last 4 digits of my social security number is in it, I have had several sites wanting this information. I don't know if its a cookie or what , but Norton pops up the message. I never used this feature before a few weeks ago. Makes you wonder..
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[ErnieK]

It is not often I submit legnthy replies but here goes on a subject sure to get me going.

At this moment in time there is a move afoot in the UK/EU to push through the second part of a new law that will make available any, and all ISP logs of interent use by their subscribers. These logs would be made available, on demand, without court order to police and goverment.

The new law would force the ISP's to keep, and store, the logs of all use of their services, by all of their users. Whether this will actaully take place or not is yet to be seen.

The ISP's (in the UK/EU) are opposing the move because of the finacial cost (which would have to be passed on) and also the burden that would be placed on them for the saving and storing of all such data. I think it would have to be stored for a period of between 3 & 5 years.

I think it was at the beginning of 2003 that the first part of this new new law (in the UK/EU) came into being. That part enables the goverment(s) to stop and open any, and all e-mails enroute to their destination without a court order. Also if you use password/encription software and when asked for the password/key to open an encripted document you refuse, the minimum jail sentence is about 2 years.

(This taken to the extreme, means that if a police officer asked you for your bank card number and you refuse to supply it you could be guilty of a criminal offence and therefor be charged)

Stating that you have lost the password/key is no defence and you will be deemed guilty by refusing to supply the required information to authorised persons.

This ruling was slipped in under a heading that gave no indication as to what it was actually for.

As Inkastated at this moment the police and goverment are, officially, supposed to obtain a search warrant to track ands view any logs compiled by ISP's and this warrant must name the individual to tracked and show just cause for doing so. Please note I said "officially though it it is rumoured that a lot of the time they do not bother.

If you have not read "George Orwells" fictional book "1984" do not bother because it is now becoming the reallity.

[kayofcircles]

Forgive me please, ErnieK, because it is small of me to feel somewhat comforted that the USA is not the only country where the rights of individuals are being trampled in the name of security and anti-terrorism. I do understand that what mjc said is correct..that the sheer volume of the traffic makes it unlikely that they are pawing through my email, but that's not exactly the point, is it? The point is that they could decide I am a threat to someone based on some stupid criteria that they don't have to disclose, and they could paw through my email and anything else without so much as a warrant.

Scares the **** out of me..it really does. It feels ludicrous, but I am more frightened..much more...of our secret agencies and their new "privileges" than I am of terrorists.

[Variable]

Whether it is the political right or left, both sides, taken too far, would be very scary indeed. No one wants to be a victim of terrorism, but there are more forms of terrorism than just religious fanatics with a death wish. The whole point of checks and balances is supposed to keep things from getting to far out of hand. You can be sure if the political climate in the US lends itself to the government over stepping the bounds laid down by the Constitution, some type of corrective action will be taken. It looks to me like our government swings back and forth like a pendulum between two points on the political spectrum. I believe if it gets to far out of wack either side, the backlash will be as severe as the overreaction was in the first place. I hope this is the case. It may suck for those of us living towards the end of the pendulum swing though, for sure.
If this reversal doesn't happen and we stay locked to far either way, were all in for a scarier world, all around. But again, I don't think that the American people will let us lose too much, if things get to intrusive the backlash will eventually come. I don't believe that people (Americans) are sheep. Eventually you'll piss off enough people for long enough and change will come. Our history is rife with examples of political shifts Kennedy administrations..., begat Nixon.., who begat Carter..., who begat Reagan.., who begat Clinton... etc. We bounce all over the place. We came about by revolution! Anyway, Presidents pick those ever important judges and they set policy. You could say, "sure but the real power is legislative they pass the laws," but It seems to me the Courts have the real power. They can wipe out laws like they were cobwebs in the corners. I don't think the European model of socialism will fly in America. I hope not anyway, I remain optimistic.
Some advice they give you in the boxing ring seems apropos though, "Protect yourself at all times."
: )

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