Re: web tracking

From: David Postill (david_at_postill.org.uk)
Date: 10/25/04 

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2004 16:52:20 GMT

In article <ni5qn0t8lhfo5ennprd98bpbgfdcgisj4u@4ax.com>, on Mon, 25 Oct 2004 11:09:47 -0400, MOB
<mobrien11@comcast.net> wrote:

| Yesterday I was surfing on the net and when I opened a particular
| website, I saw words to this effect: "my computer geek tells me that
| you're visiting us from ---my city--, ---my state---.
|
| I wasn't happy to see that. I'm wondering now, do all webpages that I
| visit tell the owner or webmaster where I'm from?

No, probably not all, but...

If

The web servers in question are configured to have logging enabled
with the right options then one of the logged items can be the remote
ip address of whoever is making a request of the web server (ie you)

And

If your isp provides reverse dns for your internet connection in such a way
that your city, state can be figured out from your ip address

Then

If the owner/webmaster bothers to read the logs and does the reverse dns
lookup (which can be automated) he/she would know where you are from.

| If I only stay three seconds and then leave, does that information
| remain on their record?

Potentially, see above.

If you are really paranoid and don't want this information to be available
then use one of more anonymous proxies (more than one would need to be chained
together in some way.

If you are really, really paranoid then of course you would have to believe
that anonymous proxies are not really anonymous.

If you are really, really, really paranoid then don't have an internet connection
and remember to wear your tin foil hat (shiny side out) :)

Further reading:

Privacy and Anonymity

   * https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/ehowes/www/main-nf.htm Eric Howes' Privacy & Security Page
   * http://www.mailmsg.com/SPAM_munging.htm Munge your email address
   * http://www.privacy.net All about privacy
   * http://www.cotse.com Well known privacy/security portal
   * http://www.stack.nl/~galactus/remailers Anonymity, privacy and security
   * http://www.anonymizer.com Free, anonymous web surfing
   * http://www.idzap.com IDSecure service
   * http://www.privacy.org News, information and action
   * http://www.samspade.org/t Sam Spade Tools
   * http://www.pgpi.org International PGP homepage
   * http://www.hushmail.com Encryptable web-mail
   * http://www.skuz.net/potatoware Anonymity software
   * http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs REALLY delete your data
   * http://www.safeproxy.org Anonymous access
   * http://www.rewebber.de Web privacy
   * http://mikhed.narod.ru/en/free_proxy/cgi-proxy.htm Web anonymiser list
   * http://www.proxyblind.org Proxy resource
   * http://www.ziplip.com Encrypted web-mail and messaging

<davidp /> 

-- 
David Postill

Relevant Pages

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