Privacy? What Privacy?

I think that for the vast majority of internet users, privacy is just an illusion. Even if you use a firewall, http (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) sends all sorts of data about you, your computer, your browser and even your monitor's screen resolution to the websites that you surf.

Your IP

When you surf the internet, your connection is uniquely identified by an IP (internel Protocol) number. If you are on a LAN (Local Area Network) you may share that IP with others on the same network.

In general terms for people who surf the 'net at home, knowing a user's IP is enough to find him or her. But . . .



The above is a screenshot with firefox on the left running tor (more about that later in this journal) and konqueror on the right. Both browsers show the ipchicken website which shows my old Linux box's IP. Notice that two different IPs are being returned at the same time.



Privacy at an Internet Cafe?

That's why some people go to internet cafes to surf the 'net. But even that can be problematic since the IP can be traced back to the cafe and computers can be forensically examined - most computers retain much data related to surfing the net - cookies, cached data, etc.

And that is why some people get online at internet cafes using "live cd" operating systems that boot and run entirely from the cd without writing any data to the hard drive. Some good Linux live cds that I have used are SimplyMepis Knoppix Kanotix PCLinuxOS Ubuntu and Slax

But that still does not solve the IP problem. There are also several live cds that are designed for getting online anonymously and privately including Anonym.OS (an OpenBSD distrobution) and Phantomix

Tor - privacy at home?

The Electronic Frontier Foundation recommends the use of Tor

Your traffic is safer when you use Tor, because communications are bounced around a distributed network of servers, called onion routers. Tor's technology aims to provide Internet users with protection against "traffic analysis," a form of network surveillance that threatens personal anonymity and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security.

I installed and set up tor and firefox on my old Linux box this evening, and it seems to work as promised. Given the nature of how tor works browsing even on a broadband connection is slower.