Tuesday, May 4, 2010

How Anonymous Are You?


You may think that you are anonymous as you browse web sites, but pieces of information about you are always left behind. You can reduce the amount of information revealed about you by visiting legitimate sites, checking privacy policies, and minimizing the amount of personal information you provide.

When you visit a web site, a certain amount of information is automatically sent to the site. This information may include the following:
1-IP address - Each computer on the internet is assigned a specific, unique IP (internet protocol) address. Your computer may have a static IP address or a dynamic IP address. If you have a static IP address, it never changes. However, some ISPs own a block of addresses and assign an open one each time you connect to the internet—this is a dynamic IP address. You can determine your computer's IP address at any given time by visiting www.showmyip.com

2-domain name - The internet is divided into domains, and every user's account is associated with one of those domains. You can identify the domain by looking at the end of URL; for example, .edu indicates an educational institution, .gov indicates a US government agency, .org refers to organization, and .com is for commercial use. Many countries also have specific domain names. The list of active domain names is available from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).

3-software details - It may be possible for an organization to determine which browser, including the version, that you used to access its site. The organization may also be able to determine what operating system your computer is running.

page visits - Information about which pages you visited, how long you stayed on a
4-given page, and whether you came to the site from a search engine is often available to the organization operating the web site.
If a web site uses cookies, the organization may be able to collect even more information, such as your browsing patterns, which include other sites you've visited. If the site you're vising is malicious, files on your computer, as well as passwords stored in the temporary memory, may be at risk.
now the important question is this " How can you limit the amount of information collected about you?"
there are some way to limit the amount of information that you share. can you help me with that?
thank you
sanaz

No comments:

Post a Comment