Privacy, Social Networks and Sign-up

They know all about you....

by Rupert Sharp
of http://www.oyster-web.co.uk

Last updated: 25 Mar 2008

Now here's an issue that is constantly battling Google and most sites on the web, online privacy. The internet is the largest informational tool we have on this planet, the largest collection of messages, opinions, pictures, videos, operating systems, software and of course people. Now that may sound slightly odd in principal, “how can the internet contain people? Surely people simply use the web?” Well the truth is any person who has ever connected that magic cable in the back of their computer is already part of the net. As you browse the web you're giving out information about yourself without knowing it; it only takes someone with the right inclination to monitor and record it.

For a start, cookies. A Cookie is small packet of information that is sent from a site and sits on your computer in your browser files. The point of a cookie is to store information specific about that particular user, as the internet is a 'stateless' object it needs things to tell it how to behave, the cookie is stored on your computer to tell the site how to react to you individually. The 'good' use of cookies is to remember little bits of information about the user such as your Username on a particular site (so you can log in quickly), a note that the user has visited the site before (so a 'Welcome Back!' message can be displayed) also other short-term information such as a site shopping cart or a more 'long-term' cookie such as a Session ID (which is used for keeping you logged into a site). But unfortunately they can also be used for other reasons such as tracking. Tracking cookies will take note of the sites that you visit, the site you were referred from (to get to the site you received the cookie from), the search terms that you last used. Most of these methods are used for marketing purposes, as said Google is particularly a fan of these methods in its tools (such as Google analytics), but remember this is still invading your privacy - by monitoring what sites you're going to people can yet again associate that information with what you're interested in.

But it's generally not hidden tracking that is the main exponent of information theft (unless it's a more underhand method such as a keylogger or some other form of spyware); you personally hand out your information to an enormous amount of companies now without even thinking about it. For the average site 'sign up' page the most common details it requires are, your full name, date of birth, email, country of origin and post/zip code. So you've just given this company (and possibly other companies if you haven't read the terms and conditions) all the information to not only send you email Spam but post things to your house! Ensuring you're signing up to trustworthy sites and avoiding suspicious ones is one of the most important rules of web-browsing. Apart from bad sites taking your information some can be ridden with virus's and other such computer afflictions. This however is not the worst form of your details being stolen, you in fact willingly give them out yourself through *drum roll* social networking sites!

Now this is an argument that is bounced around a lot nowadays and it is justified, the most prominent argument against social networking sites is that an employer can and will look at them to suss out the kind of person you are and also find out private information about yourself that you may not wish them to know. Just remember that if you put private information on the net that is not at least protected by a personally built log-on system, people and spiders can find it. The greatest example of how exposed your information actually is, is Spock.com. Spock.com is a 'people search engine' which spiders the internet for names and alias's and the information associated with them and groups them by checking similarities between them all and then makes that grouped information available to the public, so in other words I search bob@example.com in spock I'll get 'bob bloggs', their email, their age, DOB, music tastes etc.

Now my top tips on hiding your information online are...

Never use your real name, use an alias.

Have a separate email account for your personal mail and sign up mail.

Hide your email.

If the option is given, make your profile 'private' i.e. only people you've allowed can view it.

Understand that you do in fact live in the city Paris in America.

If you're displaying an email on a website with HTML allowed, encrypt it (We have a tool for this).

Read the Documentation, you don't HAVE to be over-thorough but at least skim it and see if you can spot any odd patches.

The bottom-line is the classic “Keep Your Information Safe”; remember the information you're giving out and who you're giving it to, know where your information is being sent, be careful what you display on social networks and other websites and remember to delete your cookies from time to time. The net is filled with information hounds so just remember to keep protected, your information belongs to you so keep it that way.