About Those Hidden Microsoft Files.......

[BillWP]

So a person follows the directions, and deletes the "Hidden Microsoft Files". But if what we are reading in the news is true - that Google and Yahoo know exactly what any individual person has ever searched for, and can name that person - how will deleting hidden files protect your privacy, when at any moment, Yahoo or Google may be forced to make that information public? I thought that an IP address was static, which means it couldn't be traced. I also find it hard to believe that the search engine companies are able to keep track of millions of searches, and can tell where any certain person surfed 10 years ago. Will you soon be able to call up your ISP and request this information? ! I'm sure my kids will LOVE that! Any thoughts?

[Aloone_Jonez]

Firstly the "M$ are spying on you" thing is bullshit, almost everyone here agrees and we want to get this aritical remove from our site and replaced with something more worthwhile.

But you do have point about Google, however they will never surrender your details to a 3rd party, even the government so I think you're safe enough.

[davidnix71]

Even if you have a static IP, only your ISP would know WHO you are, unless you have a registered domain name under that IP.

But, even with a dialup account and non static IP, it's possible to know almost exactly WHERE you live. Blocks of IP's can be tied to geographical locations, depending on the ISP.

I use Bell South, and my log-in cookie has a term "gloc=xyz" where xyz is the city I live in. I get (unwanted) targeted 'dating' ads because of that, and because of the Bell South practice of assigning IP's based on where the account is. Bell South is selling that info to people who target ads based on geography. I can delete my cookies, but the only way to truly hide my IP is through a proxy server.

If I use anonymouse's German http proxy and visit certain web sites, the dating ads will have German cities and German women. And, no they don't look any better over there. [Set phasers to shave, Mister Sulu].

If Google is forced to surrender search record logs, and those logs have IP's with them (they probably do) and your ISP keeps logs that far back and the gov't demands that log, then you've been made. If you use AOL, then probably not, because AOL intentionally mucks up IP's internally, for members privacy and to limit hacking of members computers. If you use anonymouse for your Google searches, then definitely not,either.

I have a Yahoo account and they will sell personal info if you let them. iccintelliserv.net cookies are the ones they are using to pass off where you go. Block cookies from that domain and they have a harder time spying on you.

Since browser helper objects in IE have the same process ID as the browser it's almost impossible to prevent Windoze from calling home if you go on the net in IE.

[BillWP]

Firstly the "M$ are spying on you" thing is bullshit, almost everyone here agrees and we want to get this aritical remove from our site and replaced with something more worthwhile.

But you do have point about Google, however they will never surrender your details to a 3rd party, even the government so I think you're safe enough.

No, I don't think M$ is spying either. I just find it hard to believe that Yahoo or Google knows exactly who we are, and would make public anyone's internet history if they did know. Thanks for the link. It was informative.

[H_TeXMeX_H]

On the topic of German women ... I prefer Russian and Dutch women ... they really do look a lot better over there

Now ... getting back on topic ... if they know your IP they know who you are, but if Google continues to refuse giving the gov. your IP address along with what you searched for you are safe. I believe you can contact your ISP and they can retrieve their server logs of your activity as long as they kept them. I think they do erase them periodically. In general, I doubt the ISP really cares what sites you visit.

[BillWP]

Even if you have a static IP, only your ISP would know WHO you are, unless you have a registered domain name under that IP.

But, even with a dialup account and non static IP, it's possible to know almost exactly WHERE you live. Blocks of IP's can be tied to geographical locations, depending on the ISP.



If I use anonymouse's German http proxy and visit certain web sites, the dating ads will have German cities and German women. And, no they don't look any better over there. [Set phasers to shave, Mister Sulu].

If Google is forced to surrender search record logs, and those logs have IP's with them (they probably do) and your ISP keeps logs that far back and the gov't demands that log, then you've been made. If you use AOL, then probably not, because AOL intentionally mucks up IP's internally, for members privacy and to limit hacking of members computers. If you use anonymouse for your Google searches, then definitely not,either.

(snipped a bit)

I definately know what you mean about target advertising. I can go to certain news websites and all the ads are for "women in my area". ! And these are news sites. I've never been to a website looking for women anywhere. But I would not think anyone would put up with having their searches made public. For example - how many people use the internet for looking up medical answers for a problem they might have? Who would want something like that to be public record, and what rights would they have? I just wondered if it was really true that millions of people could be tracked for what they are searching for. And why would a search engine company, or an ISP make it public anyway? But I guess anything is possible. They're probably reading this right now!

[H_TeXMeX_H]

Uhhhh ... I'd think they have better things to read ... more dangerous and offensive and illegal things that is ...

[BillWP]

On the topic of German women ... I prefer Russian and Dutch women ... they really do look a lot better over there

Now ... getting back on topic ... if they know your IP they know who you are, but if Google continues to refuse giving the gov. your IP address along with what you searched for you are safe. I believe you can contact your ISP and they can retrieve their server logs of your activity as long as they kept them. I think they do erase them periodically. In general, I doubt the ISP really cares what sites you visit.

Yeah, you'd think their logs would be so voluminous (that's probably the first time I ever typed that word so it's probably misspelled ), that they would erase them after a while.

[WMD]

I use Bell South, and my log-in cookie has a term "gloc=xyz" where xyz is the city I live in. I get (unwanted) targeted 'dating' ads because of that, and because of the Bell South practice of assigning IP's based on where the account is. Bell South is selling that info to people who target ads based on geography. I can delete my cookies, but the only way to truly hide my IP is through a proxy server.

That's interesting...we have the same ISP and live in the same area, but I've never heard of a "log-in cookie" for my service.  I also don't really get any regionally-targeted advertising.  Although, BellSouth doesn't really need to sell the info - it's pretty easy to figure out where an IP is being used from, and the cookies would then be set per site.

Personally, I'm a cookie masochist.  My browser is forced to ask me about every damn cookie every site I visit requests.  Only a few are allowed on.

[Refalm]

So a person follows the directions, and deletes the "Hidden Microsoft Files". But if what we are reading in the news is true - that Google and Yahoo know exactly what any individual person has ever searched for, and can name that person - how will deleting hidden files protect your privacy, when at any moment, Yahoo or Google may be forced to make that information public? I thought that an IP address was static, which means it couldn't be traced. I also find it hard to believe that the search engine companies are able to keep track of millions of searches, and can tell where any certain person surfed 10 years ago. Will you soon be able to call up your ISP and request this information? ! I'm sure my kids will LOVE that! Any thoughts?

Do you know the difference between static and dynamic? If you have a dynamic IP address, it could change whenever the DHCP server feels it's needed (except if it's locked on your MAC address, but ISP's don't usutally do that).

If you don't want your searches on Google or Yahoo! being saved on your IP address, I suggest an outside proxy server (or wardriving, but this has become illegal in the US).

I don't know how it is in your country, but here only the government is allowed to request the name and address belonging to an IP address.

[worker201]

[OFFTOPIC]

On the topic of German women ... I prefer Russian and Dutch women ... they really do look a lot better over there

I don't know a whole lot of German women, and have never met a Dutch woman.  But when I lived in Portland, there were a lot of Russians (specifically Ukrainians) there, and some of them were HOTTT.  If I told you a girl had really sexy rosy ballooned out cheekbones, you would think I was crazy - until you met some of the girls I worked with at the factory.  Unbelievable.  I learned how to say a couple things in Russian, just so I could impress these girls.  And for a native English speaker, learning to read in Russian is no simple task.
[/OFFTOPIC]

[H_TeXMeX_H]

[OFFTOPIC]

I don't know a whole lot of German women, and have never met a Dutch woman. But when I lived in Portland, there were a lot of Russians (specifically Ukrainians) there, and some of them were HOTTT. If I told you a girl had really sexy rosy ballooned out cheekbones, you would think I was crazy - until you met some of the girls I worked with at the factory. Unbelievable. I learned how to say a couple things in Russian, just so I could impress these girls. And for a native English speaker, learning to read in Russian is no simple task.

Yeah I know what you mean ... Ukrainian chicks are awesome :thumbup:
 [/OFFTOPIC]

[Calum]

in case we're still interested:

a couple of quick things: in this country the government can immediately request information on people's IP addresses and what sites they have been visiting online etc. This is pretty easy under the various acts that have been passed in recent decades removing any civil liberties (alas, no constitution here, so no constitutional rights! our legal system is based on a virtually prehistoric feudal system). The ISPs are now required to keep three months of logs on this activity and no doubt on other things too, whatever data they can collect about your hardware and software possibly, and maybe some statistics about how you shop online and what sites you visit etc. There will be legislation to cover this in most "first world" countries.

and re cookies: i set all my mozillas and operas to throw away all cookies on exit and only accept the ones from the "originating website", which works fairly well, so long as you actually exit your browser fairly frequently. epiphany is a bit of a pain in the arse since it has no option to automatically throw the cookies away. if it had that, and a google search bar, i'd use it instead of firefox.

[H_TeXMeX_H]

in case we're still interested:

a couple of quick things: in this country the government can immediately request information on people's IP addresses and what sites they have been visiting online etc. This is pretty easy under the various acts that have been passed in recent decades removing any civil liberties (alas, no constitution here, so no constitutional rights! our legal system is based on a virtually prehistoric feudal system). The ISPs are now required to keep three months of logs on this activity and no doubt on other things too, whatever data they can collect about your hardware and software possibly, and maybe some statistics about how you shop online and what sites you visit etc. There will be legislation to cover this in most "first world" countries.

and re cookies: i set all my mozillas and operas to throw away all cookies on exit and only accept the ones from the "originating website", which works fairly well, so long as you actually exit your browser fairly frequently. epiphany is a bit of a pain in the arse since it has no option to automatically throw the cookies away. if it had that, and a google search bar, i'd use it instead of firefox.

I'd have to agree completely ... there is no constitution here either (USA) ... or at least we do not enforce it (or they come up with new laws that are quite unconstitutional) ... kinda sad ... great post though :thumbup:

[davidnix71]

WMD, look at your cookies from BellSouth after going to www.home.bellsouth.net and then log on as yourself and look again. Your real name will be in plain text the second time.

gloc=103 for me. I Googled that term and clicked on a hit (trying to find out what it referred to) and became the admin of someone else's BellSouth hosted site. BellSouth had failed to place a no robots text and when Google crawled the page they somehow grabbed the admin's login cookie as the search term. Going to the site from there set his cookie on my machine. I could have deleted his site. When I left and went to other Bell South pages, it would say "Welcome Joe" instead of "Welcome David".

It took a couple of emails and phone calls to him to get it fixed. Needless to say, I don't visit BellSouth hosted pages very often anymore.

But, it's not just the cookies that get you with BellSouth, you have to hide your IP, too. Anonymouse is the simple, free way.

The Russian women here are looking for husbands so they can stay. If you have money and are marriage minded, you can take your pick.