Protecting Your Privacy

The Internet is the greatest research tool ever invented. With it, you can learn almost anything—the symptoms of obscure diseases and their treatments, the names and birthdates of your distant ancestors, the favorite restaurants of your favorite restaurant critics—you name it. While you're out roaming and combing, however, keep in mind that parties on the other side of your screen are also busy conducting research. The object of their study is you. Unless you take certain precautions, putting the world at your fingertips can also mean having the world in your face.

In this chapter, we survey the major privacy hazards attendant on your computer use, at home and at work. We show you how to configure the privacy features in Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Internet Explorer and where to find alternatives that offer additional protection. Finally, we outline strategies for protecting what's yours to protect and for avoiding embarrassment in circumstances where your privacy is, to some extent, already compromised.

Security Checklist: Protecting Your Privacy
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Here's a quick checklist of practices you might want to adopt to help keep the "researchers" at bay:

Make sure that any Internet site requesting a credit card number, your Social Security number, or your driver's license number is using a secure protocol such as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or Secure Electronic Transaction (SET).
Be suspicious of anyone requesting personal identification numbers via e-mail. If you must send such information via e-mail, use S/MIME (Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) or PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) encryption.
On any computer that's not under your exclusive control, do not use Internet Explorer's AutoComplete feature for forms or passwords. Decline offers from all Web sites to remember your logon credentials.
Teach your children how to surf the Web safely. In particular, be sure they understand that they should never reveal their real names or addresses on chat sites and never arrange face-to-face meetings with Internet contacts.
If you're using Internet Explorer 5, upgrade to version 6 for its superior cookie management.
Establish a cookie policy that gives you an acceptable balance of convenience and privacy. As one possibility, you might block all third-party cookies, accept all session cookies, and accept or block persistent first-party cookies on a case-by-case basis, adding the names of trusted sites to your browser's per-site list so that you don't continue to receive prompts for their cookies. (This approach is only one of many possibilities. Take the time to learn about the different types of cookies, as explained in "A Cookie Taxonomy," and about your browser's cookie-filtering options; then find the configuration that works for you.)
Don't give away information that isn't requested. On Internet forms, fill out required fields only.
Clear the Allow Sites To Uniquely Identify Your Player option in Windows Media Player.
Acquire and use a spyware detector, such as Lavasoft's free Ad-aware program.
Assume that your computer activities at work, both online and offline, are being monitored. Don't use your employer's computer for personal business without your employer's awareness and consent.