Internet Privacy: Covering Your Tracks Online

Did you know that you leave clues to where you've surfed all over your computer?  In fact, if someone was to investigate your surfing habits, they could find out just about every site you've ever visited. Your personal computer records lots of information for many reasons. Sometimes it is just to make it easier for you so you don't have to type the same address over and over. And sometimes the computer records information for it's own housekeeping purposes, or at the request of a web site that you visit.

Want to know how your computer keeps tabs on you? Let's start from cookies. What's a cookie? No, we are not talking about Chocolate Chip cookies here - no, what we mean is small text files that are used to record information at the request of a web site. Usually this is simply an identifying value which the web site uses to be able to look up information about you later.

Everything about cookies can be used to find out what you've been doing. Just looking at the names of some cookies is an interesting experience: yourname@microsoft.com or yourname@yourfavoritesexsite.com might be listed as the names of some cookies. Fortunately, you can delete these manually if you want in Internet Explorer by selecting "Internet Options" from the Tools menu, clicking the "General" tab and clicking on the "Settings" button. On the screen that pops up click on "View Files". This will show a listing of the temporary files (all of them). From there, you can find and delete some or all of your cookie files. There is a similar technique for Netscape.

As a side note, cookies are generally useful text files placed on your computer at the request of web sites. Normally you would not want to delete ALL of your cookies, just those that you don't want people to be examining. Remember, web sites use these to store information to customize pages, remember passwords for you and store shopping cart data.

Internet Explorer and Netscape keep detailed histories of every site that you've visited in the recent past. The URL of each and every one is kept in a special folder called, naturally, "History". This is very useful if you want to return to a cool site a few days later, but the data could be used to pinpoint exactly what you've been visiting online.

To delete your history manually in Internet Explorer, again choose "Internet Options" from the Tools menu, click the "General" tab and click the button marked "Clear History".

Something to be aware of is that every single file that you delete from your hard drive is moved to the recycle bin. Thus, deleting files is not enough - if you want to cover your tracks you need empty the recycle bin.

Now, one small piece of data that is not generally known is that most operating systems (including Windows 95, 98 and ME) do not erase the contents of files when they are deleted. This means that you are not safe even if you delete a file and empty the recycle bin. What you need to do is erase the file - and you can only do that with a third party product. (I wouldn't worry about this, but even the erasure is not technically good enough - any super-talented James Bond-like spy could, in theory still recover the data because the molecules actually do remember their previous state. However, this is very technical and is really only of concern to super-secret projects).

Other programs on your computer keep histories of their own. You have the "Documents" menu, which records the last ten documents you have opened. In addition, the RUN command keeps a history of the last dozen or so things that you have typed. Even the Windows Media Player remembers for you ...

To make it even worse, Windows makes copies of files in your Internet Explorer temporary folder (Netscape has a similar folder). If you have been surfing the adult sites, it would be easy to see exactly what you've been looking at by viewing this folder. This includes images, videos, sound files and even Java applets.

To top that off, Windows also occasionally makes copies of files in your Temp folder, usually locating on your C drive. Files that you download may be found in additional places buried deep in the windows directories. In fact, virtually every program you run will put one or more files in the temp directory at one time or another ... and these programs are typically extremely bad housekeepers. They often forget to clean up their messes - the result being the temp folder is often very large.

As this should make clear, it's very difficult to completely cover your surfing tracks on your personal computer. In fact, you should now totally understand the dangers of surfing the internet for personal reasons on your work computer - your boss, if he's knowledgeable, will know exactly what you've been doing.

What can you do? Personally, I just prefer to stay ethical and avoid doing things which I would be ashamed of admitting to other people. However, if you really must do things on your computer that you'd rather not have printed in the newspaper, you can purchase a product such as HistoryKill or Window Washer. These programs do a reasonable job of cleaning up your system.

Themestream Comments

Again, very informative. As a novice to computers, this really blows my mind as I thought that once you emptied the waste basket it was totally gone. Judith McIntosh - jinx February 2, 2001 

This was a very informative article. I often delete my temporary internet files/cookies from Windows Explorer -- but it's amazing that even that doesn't completely do it. I don't go places I'm ashamed of, but it's a scary thought that "Big Brother" really does know all. I've even heard that deleted e mails can be retrived and read long after you've gotten rid of them! Is that true? Thanks for the great article. Ellen DuBois - el52166 February 2, 2001

Thank you for using simple language that everyone can understand! I know about cookies and temp files, etc. but I appreciate knowing what I can do to get rid of them (step-by-step). Lisa K. Pinter #57841 - spoiledcook1 February 2, 2001

excellent piece. very informative and well-written. We've used Webroot's Window Washer for a couple of years now. It's amazing as you see the amount of data it is deleting ....and it will bleach files too. It's not a matter of trying to hide anything, is it? It's just that what you do on your computer, all your data, is private. And that's how it should stay. rose dempsey - thenanny831 February 5, 2001

Thanks for a great article! Now I understand what the term "cookies" means as well as how the process works. Excellent job! - sarangela.ca February 6, 2001

I knew this in outline but not the specifics. Fortunately I don't do anything on my computer that I would be ashamed of. Probably a good thing, as my husband is a computer whiz who knows how to restore thoroughly deleted files!!! Good article. - Judy Edmonds February 14, 2001

At work I have Netscape on a Mac. I know how to delete the history and empty the cache by editing the preferences... but if that's not enough, can you point me to any article(s) that deal with Macs? I'm not ashamed of any site I visit, and I usually only surf during lunch or after work because of the fast connection, but it's just not anybody's business but my own. If you could let me know any place for Mac tips, you could email me at livingbyheart@yahoo.com. Thanks! This is an excellent article! - Laurie Kristensen February 27, 2001

Thanks for sharing this, Richard. I knew about deleting my temporary and history files. But lately when it try to delete the history files they won't go away. I don't know what has happened, but my son uses my computer sometimes and he may have done something to change it. I have turned off some of my cookies so I don't retain as many as I used to but still like to purge them once in a while. - Robert Furrow March 26, 2001