Anonymous Browsing and the Lack of Internet Privacy

Information on the Internet is most often moving in standardized packets, from one computer to another. Similar electronic packets carry almost all types of data from digitized audio used by telephones, electronic textual communications (e-mail, fax etc, web pages etc.) and many other types of widely used data items. In its operation, this process works very much like the way mail moves toward its delivery target across the traditional postal system. Each electronic data packet has to contain information to identify its target as well as it is source. And just like postal mail will never find anyone without a proper valid address, neither wills the data packets find their target computers. It is easy to see that if the Internet server knows who requested the data, so does the owner of the site would (if one wants to). Anyone else who cares to know may also find out this information.

For ordinary users (who are not hackers), anonymous browsing is not at all possible. Privacy on the Internet or World Wide Web (WWW) is nonexistent. Some naive users, which include most of the general public, indeed behave like they are always totally invisible. However every one of their moves are recorded. These recordings take place, and kept in many different locations. The first of those locations is in your PC. I regard this as an especially Machiavellian development, since it is owner financed institutional spying at it's worst!

On computers running Windows 95™, 98™, or ME™, there is a "Temporary Internet Files" folder within the "Windows" folder (unless all of them renamed to something different by the user - highly recommended). Some recent "fixes" added another set of catch folders into the "Local Settings" - "Temporary Internet Files" subfolder. Inside these folders is a "Content.IE5" folder containing some (usually four or multiples of four)-catch folders, which have eight digits, alphanumeric, randomized names. These "Content.IE5" folders also has an "index.dat" file, which has an initial size of 16 or 32 KB. Additionally located in the "Cookies" folder another "index.dat" file.

In just one single day's surfing the Internet, the size of that "index.dat" file can grow to more than a few Megabytes (One Million Byte)! Newer Windows versions also record user entered web addresses and visited Internet addresses in the computer's own Registry. The Registry is a core component of the newer (all after version 3.1) Microsoft Windows Operating Systems. It is a large database used to keep program and other computer and user data accessible to programs and system components. Recording into the registry is particularly nasty, because as the size of the Registry grows, the speed of the computer slows down. Computer reliability is also adversely affected as the size of its registry file grows. Stealing the computer's entire registry file(s), or some branches is a popular sport among spies, amateur and professionals alike.

Removing the visited addresses and spy program references from the registry is not an easy task for most casual users. Many times they are well hidden or encrypted. Luckily "SpyBot-S&D" - SpyBot Search & Destroy, an excellent freeware utility, accomplishes some of that task with ease if it is able to identify the offender. It also searches for, and destroys, thousands of spy programs the computer has managed to collect. Unfortunately none of the spy remover programs or virus checkers are 100% effective. It is beneficial to use a few different software for this purpose as more programs find and fixes more unpleasant things.