In recent times, we have been hearing the loud foul cries of the browsing community about the Piracy of their Privacy. Although a lot of noise is being made about this issue, no one really knows what is the essence of the issue and how it can be addressed.

This Article is an attempt to explain the Online Privacy Issues and to guide the reader on the ways and means of protecting one's own privacy and also to provide some guidance to evaluate the vulnerability of the reader's system (The Computer you use). The Article also has got links to other resources on the World Wide Web, which will be of great use for the reader in protecting his PC from basic Trojan (a piece of program that sits in your PC without your knowledge and carries out underground activities) attacks and hacking attempts.

In common parlance, private information denotes any and all information related to a person in some or other way, which he does not want to or intend to disclose in public for reasons best known to him. It may be because of the fact that the information is of a confidential nature or that the person feels that the information can be shared with only a selected few but not with all.

In other words, any piece of information may be classified as private depending either on the basis of information itself or on the basis of the recipient(s) or on the basis of the timing at which the information is made public.

It may also be said that an information, which can be considered private at one point of time, may not be considered so at another point and vice-versa. Further, it should also be noted that an information may be considered as private by one person but the same may not be considered private by yet another.

There are many different ways in which the privacy of a person is violated. It can be through tracking and logging of IP address of the browser or by means of collecting information from the browser's computer without his knowledge (believe me, it's possible) or by collecting the browsers e-mail address or password that was submitted for some other purpose through a hack program or by sending SPAM mails or virus infected mails to browsers who have not subscribed to receive any mail from the sender.

SPAM mails are those that are sent to you without you having subscribed to receive them or without you asking for it. When you get a mail from someone you have not even heard of and scratch your head for sometime, it means that you've got yourself a spam mail. Readers would do well not to open any such mail (especially those with an attachment) and to immediately trash it.

It has been established by a recent study that a number of companies make use of a specific kind of a program code (called by others as 'spyware') that is installed automatically when you install their shareware or freeware program. Such spyware programs collect information about you (the freeware user) and your browsing habits as well and dutifully send it down to the company that supplied you the freeware.

If so much of information can be derived from a browser's PC, it is left to the imagination of the reader what other information can be extracted therefrom (e.g. credit card number, date of birth) and sent down to someone without the knowledge of the owner.

There are many different ways of protecting your identity and privacy on the Internet. Most common methods are taking new avatars or using a proxy or using a personal firewall. Let us now see these methods in detail.

The term "IP" stands for Internet Protocol. The Internet works on the basis of IP addresses masked by www names or URLs.

IP addresses are like the door numbers in your street. It is probable that some one may choose to call his house by some special name rather than by the door number. IP addresses are like the door numbers and the www names or the URLs are comparable to the special house name with the only difference that the URLs are easy to remember and hence are used more frequently instead of the IP addresses.

Every computer that is connected to the Internet is assigned an IP address automatically (depends on the ISP also) and is always referred to by the particular IP address itself. Any and all data about that particular computer can be gathered by a hacker / data miners through the tracking of IP address and by using special software.

An avatar (a Sanskrit word) means a new identity and in the current context, it means browsing with a new identity that is different your original/actual one in order to keep the data trackers at bay.

Put differently, it means that you should try to create a new identity of your own like having a different set of e-mail address and other details when you are submitting details to a web site the security of which is not clearly known or ascertained.

Creating a new identity for yourself is the most important way of preventing the unwanted invasion of your privacy like the recording of your IP address and other personal information you have not volunteered!

Once you have created an additional avatar for yourself, you can answer all the questions in the web site or fill out all the forms therein as honestly as you can using your avatar and you will be assisting in collecting relevant data and participating in making your favorite websites more responsive to your needs.

Avatars are only one method of making sure your travels on the Internet do not become part of a profile. Profiles are becoming standard fare when performing security checks. You do not want your profile to be littered with information about where you go and what you see!

When you have reason to trust that the website in which you are submitting some information is reliable and does in fact, keep them private and they need the data in order to provide a better product or service, you can submit your real name and personal details to them. The trustworthiness of a website can be determined by seeing their privacy policy and by noting whether they have signed up with any online privacy protection company / organization such as trust-e or verisign. [If so, it will also be disclosed in the website itself.]

For instance, when you enter a chat room for the purposes of entertainment or personal discussions through AOL or MS or other chat rooms, you would do well to use an avatar. (a fake identity for the purpose of entertainment). However, when you come to an exclusive and dedicated forum where only selected people meet frequently and where you want others to know that it is you, you may choose to use your original identity. An example of this is our Knowledge Bank Community Forum where only selected people meet for discussing professional issues and where it is better if the other people know your real identity.

One of the most common methods of hiding your private information and protecting yourself is to use a proxy server while browsing the Net. The term "Proxy" is probably better known to finance and law professionals than to IT professionals since it finds common place in Company Law.

In this context also, the term "proxy" has got the same meaning - i.e., a substitute. What a proxy server does is to substitute your IP address and other personal information with some other information that it has in store to deceive the data mining programs on the Web.

When you use a proxy or other method of disguising your IP address you are not corrupting important data. You are eliminating the possibility that they will share real and private data about you with other websites without your knowledge or consent.

Readers are advised to visit this site for knowing more and selecting a proxy to browse with in case they choose not to have a personal firewall.

Using an avatar or several avatars is good for reasons that have nothing to do with hiding from data miners as well. If you use the Internet for chatting or other personal entertainment purposes, the avatar will allow you to have a look at pictures or talk to people you don't know without having records or your real identity or IP address logged.

Using a Firewall:

Many people have a tendency to take tracking very seriously when they first become aware of how serious this issue is. People are very worried about their privacy when they first install a firewall. They actually see the attacks on their machine in real time and begin to understand why the measures recommended here should be standard procedures every time you connect to the Internet or a network.

But please don't go overboard when you first learn and see how many times a port scanner is used on your machine! The collection of data is easily circumvented. Hacker attacks on your firewall are just that! Attacks that did not get through because you have a proper firewall installed! If you take some simple measures, it becomes funny as you see lamer after lamer attacking you and getting shutdown instead!

One of the best firewall programs available for free download is the one offered by zonealarm.com. Although this Company has released an advanced version now for a price, the basic version of firewall is enough for users who have read this article through and understood how to protect their privacy.

Again, there are more than one ways to do this. But, I'll suggest you the best one that I have experienced for myself. Visit this site and click on the relevant buttons to test your system and your ports (after you read through all the policy terms and conditions narrated therein). I am sure that at least 95% of the readers would be surprised, if not shocked, to understand what information can be gathered from their machines after they visit this site. Be assured that the aforesaid site is only to help you plug these problems and lists out the ways and means of doing the same.

Other things to know:

There are more things to know about privacy like the usage of cookies etc. We shall try to cover them in some of our other articles. Even if not, you can learn more about these stuff by visiting this site. It is also worthwhile visiting this site at least once.