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Pragma · 10-06-2005, 03:57 PM

A lot of the stuff on Anonymizer's privacy test is pretty common sense though - unless you're willing to go absolutely bat-shit paranoid about your internet habits, you honestly don't care if a webserver knows your real IP address. From your IP address, they can do a reverse DNS lookup and/or a whois lookup to find out more information - such as the Geotrack field.

Browser info - again, your browser tells the webserver what it is so that the webserver can run any scripts necessary to make the webpage display nicely on your computer. Clipboard, that was shown above - that's an IE security issue that's fairly easy to fix.

Sample cookie. Well, do you want TFP to remember your username/password? Yea? Then you enable cookies. Some browsers let you specify exactly what websites you want to allow cookies from, or if you want to allow third-party cookies (i.e.: if you're on TFP, do you want to allow crazypornaddicts.com to set a cookie). Not too hard to tweak to fix, and also it's very easy to click a button and erase the cookies stored on your computer. No need to buy software for that.

Computer name - I'm not entirely sure how they're pulling that one off, but my guess would be that they try to run a netbios scan against your IP address and if port 139 is open, they can pull your computer name. If you're running a firewall though, you'll have that blocked (as enabling netbios over the internet is dangerous and/or ignorant).

Referer page - that can be a security issue, if you come from https://mybank.com/balance.php?credi...41234&pin=0987 - so I'd recommend that if you're going to do something online that you have to log in securely for (such as webmail, bank account info, purchases), you close that window when you're done, that way the referer info can't give anything away.

Sites visited - depends on the browser, but there's probably a way to disable it. I honestly don't know too much about this one

I realize this post was probably overkill, but I figured I'd follow up on the privacy test thing before people got scared and believed the snake oil that they needed to buy half a dozen different products to keep themselves safe online. A little critical thinking and exploring advanced options goes a long way

10-06-2005, 03:57 PM	#6 (permalink)
Pragma I am Winter Born Location: Alexandria, VA	A lot of the stuff on Anonymizer's privacy test is pretty common sense though - unless you're willing to go absolutely bat-shit paranoid about your internet habits, you honestly don't care if a webserver knows your real IP address. From your IP address, they can do a reverse DNS lookup and/or a whois lookup to find out more information - such as the Geotrack field. Browser info - again, your browser tells the webserver what it is so that the webserver can run any scripts necessary to make the webpage display nicely on your computer. Clipboard, that was shown above - that's an IE security issue that's fairly easy to fix. Sample cookie. Well, do you want TFP to remember your username/password? Yea? Then you enable cookies. Some browsers let you specify exactly what websites you want to allow cookies from, or if you want to allow third-party cookies (i.e.: if you're on TFP, do you want to allow crazypornaddicts.com to set a cookie). Not too hard to tweak to fix, and also it's very easy to click a button and erase the cookies stored on your computer. No need to buy software for that. Computer name - I'm not entirely sure how they're pulling that one off, but my guess would be that they try to run a netbios scan against your IP address and if port 139 is open, they can pull your computer name. If you're running a firewall though, you'll have that blocked (as enabling netbios over the internet is dangerous and/or ignorant). Referer page - that can be a security issue, if you come from https://mybank.com/balance.php?credi...41234&pin=0987 - so I'd recommend that if you're going to do something online that you have to log in securely for (such as webmail, bank account info, purchases), you close that window when you're done, that way the referer info can't give anything away. Sites visited - depends on the browser, but there's probably a way to disable it. I honestly don't know too much about this one I realize this post was probably overkill, but I figured I'd follow up on the privacy test thing before people got scared and believed the snake oil that they needed to buy half a dozen different products to keep themselves safe online. A little critical thinking and exploring advanced options goes a long way __________________ Eat antimatter, Posleen-boy!