PC Privacy
Security and privacy go hand in hand both in the virtual world and the real one.
If your computer is not secured, your privacy can be compromised.
If your private information is leaking your security is at risk.
Most users are not aware of the amount if digital trails day to day computer usage leaves behind. Left unchecked this information can lead to serious privacy and security issues.
Most of this sensitive private information is generated and stored in order to make computer usage faster and more effective the problem is that this information is many times, left behind, unsecured for any malicious software or person to exploit.
Since this private information makes our computing experience more pleasant and effective we need to be aware of what is stored, what is needed and what can be discarded safely.
Let’s look at some examples.
Browsing the web and searching for information on the internet are important tools for most computer users. But every time you are using your internet browser a trail of information is left behind on your computer. This trail includes lists of all the web sites you visited. The contents of the web pages you read and last but not least private information you may have entered in various web forms such as addresses, phone numbers and even credit card numbers.
This information is stored in order to increase the speed web sites can be accessed and to save you from repeatedly entering information such as phone numbers, web addresses etc.
Most users use email to communicate with friends and co-workers on a daily basis.
Mail software is normally divided in to web based mail such as Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail etc. and client side email such as Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora etc.
Web based email leaves digital trails in your temporary internet file cache (the same type of trails that are left when you browse the internet), this includes email correspondence and contact information.
Client side email software leaves trails such as email correspondence, user names and passwords etc.
Documents you write create and edit, using various software like: Word, Excel etc. leave previous and current versions, of your documents, in various places on your hard disk.
Documents are stored temporarily, among other things to save your work automatically, in case of power failure or any other computer or software failure.
Even if you delete the documents you worked on, some automatically generated files would be left behind
Besides the fact that traces of documents are getting stored on you computer, Windows also stores lists of documents and programs you recently viewed or used.
Those lists can be convenient for a user to help find recent things he worked on but can also help any one else to know what the user has been up to.
Instant messaging software such as MSN messenger, ICQ, Skype etc. leave records of the chats you made with your friends. Normally the complete history of conversations can be found on each user’s computer.
While this can be very convenient for doing historical research or reminiscing on the good old times you had with your friends online, this is something you should be aware of especially if you said some nasty things about your mother in law, who is a real tech freak and is coming for a visit to your house.
Most users believe that deleting sensitive files will remove any trace of those files.
Unfortunately there are a couple of problems, related to deleting files. First when you delete a file in Windows the files will go by default to a special directory that stores those documents. This folder is called the recycle bin. The idea behind the recycle bin is that some times mistakes are made and files are deleted unintentionally. The problem is those files can stay in the recycle bin for a long time and can be restored and examined by any one. The second problem is that some times files can still be restored even after they have been deleted from the recycle bin.
It is important to be aware of those things especially when your computer is shared between different users, when the computer is used in an office or in a public place such as an internet café.
But even if you use a computer at home and you are the sole user of that computer you could still be at risk from malicious software that can harvest this information and even from a good old fashioned house breaking that results in computer theft.
Since keeping track of those traces is tedious, time consuming and requires some technical expertise the easiest way to get rid of the digital trails is to use specialized software that monitors and deletes this type of information.
If you wish to have a look at the private information that is currently stored on your computer and optionally remove it, go to MyPCPrivacy.com.
It is a web based tool so it can be used directly from your browser. No conventional install is needed and unlike other tools it can be used from any PC you use.
See you next time.
DR. OOS.
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