How to Avoid Being Tracked Online
Question: When a person searches around on the Internet, how would they go about making it so that others aren't able to keep track of where the traffic comes from? For example, when I go to a medical site and request information using another email address, can they tell where the contact really originated from?
If the site has a light load, they could literally track every single IP address and email address that's used to visit their site, and sync them with most email systems, in order to identify exactly who you are and what you were doing on their site, along with whatever conversations you held with them by email.
If you use your own computer and email accounts to visit these sites, then all of that is possible.
What is the solution?
You could choose to use a proxy to visit the site(s), but on some sites that would actually open you up to more closely being monitored. I personally always check the IP addresses of any contacts we receive (the form sends this information along) which enables me to know whether to completely ignore it (example; if it's coming from Korea, Brazil, or through a proxy), or how much time and effort to actually allocate to it (example; if it's coming from a college campus or government IP space).
Instead, if you're wanting to reduce the chances of your being traced, the things you should do include:
- Only use Gmail for sending email messages or as the recipient address in webforms. Gmail munges the headers to hide identifying information relating to the source of messages sent through their service.
- Learn how to check your web-facing IP address, and how to change it (usually by disconnecting from the internet for a minute or so, or by rebooting your modem/router).
- Disconnect from the internet (make sure your IP changes!) BEFORE visiting the site you wish to anonymize yourself from, AND AFTER visiting it! While using that IP in the middle, DO NOT check your email or any other service (instant messenger systems, forums, chat networks, social networks) that you have a profile on. Doing so eliminates the anonymity you would have otherwise gained. This will ensure that IP association cannot be used to track you. While the IP will still be one from your ISP, the range of IP addresses goes from "the one she was using" to, "one of the 50,000+ provisioned to this ISP."
- Rename your computer. "Hall-PC" is a little too easy to identify, and this information is included within the headers of emails coming from your computer (from most email clients and through most mail servers). Use any word from the dictionary, or a random string of alphanumeric characters.
- Consider using a Virtual Machine to access these sites (a bootable linux distribution will provide some level of segregation of identity). This will enable you to avoid the risk associated with opening up the other applications/services on your computer that are used to phone home to track & announce your location. Your computer is more than capable of running a "live" Kubuntu release (or any other guest operating system) in a Virtual Machine.
If you're not yet using OpenDNS, set it up now:
OpenDNS can be used to filter social networking and other types of sites that could be used (primarily through toolbars, chat networks or widgets on other sites) to trace you across the Internet, effectively eliminating any hope of anonymity.
(Refresh this page to view more selections)
