Part of the allure of the Internet is the idea that one can operate with virtual anonymity. In the early days, anonymity was a given, as the powerful tracking and Internet forensics tools in use today simply didn’t exist. A fascinating book dealing with the subject, which I highly recommend, is The Cuckoo’s Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage, by Clifford Stoll.
The reasons for wanting to maintain Internet privacy are many. With identity theft shaping up to be the new runaway crime of the decade, savvy Internet users are understandably cautious about personal information ending up in the wrong hands. At the same time, various government and business special interests seem determined to strip away as much privacy as possible through the use of information “sharing,” tracking spyware, rootkits, and government-mandated backdoor access built in to what would otherwise be secure programs, databases and networks. Despite pompous platitudes about national security and free trade, our headlong rush to become a total surveillance nation promises only to build a legacy based on a lust for power, control, and the love of money.
The government and business threats to privacy are simply too numerous to list here. Recent Congressional hearings brought some of these issues to light when Internet titans Google, Microsoft, Cisco and Yahoo all confessed to bowing to government pressure to compromise their products and the privacy of their users in order for tyrannical government investigators to pursue oppressive agendas. In one case, political dissidents are now rotting in prison (if they’re not already dead) because Yahoo even went so far as to rat them out to the communist Chinese government, the same government that our business leaders are so busy sucking up to.
Far from being a hopeless situation, those who desire to maintain a semblance of privacy on the Internet have some good tools at their disposal. Privacy advocates are giving big thumbs up to an anonymous Internet communication system called Tor (http://tor.eff.org), which can protect the anonymity of Web browsing and instant messaging. Astute individuals and corporations have long recognized the need for email privacy, since sending email across the Internet has even less privacy than sending a postcard via the U.S. Postal Service. Encryption is often the preferred method of protecting an email’s contents, making it appear as gibberish to those who don’t have a special decryption key. Top picks are Aderes Internet Security (www.aderes.net), Pretty Good Privacy (www.pgp.com) and SecurMailGate by SecurStar (www.securstar.com).
One should also implement safe Internet practices, such as safe Web surfing, email practices, password policies, etc. I’ve covered these subjects extensively in previous articles, which are now archived at www.davemoorecomputers.bravehost.com.
Contrary to criticism from government apologists, many people fight to preserve their Internet privacy rights, not because they have something illegal to hide, but simply as a matter of principle – principles that our forbearers fought and died on the field of battle to preserve.