Mennonite Central Committee

Covering Your Internet Tracks

Concerned about someone finding out where you've been on the Net?

 

Internet tracks on your personal computer

Browsers like Netscape and Internet Explorer are designed to be friendly and helpful. They store information to save time and to help the user backtrack easily.

This means that, as you use the internet, you leave traces behind, indicating where you've been and what you've been looking at. There are things you can do to remove the details, but you should be aware that anyone monitoring your online activity will be alerted to the fact that there is missing information.

To remove all traces from your personal computer, you would have to clear the cache, history, cookies and registry. If someone is serious about checking on your research, it is also possible that there may be invisible monitoring software running in the background.

 

Internet tracks on a computer network

If you are doing research on a networked computer at work, you should also be aware that traffic information will be cached in the server, and that most organizations ask their network administrator to audit traffic on a regular basis.

If your computer at home is networked, there may be a computer that acts as a firewall. Traffic information may be cached in that computer.

 

 

Websites

rosenet-ca.org/history.htm thesafetyzone.org

 

MCC is not responsible for quality and content of these sites. These are only suggestions for further reference.

 

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