Computer PRIVACY/ IP Address Questions

8

8antithesis8

New Member
Hello!

I tend to be a bit paranoid about internet security, so I have a few questions on the subject. I apologize if any of them are 'stupid' or obvious questions, but better to ask than to never know for sure...

1. How long do Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in the United States store your search history?

2. Can Google reconstruct your search history (searches that came from your IP address) and build a profile of you? (Asking this question for people who DO NOT have any kind of Google account or add-on, and only use search page).

3. How long does Google (and other search engines) keep your search history? (It doesn't say in Google's privacy policy or FAQ). (Asking this question for people who DO NOT have any kind of Google account or add-on, and only use search page).

4. How long do social networking websites (such as Myspace, Facebook, and forums) keep your history, after you've deleted your account?

5. Do email services (such as Hotmail/MSN) keep up with emails you received or sent AFTER you've deleted them? If so, for how long?

6. If a computer is destroyed (crashed/died, wires slashed or internally melted/fried, something permanent), what happens to the IP address? Is it still trackable to the location where it was when it was still operating? Does the IP address still exist?

7. Is it possible to actually ask your ISP to get rid of your search history for good? Is it legal in the U.S. to have your search history completely discarded/permanently destroyed?

8. When you "erase Cookies", does this really erase them? Or is it just like when you delete a file on your computer, and it just goes to a 'trash' or 'recycle bin'?

9. When you erase files from your 'trash' or 'recycle bin', does that really destroy these files? Or is it still stored someplace on your computer?

10. Does your ISP store everything you type, copy, or paste, on the internet? Even if you never sent it?

-Thank you SO MUCH to anyone who can answer any of my questions. I've been wondering these for a long time, but don't know a computer expert. My knowledge of computers is very basic...thank you!
 
1. For as long as they want. Remember if anything illegal is ever traced back to them, they need to show which of their users did it.

2. If course. Remember, Google is a corporation in a capitalist country. They intend to make $$. They would love to get a profile for each of their users so that they and place relevant ads. If you do have a Google Account, they have a search history feature where you can see EVERY single search you have ever made.

3. As long as they want...which explains why it's not mentioned. It is estimated that they keep it for up to two years. This is not well known to the general population, but the Data Inspectorate of Norway has investigated Google and has stated that the 18- to 24-month period for retaining data proposed by Google was too long. The European Union has pretty much done the same thing.

4. From what I heard...Facebook never will delete your account. And placing all of your personal information in one basket is not always the best thing to do. I'm sure that some employers pay Facebook to get a preview of their prospective employees profile as well as have access to their current employee's profiles.

5. Everything is kept in the system for sometime...for how long exactly, I don't know, it all depends on the email service. Remember...backups are always being made, so if a backup is made today at noon and you delete an email at 2pm...that email still is located on the backup at noon.

6. Ok..this might take some explaining. Your computer has 2 identification factors: An IP Address and a MAC Address. The MAC Address is permanenly and uniquely assigned to your ethernet or wireless card adapter by the manufacturer (though it can be spoofed). The MAC Address is only visible to your local network (aka for a basic internet connection, only the modem or router knows your MAC Address). An IP Address is dynamic, everytime you connect to the internet your IP address could change. It is assigned by the network or internet service provider. For more info or better explaining, Google "IP Address" and "MAC Address". To answer your question: The IP might change to another computer...it is not statically assigned to your computer (unless you pay for a static IP or have a server) as the IP is owned by the ISP.

7. Not too sure about it....you would have to consult their privacy policy or ask them. I'm sure they need it for some liability issues (such as you illegally download music).

8. When you erase them, the website that placed the cookie can't use that old cookie...but I'm not 100% sure where it goes...never looked too much at that. Guess it depends on the operating system and how you erased it.

9. Nope...they are never fully destroyed. Just sorta compressed and moved somewhere else on the hard drive....but there are ways to actually delete files...its called "file shreding" and you can find free software to do this. You can also write your entire hard drive with zeros to erase all of the hard drive data.

10. Nope...only stuff that you send through the internet.

When the internet was first created it was intended to be completly anonymous...no one would know who another user is. However when advertisers showed up online and companies started monitoring that disappeared.

Hope that helps!
 
^Thank you, that was all very helpful!

I do have one question about the 6th question: if an IP address changes so often, then how do sites like Google correlate them all to ONE computer? Do they store your MAC as well?
 
Your answer for #6: Simple, they place a cookie on your computer and hope that you don't remove it. That cookie has a unique ID number so they know that even though it might be different IP Addresses, it is still the same computer. And it REALLY helps if you log into Google.

Here is a good one: At one point, AOL decided to release about a month's worth of user's search history from AOL.com. To protect identities, they labeled each "user" with a unique ID to hopefully anonymize them...which for about 99% of the users worked...however some people have been able to identify a few of the users because the users tried plugging their own name into the search engine. It's just an example how how much a search engine is able to track what your doing. The website where you can see this data is: http://www.aolstalker.com/

Glad I could help!
 
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