ATTENTION MONGERS: Google will change its privacy policies March 1. The mainstream press is picking this up, but as many of us have more PRIVATE details stored somewhere in the Googleverse (which includes Google Maps, YouTube, Gmail contacts, Google Buzz, Circles, Docs, Picasa Web Albums, and other tools and services), we need to be aware of how to find out what they've got on us, and how to clear it out. This article will help (NOTE: links are at the URL listed below):
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Google Privacy Checklist: What to Do Before Google's Privacy Policy Changes on March 1
If you use Gmail, Google Docs, or any other popular G-service, you’re about to surrender a lot more personal information to the Googleplex...unless you take these steps to prevent it.
By Nick Mediati Feb 28, 2012 5:05 PM
http://www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,250950/printable.html

We've been talking about it for weeks, but the big day is almost here: On March 1, Google will implement its new privacy policy and terms of service, unifying 70 separate privacy policies and extending them across most of Google's offerings.

This grand consolidation means that all of your Google account data will live in a single database that every Google service can access. Google Maps will have access to your Gmail data, which will have access to your YouTube history, and so on. Google insists that this change will ultimately benefit users, but privacy advocacy groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation fear that users will lose control over the personal data they've shared with Google.

If you'd like to exert control over your Google-based data, you still have time to act before March 1. Google's privacy settings can be tricky to navigate--the privacy Dashboard doesn't provide full access to all privacy settings, and Google's Data Liberation tool doesn't support everything yet. But these tips should help limit what Google can find out about you.

Check the Dashboard
Your first destination is Google Dashboard. It provides an overview of the information Google has stored on your account across many of its most popular services. To get started, go to google.com/dashboard and log in with your Google account (typically an email address). There, you can see much of the data that Google has on you--from your Google+ account to your Gmail account.

Take a few minutes to click through the various services and to review the information Google is storing. Then clear out any data you no longer want associated with your account.

Clear Your Google Web History
Google Web History keeps track of your Web browsing in order to help Google serve up more-relevant search results, According to the company, Google Web History "saves information about your web activity, including pages you visit and searches on Google. Over time, the service may use additional information about your activity on Google or other information you provide us in order to deliver a better search experience."

Even while you’re logged out of your Google account, Google achieve a similar effect by tracking your search history via a browser cookie.

To turn this off, visit google.com/history while signed into your Google account and click Remove all web history. In the next screen, click OK to confirm your decision, and thenceforth Google will no longer track your Web history for the sake of improving search accuracy. As the EFF notes, however, Google may still log this information for various internal purposes.

If you don't have a Google account, or if you're logged out of your account, visit google.com/history/optout and click Disable customizations based on search activity.

Tweak Your Ads Preferences
By default, Google serves up "personalized" ads, based on search queries or on the content of your Gmail messages. For example, if you run a search for "Mobile World Congress," Google may serve up an ad for a phone or a tablet. If you find that kind of activity too invasive (or just plain creepy), you can dig into Google's privacy settings to disable personalized ads.

Head on over to Google's Ad Preferences page; and in the right-hand column, under 'Ads on Search and Gmail', click Opt out. From there, click the Opt out button to the right, and Google will stop serving up personalized ads based on your search results.

You can also opt out of personalized ads that appear on other sites through Google's Web ad services. In the left-hand column of the same Ad Preferences page, under 'Ads on the Web', click Opt out, and then click the blue Opt out button to the right.

Liberate Your Data
If you want to remove some (but not all) of your personal data from multiple Google services, head over to Google Takeout, which lets you download a copy of your data from Google Buzz, Circles, Docs, Picasa Web Albums, Gmail contacts, and other tools and services. Get started by logging in to the Google Takeout page. Once there, you can download your data for all supported services, or you can pick and choose the data you want to download. Once you've chosen what you want to download, click the Create Archive button at the bottom of the page. Google Takeout will create an archive consisting of your downloadable data (it may take a few minutes for Google Takeout to create the archive for you).

After downloading the archive, you can delete the data from the individual Google services. Unfortunately, doing so is a manually operation--Google doesn't let you automatically delete the data you download from its servers. In addition, Google Takeout doesn't yet support all of Google’s services, so you won't be able to take everything with you. Still, some data removal is better than none.

The Nuclear Option: Delete Your Google Account
If you feel truly paranoid, you can remove your Google account completely. Deleting your account will mean losing all of the information associated with it, including your Gmail account, your Google+ profile, and anything you've stored within Google Docs.

If you're willing to take the leap, log in to your Google account and visit your account settings page. Scroll to the bottom and, under Services, click Close entire account and delete all services and info associated with it. On the next page, Google will ask you to confirm that you really, truly want to delete your account. Follow the instructions, enter your password, take a deep breath, and click Delete Google Account.

On the other hand, you may want to delete just your Google+ account. If so, scroll to the bottom of the account setting page, and click Delete profile and remove associated Google+ features. From there, you can delete your Google+ content or your entire Google profile, which will remove you from Google+, Google Buzz, and several other services.

We're all for personal privacy, of course, but we also appreciate convenience. If you feel the same way, and you can deal with the reality that Google probably already knows a lot about you (and will soon know even more), you can leave your Google account as it is.

If you're on the fence, or just want to be fully informed about how Google collects and uses personal data, we recommend that you take one more step: Read Google's overview of its new privacy policy, or take the plunge and read the revised policies for yourself.

Jack,
I usually use Chrome for my normal browsing, surfing and searches and Safari for my mongering related searches, but don't log onto gmail/blogger while using Safari. Does that keep my "worlds" separate?

Similar Q to Ramont but more general - are we safe to assume that if we don't have any google account we're safe? or do they collect using less visible processes?

i don't know much more than what's been posted in the article that started this thread. but pay special attention to this phrase:

"On March 1, Google will implement its new privacy policy and terms of service,
unifying 70 separate privacy policies and extending them across most of Google's offerings."

to me, that's a clear message of corporate intent. so i took action.
here is a JPEG illustrating the action i took.

[attach]55975[/attach]

JtB

[ Last edited by  JackTheBat at 29-2-2012 22:53 ]

JTB,

First off, thanks for putting all this in one place.  Very helpful!

I've maintained a google email address like most folks, but have cookies disabled as well as the customized "ad" serving (what a lie, it's nota benefit for the user, it's a benefit for the advertiser!).

Even though Google (and Yahoo and everyone else) claims that the surfing history is anonymous, the database still puts all that history in one place, all that's left is to link it to an IP Address, which some clever hacker will do someday, and lives will be ruined.

Who do you think is a good, private, email alternative to Google?

Always do this:
For Chrome always browse using the Incognito Window under the wrench, for Safari use Personal Browsing under the Safari menu, for Firefox always use Personal Browsing under the Tools menu. Just don't use IE. I don't know much about Opera. Fill me in. If nothing else, this type of browsing leaves no trace of your 141 browsing on your computer for others to find.

FYI:
Firefox says: "In a Private Browsing session, Firefox won't keep any browser history, search history, download history, web form history, cookies, or temporary internet files.  However, files you download and bookmarks you make will be kept."

Chrome says: You've gone incognito. Pages you view in this window won't appear in your browser history or search history, and they won't leave other traces, like cookies, on your computer after you close all open incognito windows. Any files you download or bookmarks you create will be preserved, however.

Going incognito doesn't affect the behavior of other people, servers, or software. Be wary of:
Websites that collect or share information about you
Internet service providers or employers that track the pages you visit
Malicious software that tracks your keystrokes in exchange for free smileys
Surveillance by secret agents
People standing behind you"

In reply to dooper: Google's policy changes are not really related to private/incognito mode nor is it related directly to the tracking capabilities that already exist on the web (that's right you are being tracked even before Google made this announcement)...

Incognito/Private browsing (by default) only eliminates browser data on your *own* computer after you're done browsing. Many ad companies (amongst which include Google) have been tracking our online movement for a long while now and going incognito/private mode does not generally prevent them from tracking browsing habits. As you mentioned:
"Going incognito doesn't affect the behaviour of other people, servers, or software. Be wary of:
- Websites that collect or share information about you".

So why doesn't private/incognito mode offer you protection from existing tracking?
- Most browsers implement private/incognito mode such that it allows cookies temporarily (default configuration) and removes them only when the browser is closed. This means you can still be tracked by this cookie till you close the browser;
- If you change the settings so that cookies are be blocked completely by your browser (and note some websites won't work properly if you do this, which is why many browsers default to accepting cookies and deleting them when you close your browser), then servers still have the capability to track you via IP address combined with the the HTTP header (see below).
- Some variables in the HTTP header are sent by default by most browsers whenever requesting a webpage that give away info. You'll be amazed at what your browser may send. For example, HTTP_referer tells the web server where the browser was previous to the URL it is requesting now.

Have you ever wondered how a website automatically fills in the postal address with the country or knows to redirect your browser to Google.com vs Google.de vs Google.com.au? It's usually done by IP address and as a backup it might possibly look at the header variables the browser offers up to the web server. You're currently relying on these companies to honour their word of only collecting aggregate/non-identifiable data (i.e. not store your IP address against the browsing habit data they collected), so as TheButler mentioned - if someone put the two together we're all pretty screwed.

I can think of only this combination to completely block tracking:
- Never browse with your own IP address. Since most people want to do this from the comfort of their our own home, they must setup the browser so that all traffic goes through a good anonymous proxy that removes or falsifies header information (e.g. headers like HTTP_VIA, HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR, HTTP_FORWARDED, REMOTE_HOST should never have your IP address). Note that using a proxy in general will be slower since there is a now "middle man" (and free anonymous proxies tend to be very slow probably because they get abused). So just be aware it may take your browsing experience back an era .
- Completely block cookies in your browser (and accept the consequence that some websites will stop working properly).
- You may need to block JavaScript (pretty powerful these days) and other features/addons in your browser (e.g. not sure if Flash uses the browser's proxy or goes direct - if it did the latter it will reveal your IP), because these too may be able to return trackable information and be used to circumvent the proxy you set up.
- Don't be logged into something like your Gmail or Youtube account when browsing (because that's linked to everything else Google offers - it's becoming one single Google account).

As you can see, it's quite a lot of effort to prevent tracking. What Google is doing by making changes to their privacy policy is firming up their abilities to continue tracking people. However, instead of tracking people for each Google application separately, they will now pool all this info against your single Google account. Combined with Google+, they will be able to track you very specifically for what you like/dislike and whatever else they care to get from your browsing habits across their applications (including searches, Youtubes, etc). At first people were worried about Facebook data mining user data, but I predict Google is going to be way worse

Other info:
- A newish feature has started to be implemented in newer browsers called "Do Not Track", but this relies on an honour system (i.e. the web server receives a "Do not track" flag in the HTTP request header from the browser and it's up to the web server to honour it). Unfortunately, this doesn't guarantee tracking is prevented completely as there are no laws at present to enforce the "Do Not Track" flag be honoured. Most browsers are jumping on board with this.
- Google's Chrome was one of the first browsers to encourage users to allow Google to track their "non-identifiable"/"aggregated" browsing habits through Chrome. And amongst the only new browsers to not support the "Do Not Track" feature. You can supposedly get plugins for Chrome that will perform the "Do not track" functionality.

Further reading/Sources:
- http://donottrackplus.com/learn/pbrowsing.php
- http://donottrackplus.com/learn/wit.php
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_referer
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome#User_tracking
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_not_track_header
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server#Accessing_services_anonymously

marcopo mentioned that Gmail has a lot of great features. So too does F***book. These features didn't occur by accident: a lot of programmers worked hard to create them so that the user has a "rich Internet experience" (PR folks like to make up phrases like that).

The idea is that you like the service, you get used to the service, and then if they implement a policy saying "we're changing our privacy policy," you think: well, I'm not sure what that means, but I really LIKE the convenience of this great service I've been using with all these features, and my mom and all my girlfriends have this email and I like YouTube and the nekkid pix Candy posted on Picasa and, well who cares about this privacy-thing anyway?

Remember THIS: Internet security is a continuum. The easier things are on a Net-delivered service, the more functionality you enjoy, the lower the level of security (generally speaking). You can create a secure system that will be difficult to use. People who are dedicated to security tend to use complex and difficult systems that are difficult to break.

These systems may be a pain in the ass--not to mention beyond the understanding of most users, including me. But I tell you this:

Their mothers will NEVER see the nekkid pix Candy posted on Picasa.

JtB

It's all about milking information and creating a database of people using the internet. Bottom line is, someone is intend on making money out of every single one of us and the government (or not, perhaps someone who is looking for a way to rule the world) has all the intention to monitor every single thing that is happening in the cyberspace!

Somehow they will find a way to do what they intend to do, just the matter of time and with the different methods.

Best to log out of Google,Gmail,Yahoo,Facebook and Youtube at all times. All of them track and SPY on you.

The Tor Browser with Private browsing and addons HTTPS everywhere, and No Scripts and other ones that I can't remember is a good choice.

yes, VPNs and proxies are useful. being careful with yr private data is essential. but no one's out to "rule the Internet" and spy on yr every move.

what's happening is more like old-school business. a small number of big-players are trying to compete in the market. but the online space is not like other "bricks-and-mortar" business: much of what's valuable is information with no weight/space, and which can be replicated perfectly and transmitted at the speed of light. or however fast yr bandwidth is.

this means we must take responsibility for keeping our private info private. and realize that these big players may be collecting data from sites we don't even know they own. this is a new kind of problem, and yes, i consider it an invasion of privacy.

as does Hong Kong Privacy Commissioner Allan Chiang, who said "Google's means of gaining consent for the changes might have breached Hong Kong's Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance":
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
HK watchdog joins campaign against Google
As new privacy policy comes into effect, commissioner says users should have a choice over whether their data is linked to all services
Simpson Cheung
Mar 01, 2012
scmp.com

The city's privacy watchdog is joining its counterparts around the world to oppose Google's new privacy policy, which comes into effect today.

The search engine giant announced in January that more than 60 privacy policies for its different services would be combined into one main policy. That would mean, for example, that data gleaned from a Gmail account would be linked to the user's account on the video-sharing service YouTube or their Android smartphone.

Privacy Commissioner Allan Chiang Yam-wang said the move was intended to help Google target its advertising by understanding users' web-browsing habits. But he, along with counterparts elsewhere in Asia, in the European Union and in the United States, believes users should have a choice of whether their data was shared.

"There is no problem them enhancing the efficiency of their advertising service, but they also need to maintain the autonomy of individual customers" he said. "For example, if I do not want to combine all my data in your services, is there any convenient means for me to opt out?"

When users log in to Google services they are given the option of either accepting the new privacy policy or simply not using the services. Chiang said it was impossible to avoid Google's services these days as they were ubiquitous.

The devil was in the detail, Chiang said, pointing out that the new privacy policy terms did not include a clause, offered by some Google services, under which users' data would be deleted within 60 days.

Chiang said he had written to Google asking it to clarify the change and to give users the option of not sharing their data.

He said privacy watchdogs around the world were also putting pressure on Google by launching investigations or writing to the company. He is in close touch with his counterparts.

Chiang said Google's means of gaining consent for the changes might have breached Hong Kong's Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance, but said communication with the company was likely to be a better way of resolving the problem.

Google did not reply to questions last night.

[ Last edited by  JackTheBat at 1-3-2012 22:58 ]

If you want to see how vile the tracking really is some guy just wrote a spectacular little plug in for firefox. Get the latest version of Firefox (required) and then go get this plugin from Mozilla at:  http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/collusion/demo/

It is a graphical display showing the quantity and links of all those tracking you.

Frightening for sure.

Google privacy policy: a stranglehold most users are happy to be held in
The free services Google provides are seen as justification enough to allow it to monetise the data gathered in the process

        James Ball
        guardian.co.uk, Thursday 1 March 2012 14.14 GMT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/techno ... acy-policy-analysis

Someone's been reading your email. They know what you've been looking at online. They almost certainly have a photograph of your house. If you've got a smartphone, they even know where you've been and what you'll be doing next week.

It's not a new hacking saga, though; it's the standard business practices of the ubiquitous internet firm Google, which from Thursday will, for the first time, be able to join together everything it knows about you to customise its services and hone its advertising more effectively.

There's a mantra in certain online communities which says if you're getting a service for free, you are not that company's customer – you're the product. Google's core product is its huge wealth of information on the people who use its services, which allows for the sale of highly targeted and effective advertisements to those same people.

The company has no shortage of information to collect. Google has a 78% share of the search engine market, dwarfing by far its nearest rival, Baidu, the Chinese search operator. Around 350 million people use its gmail product, and some 3bn videos are played every day on YouTube, which is owned by Google.

It has around half of the global smartphone market and can collect location information from these devices. It even has a fifth of all internet browsers and almost half of the online advertising share.

Google has been able to use the troves of information collected from these platforms for a long time. Its computers "read" the content of all its users' emails to hone the adverts that run in the email window. Search engine history is used to learn about what kind of person you are and how you use the web, to bettertarget adverts so they deliver better results.

From this week, all this information can be linked together. Information gained from your phone could be used to deliver a local ad in your online search results. A YouTube history consisting of karaoke singalongs may be used to inform recommendations of nearby bars on your smartphone. An email to a friend saying "I'm pregnant!" could conceivably lead to some maternity-wear ads elsewhere.

Google says its changes to privacy policies are largely aimed at simplification. Each of its 70-plus services has had a separate policy until now, and these are being amalgamated into one. The policy will increase Google's ability to make money from its audience, but also improve the personal service it delivers to users. There is a win-win side to the changes.

But not everyone is convinced. There is to be a European investigation of Google's new policy to see if it complies with tough Europe-wide data protection regulations. Others are troubled by the slow creep of Google's collated information and how it uses it – never moving in big steps, but always advancing.

Google has run foul of regulators on several occasions for collecting too much data. Its Street View service – which takes pictures of millions of streets around the world and ties them with its mapping service – was taken to the supreme court in Germany for invasion of privacy in 2011. Google won its case, but abandoned plans to expand the service in Germany, partly because of this opposition.

Street View faced another scandal when it emerged that private details of people's wi-fi networks were being collected by its camera cars, leading to all such data collection being stopped. Last year, the Guardian revealed that Google – just like Apple – had been tracking the movements of people using its Android smartphones.

One fear for Google's rivals is that its huge reach across search, mobile, video, social networking and advertising makes its vast cache of information almost impossible for smaller or more focused rivals to compete against.

Its dossier of information on users also proves a source of concern to online activists. The company, whose headquarters is in California, is subject to search orders from the US government for any user, regardless of their nationality. Like other online businesses, Google complies with orders from governments. This was seen in a high-profile subpoeana for the email records of the WikiLeaks supporter Jacob Applebaum. If a subpoena is sealed, a user may never even be told their details have been handed over. Google is, however, transparent in revealing how many information requests it gets. Between January and June 2011, it was asked by governments for data on 25,000 of its users worldwide, and complied in handing over the information in around 19,000 of the cases. The US government asked for details on 11,057 users, while the UK asked for 1,444.

It's possible for users to opt out of Google's new privacy policy – at least partially – although it's fiddly to do. This prevents the information being used for advertising purposes and means it will be made anonymous after 18 months, but it doesn't prevent access by authorities.

A small rival search service, DuckDuckGo, is marketing itself through a policy of not tracking its users nor tailoring results to individuals (known as "bubbling"), which it says can lead to users being shown only information they agree with, rather than seeing the full plethora of opinion on the web.

For most users, however, there is clearly an acceptance of the trade-off of receiving high-quality, innovative, web services for free in exchange for giving the company the right to make money from the information it gathers in the process. This is the trade-off that makes the free web work – including the Guardian.

The concern unique to Google is its scale. Opting out of the Guardian is relatively straightforward, but avoiding Google is far more difficult.

For a young company, Google has come a long way. Its early and famous mantra of "don't be evil" evolved into an "evil scale" in 2006, when it decided that offering filtered search results in China was the lesser of two evils, and so acceptable.

The decision for Google's users with this new privacy change, and others in the future that will doubtless follow, is whether the company remains the lesser of evils – and whether they're willing to forgo the services it so ably provides if they feel it's not.

Chiang said he had written to Google asking it to clarify the change and to give users the option of not sharing their data.

Everyone should have the option of not sharing their data. Google is becoming ridiculous these days along with Facebook. Hopefully certain governments out there will crack down on companies like Google and Facebook.

This is great, was reading about it in the paper today, but hadn't actually thought through the implications of this, especially on the stuff I keep away from the missus. I already use incognito mode, but everything else I can do to keep my privacy private is ideal.
There's increased reporting on the amount of tracking and recording Facebook and Google do, and I worry for the day that my facebook account will show everyone what sites I've been visiting

@JtB's PM/rating request...

JtB mentioned the Tor project, which provides an anonymous proxy service. Well if you have SO's that you wish to hide your habits from, then maybe consider using the "Tor Browser Bundle" (https://www.torproject.org/download/download.html.en). The downloaded package will basically consist of the required Tor software as well as a portable version of a modern browser (currently FireFox Aurora) preconfigured to make your browsing experience "optimally" anonymous (as deemed by the Tor project developers). The benefit of such a bundle is that it is all self-contained and thus easily placed on a USB stick (totally distinct from your normal browser). I've tested this out in the past within a virtualised Linux OS (e.g. VirtualBox or VMware, etc) with a password-protected login. It works, but I found the browsing speeds a little unacceptable due to going through the Tor proxy (depends on your patience I guess).
To additionally make trackability very difficult (maybe even impossible):
- Set browser to always block all cookies;
- Go into Private mode (I think the bundle defaults to this);
- Get NoScript to block JavaScript;
*Edit* Actually when I last used the bundle I don't think it supported Flash because it was a known risk to anonymity, so probably won't need FlashBlock unless you manually enable/install Flash {- Get FlashBlock to block Flash}; and
- Get AdBlock to block adverts

Another interesting new development I just came across when visiting the Tor website is Tails (https://tails.boum.org/). From what I can tell - you download the package, then burn it as a bootable CD or make a bootable USB stick that will have the Tails software on it. Put your new Tails CD/USB stick into a PC and boot the PC up from this CD/USB stick, which boots you into a self-contained OS (Linux based) + Tor software + browser (so this environment is now totally distinct from your normal OS). The unique thing about Tails, is that apparently *all* traffic will be forwarded through the Tor network (the "Tor Browser Bundle" will only forward your browser traffic through the Tor network). I was kind of emulating this separate OS (via running "Tor Browse Bundle" within my virtualised Linux OS), but Tails would work even better due to all internet traffic being forwarded through Tor rather than just the browser traffic. In theory, this would mean that even plugins like Flash won't be able to circumvent the Tor proxy. Would be glad to hear how well it works if someone has the time to fiddle with Tails

In any case, keep your USB stick hidden/with you and your alter ego browsing habits will probably never be revealed (well unless someone catches you red handed ). Also I just realised if you go with the Tails, then I can't imagine how it would be able to store any history assuming it will never save anything to your harddrive (since a CD will be read-only and the USB stick is kept separate and safe). So Tails may appeal to the ultra paranoid, since even the virtual memory on your harddisk* (or in my case a virtualised OS's harddisk) may contain some content your SO might find objectionable. Then again you'd be pretty unlucky to have an SO that is a computer forensics expert to really need to take such a measure .
*Side note: Most modern OS's will move some data temporarily from RAM to virtual memory on the harddrive to make space in RAM for faster performance (since RAM currently faster than disk).

However, as mentioned before, the Tor network (esp. being free) is going to slow down your browsing (a sacrifice you'll have to accept).

Whilst I'm here... Also keep an eye out on the progress with SOPA/PIPA bills proposed by the US govt (and other similar bills around te world) that recently received a lot of attention. Recall the Wikipedia blackout period? Well it was in protest against these two bills, because they may well affect the ability to even allow the operation of Tor as an anonymising service (amongst other online freedoms we currently enjoy). So be vigilant and actively participate in exercising your right to democracy should care about the future of privacy and other online freedoms.

Some more info about Tor and Tails:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_(anonymity_network)
- https://tails.boum.org/doc/about/warning/index.en.html
Some links to read about SOPA/PIPA:
- https://blog.torproject.org/blog/blackout-against-copyright-overreach-stop-sopa-and-pipa
- https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/how-pipa-and-sopa-violate-white-house-principles-supporting-free-speech
- http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/English_Wikipedia_anti-SOPA_blackout

[ Last edited by  yyy111 at 2-3-2012 19:13 ]

thx yyy111 for yr explanations. to some this will be overly technical, but try this for an overview:

u have a Windows box plugged into the Net. is it safe? if it's YOURS and u've an idea of how it cd be compromised, that's one thing. let's say u know NOTHING about the machine. it's in a cybercafe in Lagos. whatever.

u pull out yr USB drive, which contains:
a Linux OS
a browser
whatever files u need

u plug it in and boot the machine FROM THE USB DRIVE. u can easily get all u need with an 8GB USB-stick, if u use Linux (the ppl i know who do this swear by Linux).

u then log on using YOUR system. browse the Net, do whatever (i haven't done this myself, others know FAR more about this than i do). when yr finished, u eject the disk, stick it in yr pocket, and reboot the machine.

have i got it about right, yyy111? thanks again for contributing to this discussion.

JtB

Thanks for this

Just had a look at your link and this is scary for we mongerers.

The quote:

If you're not paying for something, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold.

- Andrew Lewis,

similar to what I have heard, if you don't know what is on the menu it is usually you.


Keep on mongering

Seems like my rating comment was too long so I will reply with a new post (yay Karma+1).  USB linux with chrome is good for online banking, Tor/proxies is not necessary as you want the traffic to go straight to the banks and not bounce around unless you're trying to hide money.  
Regardless of the browser you're using, adding https everywhere addon is a good idea so that your personal information is encrypted.  You never know who might be sniffing at the network traffic.

[ Last edited by  newbieenewbiee at 3-3-2012 16:10 ]