How to protect your Online Privacy
Canada's Tough New Privacy Rules
Newsbytes notes that the tough new Canadian online privacy law known as Bill C-6 will impact American and foreign firms doing business in Canada. The first phase of C-6 came into effect on Jan. 1st of 2001, and establishes rules affecting businesses in federally regulated industries (telecom, financial services, airlines, etc.) governing the collection, use and disclosure of, as well as access to, personal information in the private sector. It is the first implementation of a three-phase process that will, in 2002 also regulate medical information, followed on Jan. 1, 2004 by all remaining commercial businesses that handle information.
Demographics on Tap
Web banner mogul DoubleClick found itself in hot water with privacy advocates in Feb. 2000, after it was revealed that the company had purchased a huge customer database of names and email addresses from Abacus Direct Corp., and was tying this data to IP addresses collected anonymously via cookies from its banner sites. Worse, DoubleClick wouldn't say where it was getting its "anonymous" data from, leading to charges that the company is protecting the confidentiality of violators of privacy. USA Today has details on this privacy scandal and why some privacy advocates are angry enough that they're filing formal complaints with the FTC over the affair.
Websites Use You
Websites often have privacy statements that, on examination, are quite the opposite. Here's one example: "By visiting this website and viewing its contents, you allow MacMonkey.com to use your name, email address, and any other information we can obtain about you in any way we wish."
"There are simply no rules or regulations inside the United States that set limits on how invasive consumer software can be. Under Canada's newly enacted C-6 privacy legislation, for example, there is a requirement for Canadian firms to inform their customers about what kind of personal information is collected and how it is protected, and to make sure that it is discarded when it is no longer needed. But in the United States, we've already seen several examples of programs -- such as last year's Real Audio Jukebox troubles --- that covertly spy on a person's actions and report them back to a central location."
-- Simson Garfinkle, in a Salon.com article on software that can spy on you.
Privacy at Risk
Things are better -- or at least stricter -- in Europe and Canada, says Steve Olmstead of the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board. The European Union has taken the regulatory concept to the point of guarding all data transfers to and from European Union states. Using a Data Protection Directive established in 1998, they restrict the ability of these countries to exchange data with any other jurisdiction, including Canada, unless certain privacy protection measures are in place. This directly challenged Canada's private sector on its ability and willingness to participate in world markets and was a factor that led to Canada's The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, better known as the C-6 privacy legislation, which received Royal Assent on April 13, 2000. Before it came into effect, Quebec was the the only province in Canada with comprehensive privacy legislation covering the private sector.
Ironically, services such as one called Marketplace that Lotus Development tried to roll out several years ago, but was forced to abandon due to overwhelming criticism from privacy advocates, are proliferating in the Internet age. Increasingly, marketing and direct sales companies value demographic data so highly that there is a burgeoning market eager to make it available for a price.
And what kinds of data are available? Lots, say privacy experts. Virtually anyone can find out where you live, using a service such as InfoSpace (www.infospace.com) or Canada 411. You can even see spycam pictures of your house at www.terraserver.com. Hopefully more useful are services such as Canada Post's Postal Code Lookup and Mapquest. (You may never need to ask directions again!). You can even use a program such as Visual Route or NeoTrace to perform traceroute, ping, and geographical location information requests to any URL or domain you select.
Perhaps the ultimate solution to privacy concerns is from Montreal-based Zero-Knowledge systems. It has released Freedom, a program the company says provides total Internet privacy. According to Zero-Knowledge, Freedom can protect and privatize you on the Web, e-mail, IRC, telnet, newsgroups, and can also prevent SPAM email. The company claims the software can hide your true identity from DNS, WHOIS and other Internet tools that reveal anything from an IP address to a network ID. Sounds like a crook's best friend. Betanews has details.
Another popular privacy tool is Symantec's Norton Internet Security 2000. This tool was singled out as Editors' Choice by PC Magazine. In a head-to-head comparison in the June 27, 2000 issue of PC Magazine, Norton Internet Security 2000 outperformed five desktop security products from McAfee, Network ICE, ZoneLabs, and other vendors to earn top scores and the prestigious Editors' Choice designation.
We tested Norton Internet Security 2000 version 1.0 on an otherwise stable PC and found that the product caused freezes and unexpected error messages. Removing the program returned our test system to a stable condition. However, we had much better results from Symantec's Norton Internet Security 2.0 (successfully tested on Windows 98 SE and Windows 2000; Windows Millennium Edition requires an updated "2001" version) and recommend it. When properly configured, it provides a "quick fix" for network security issues. It closed all ports and locked down all resources on our test machine, according to the port scanning tests at www.grc.com. It did, however, periodically alert us with apparently bogus "SubSeven trojan" warnings. Our Network Security feature provides additional details. Updated.
SpamMimic
One of the most unique solutions we've seen to the problem of email security is offered by SpamMimic.com. This website encodes your private message into an innocuous looking "spam" message, of the variety that most snoopers (and, presumably, the government) would routinely discard or ignore.
For example, SpamMimic encoded our top-secret password into the following message:
Dear Friend , This letter was specially selected to be sent to you . We will comply with all removal requests! This mail is being sent in compliance with Senate bill 1626 ; Title 4 , Section 301 ! This is not multi-level marketing . Why work for somebody else when you can become rich within 70 days . Have you ever noticed how many people you know are on the Internet plus nobody is getting any younger ! Well, now is your chance to capitalize on this . We will help you process your orders within seconds and decrease perceived waiting time by 140% ! You can begin at absolutely no cost to you ! But don't believe us ! Mr Anderson of Idaho tried us and says "I was skeptical but it worked for me" . We are licensed to operate in all states ! We BESEECH you - act now ! Sign up a friend and you'll get a discount of 50% . Thanks .
Visit http://www.spammimic.com/encode.cgi and paste the above paragraph into the text box, then click "decode" to see the "secret" password for yourself!
On the Other Hand...
Most of us are more interested in blocking Spam than mimicking it. Some Internet Service Providers offer a Spam blocking service. If yours doesn't, try Brightmail at www.brightmail.com.
For Further Reading
on keeping your on-line whereabouts secret
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