Jim Karpen Tips

February 2001

I am indeed enthusiastic about the Internet and the opportunities it provides, but it's important to acknowledge that there is a very clear danger to privacy. Frankly, my life is an open book online. Search on my name, and you can find out a lot. "So what?", I say. I'm a writer. We writers, like politicians and celebrities, traditionally expose all. (Think of memoirs, autobiographical novels, and confessional poetry, for example.)

Most people don't see cause for concern, but suppose you value your privacy. There are steps you can take to protect yourself.

Just about any Internet activity exposes you. When you surf the Internet, web sites often put "cookies" on your computer. These are small files that contain information. For example, I often lust after certain books at Amazon but don't feel I can afford to buy them all. So I will often store them in my Shopping Cart on the site, thinking that sometime when I feel profligate I will go there and buy them.

Then one day I switched browsers, and my shopping cart was gone--all those books I was thinking about buying. The customer service representative explained that the information wasn't stored on their site but rather on my own computer. And when I switched browsers, that information was lost. It was being stored in a cookie.

So, obviously, cookies can be useful, and often it's valuable to have certain information stored. But unscrupulous companies sometimes use cookies to collect information about you. I've read that it's possible for them to track the sites you browse and even monitor your purchases. Congress is now working on legislation to curb abuses, but currently there are few constraints other than the desire of legitimate businesses to avoid bad publicity.

Your e-mail is also at risk because it can be intercepted. And any posting to a Usenet newsgroup or e-mail or other online discussion could end up being archived for all time (as many of mine are).

You can turn off cookies in your browser, but you may lose some functionality. If you are concerned about privacy, then it will be a worthwhile tradeoff. You can also use encryption for e-mail and services that let you post anonymously.

A free software suite, called Freedom, is available from <http://www.zeroknowledge.com/>. It's described as "a flexible suite of features and services that protects and secures your privacy online" and includes a "cookie manager."

Also, the Electronic Privacy Information Center offers links to a wide range of tools that help you to protect your privacy, such as e-mail encryption, anonymous e-mail, anonymous surfing, cookie protection, web encryption, and much more. For extensive news coverage of privacy and security issues online, see Privacy.Org.

© 2001 by Jim Karpen, Ph.D. (#254)