Caught or loose on the net?

2000/10/01 Kortabarria Olabarria, Beñardo - Elhuyar Zientzia

• Internet

Is there privacy on the network? Every Internet server has its own log or full logging system. This log records all users' visits and writes the text line for each visit to the server. Log files from the massive websites are usually large. Website administrators are required by law to keep all these files, so that, in the event of a computer crime, judges may request such files.

But in addition to judges, many people can access all the information. The marketing and advertising departments of many companies, through computer programs intended for this purpose, can access the statistics of visitors and know the tastes of them. No privacy on the network, everything is logged. Don't you think so? Visit the http://privacy.net/anonymizer/ address.

Have you noticed? To access the network, each Internet user or computer is assigned an IP address or code. This code only identifies a computer. IP addresses are sets of dotted numbers of the type: 254.456.345.456. This is the most important information that the servers collect and that along with the specific date and time, the user will be identified. However, the issue is not so simple, as IP addresses can change or belong to a group of computers.

In addition to server logs, IP addresses are recorded in messages sent by email or in newsgroups or discussion forums. Therefore, in these cases you have to be careful when expressing any opinion or information, since you can know more easily than expected who is the issuer of messages or opinions. In both email messages and newsgroups or discussion forums it is easy to extract the sender's IP address from messages. For the messenger's IP address, for example with Outlook Express, simply open the message and press the Ctrl+F3 key there.

The problem, however, is not particularly relevant because by obtaining the IP address of a person you can know what type of computer the internet user has installed the message. However, this is not the usual, since at most you will be able to know the provider to which you have connected. Knowing this, you can know which medium the transmitter is, no more.

On the Internet there are databases called whois. These databases are like telephone guides. The most commonly used Whois site is the so-called RIPE ( http://www.ripe.net/cgi-bin/whois), IP address index for Europe and North Africa. If it fails or the address is from South or North America, you can use the ARIN database ( http://www.ripe.net/cgi-bin/whois) and the Asian whois is APNIC ( http://www.apnic.net/apnic-bin/whois.pl). In fact, these databases are just summaries, but when judgments or court orders are entered, things change because knowing the IP addresses can know more things. For example, we receive by mail a message full of threats, which reaches us through 254.456.345.456 IP. In view of one of the above mentioned whois, we can find the address and see that that IP corresponds to Telekom. By sending a message to Telekom, or by court order, if necessary, the company should inform us of the identity of the owner of that IP address. In some countries, such as Spain, servers are required to keep a record of all internet connections. Knowing the IP address, the date and time of the connection, you can leave who has made the connection.

As mentioned above, IP addresses are also modified even if some are fixed. Fixed addresses are normally delivered to machines with direct Internet connection, such as servers. Mobile IPs, on the other hand, are delivered at the time of connection and pass from connection to connection. Therefore, in this second case, in order to identify a user it is necessary to know together with the IP address the connection date and the connection time. To complicate things a little bit more, it can happen that all computers in a certain company use the same IP address to go out to the Internet, which facilitates access to hacker visits.

In addition to knowing the IP addresses, in some websites other ways are used to know the tastes of visitors, websites that when accessing them automatically download some program to our computer and request an access key… Therefore, you can not browse the network calmly, since there you can not save privacy. Or does it exist? Well, we can hide the IP, give a fake IP to the server… There are several techniques to save our address and use that of someone to navigate, that is, browse anonymously. How is it done? Go to http://www.anonymizer.com/ . You'll tell me!

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