Private web browsing doesn’t mean no one is watching

[rangerrebew]

Private web browsing doesn’t mean no one is watching
Many people misunderstand incognito mode, and web browsers don’t offer clear explanations
By
Maria Temming
3:30pm, April 24, 2018
 

Private web browsing isn’t nearly as private as many people think.

Major web browsers, such as Google’s Chrome and Apple’s Safari, offer a private browsing option, sometimes known as “incognito.” The option allows people to surf the internet through a private window that doesn’t log activity into the browser’s history or influence future autofill recommendations. As such, incognito mode can hide one’s activity from others sharing the same device.

But many believe incorrectly that the privacy setting offers broader protections — even after they’ve read a web browser’s explanation of incognito mode.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/internet-privacy-incognito-web-browsing

[driftdiver]

Nothing you do on the interweb is private, nothing.  Its just a matter of how much effort they want to take to see what you are doing.

[guitar4jesus]

Nothing you do on the interweb is private, nothing.  Its just a matter of how much effort they want to take to see what you are doing.

Aye.

[Doug Loss]

You should at least try to find a browser that's intended to not track you.  I use Brave, myself.

[Fishrrman]

Agree with Doug Loss above.

I sometimes use the Epic Privacy Browser, which can be routed through a proxy that will hide your IP address. In that case, the websites you're visiting won't know where or who you are (although I believe your own ISP still records where you go). I've checked this and this feature does work.

For "more than that", I'll guess that a VPN of some sort is required.

I have the TOR browser but have used it very little. Does TOR set up its own VPN upon launch?

Most of the time I just use Safari. I'm not really concerned about "tracking" per se, although I do use an adblocker (AdBlock Plus) and a "tracking blocker" (Ghostery).

[roamer_1]

Nothing you do on the interweb is private, nothing.  Its just a matter of how much effort they want to take to see what you are doing.

Almost true.

A laptop without any record attached to you, without any identifying info, running nix with a mac addy spoofer, from a hotel or coffee shop parking lot, or find an open wiffy somewhere in town... That still works just fine.

[driftdiver]

Almost true.

A laptop without any record attached to you, without any identifying info, running nix with a mac addy spoofer, from a hotel or coffee shop parking lot, or find an open wiffy somewhere in town... That still works just fine.

@roamer_1

If I've had the opportunity to monitor your traffic for a while I can tell who you are by how you type, language, websites visited and a few others.

[roamer_1]

@roamer_1

If I've had the opportunity to monitor your traffic for a while I can tell who you are by how you type, language, websites visited and a few others.

Nope.

[InHeavenThereIsNoBeer]

Almost true.

A laptop without any record attached to you, without any identifying info, running nix with a mac addy spoofer, from a hotel or coffee shop parking lot, or find an open wiffy somewhere in town... That still works just fine.

Well...

https://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ganger/712.fall02/papers/p761-thompson.pdf

For the non-techies: One of the primary creators of Unix long ago presented a discussion, "Reflections on Trusting Trust" where he explains why you can't really trust even open source software.  The catch is that even though you can review the source code (more or less human readable instructions, much like a recipe), you still have to run that through a computer program (a compiler) to turn it into something the computer understands.  Problem is, how do you know you can trust the compiler?  It's just another computer program after all.  You can use an open source compiler so you can "ensure" there is no malicious code in it, but then you have to run THAT through a compiler which could be evil (and no, you can't run a compiler through itself).  And even if you hand built every bit of code, did you also hand build the chips?

[roamer_1]

Well...

https://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ganger/712.fall02/papers/p761-thompson.pdf

For the non-techies: One of the primary creators of Unix long ago presented a discussion, "Reflections on Trusting Trust" where he explains why you can't really trust even open source software.  The catch is that even though you can review the source code (more or less human readable instructions, much like a recipe), you still have to run that through a computer program (a compiler) to turn it into something the computer understands.  Problem is, how do you know you can trust the compiler?  It's just another computer program after all.  You can use an open source compiler so you can "ensure" there is no malicious code in it, but then you have to run THAT through a compiler which could be evil (and no, you can't run a compiler through itself).  And even if you hand built every bit of code, did you also hand build the chips?

Alright... I will amend:

It works SO FAR... The trick right now is to avoid cameras wherever you want to log in.

[InHeavenThereIsNoBeer]

@roamer_1

If I've had the opportunity to monitor your traffic for a while I can tell who you are by how you type, language, websites visited and a few others.

In my Jr High computer class, I attempted to write a "login" program which took into account not only getting the right characters in the password, but the "tempo" of your typing.  Looking back, I kind of surprised the concept never went anywhere.  Or did it?

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

Nothing you do on the interweb is private, nothing.  Its just a matter of how much effort they want to take to see what you are doing.

This is true with one exception: Tor.

Like Roamer said, moving around from site to site would probably do it too. The OS doesn't really matter though.

[roamer_1]

In my Jr High computer class, I attempted to write a "login" program which took into account not only getting the right characters in the password, but the "tempo" of your typing.  Looking back, I kind of surprised the concept never went anywhere.  Or did it?

@InHeavenThereIsNoBeer

Tempo would matter little... That's done locally before transmission. Social cues, dialect and haunts DO matter, but one can cultivate different personas, which I have done - two, longstanding - and never the twain shall meet.

It's nearing a personality disorder by now...

[InHeavenThereIsNoBeer]

@InHeavenThereIsNoBeer

Tempo would matter little... That's done locally before transmission. Social cues, dialect and haunts DO matter, but one can cultivate different personas, which I have done - two, longstanding - and never the twain shall meet.

It's nearing a personality disorder by now...

It was a "login" program, as in login to the local machine.  Transmission time wasn't really relevant, since it would be over ten years before I even saw my first modem (the kind where you put the old ma-bell headset into the rubber recepticle).

[240B]

The headline is wrong. It is not that people are watching you. It is just that everything is being recorded. The Internet breadth is approaching infinity. It is impossible for any organization to monitor everything on the internet no matter who they are, including the NSA. The only way anyone would 'watch' you is if you triggered a specific reason for them to spend resources on you. Child porn, terrorism, threats, international communications, etc. How many of the school shooters posted what they were going to do and nobody cared?

However, they do have the ability to review your record and see what you have been doing from the internet provider. All incognito does is it hides what you have done from other users of the computer you are using. It is very far from being any kind of secure communication. Everything is recorded by the provider anyway, whether you are using incognito or not.

Incognito is primarily used by people who are looking a porn and do not want the sites they visit to be recorded on their personal computer. And even that is not completely effective.