Privacy – what do they know about you? This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial- Share Alike 3.0 License. Skills: none IT concepts: logging, IP address, proxy server, data mining, packet, packet header, packet body, URL
Where does this topic fit? Internet concepts –Applications –Technology –Implications Internet skills –Application development –Content creation
IP address: a numeric address like that is used to route messages to a particular computer on the network. Class background survey -- where did this information come from?
Messages between clients and servers are sent in data packets Client Server
For example a Web page request like: Linked from GET To: From: Time and date (and more) The packet header The body Data packets have two parts, a header and a body.
Did you do the assignment on time?
Market research – which sites should I advertise on?
Where are you? Location of from Geobytes.comGeobytes.com Localization is approximate – we are in Carson, not Torrance. It uses databases which in some cases are inaccurate.
Who are you? IP address + time and date + ISP log → Internet account holder
Anonymity Use a public computer. Use a proxy server.
Proxy server Through a proxy Normal connection You can hide your IP address with a proxy server, which can be in any nation or location. Proxy server
Search engine data mining Storage is cheap and getting cheaper fast Search engines log every search Localization is used to target ads and rank search results Log information is used in applications like spell checking and speech recognition
Mining logs: spell checking Google learns common spelling errors as people correct their mistakes.
Mining logs: Google speech recognition Google knows which words are likely to be used together, which words you have used, and your location. They also have a “yellow pages” database. Google voice recognition (800-goog411) demo:
Food for thought Are you worried by the fact that search engines track your online activity? Which services other than search engines track your online activity? Are there any advantages for you in having your searches tracked? Does mobile access improve localization? Are there any applications for proxy servers beside covering up shady activity?
Sites can offer “opt in” or “opt out” privacy – do you opt to share your background survey responses? (The default is opt in)
Privacy – what do they know about you? This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial- Share Alike 3.0 License. Skills: none IT concepts: logging, IP address, proxy server, data mining, packet, packet header, packet body, URL