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Whenever you turn on your computer, you are leaving a trail of your data information. This trail links you to documents, your tastes and web surfing habits, plus where you live and other information. Intel unveiled it's Pentium III chip which employees a Processor Serial Number ( PSN ). The encoded 96 bit number hard-wired chip traces any online communications to it's mother computer. The dreaded COOKIES on many web sights are embedded into your PC without your knowledge that can find out your password, name and web sights you have visited. Microsoft admitted that Windows 98 generates a fingerprint unique to identify you known as GUID. This GUID is generally hidden in Office 97 Word, Excel, and Power Point programs. What makes this most disturbing is every time you visit www.microsoft.com, this program scans your PC automatically and gathers information without your knowledge. It's not enough that Intel & Microsoft make billions in sales to it's customers, but even after they have dipped into your pocket they now have the technology to dip into your privacy and your PC without you even knowing it. A Web security guru named Richard Smith stated a web sight & your ISP has copy logs of everything you view, download, send via e-mail plus even talks in the various chat rooms you frequent. Your ISP in most cases will gladly hand over any information to law enforcement and not put up much of a fight. When two or five agents walk into a Internet Service Providers place of business and demand information of certain customers, even without a search warrant, that is pretty intimidating (that's why they get away with it) and the ISP will gladly work with them to avoid all the legal hassles. In One case in September 1999, Michael Rostoker, a San Jose engineer and patent attorney was arrested for trying to pay $150,000 to engage in sex with a 13 year old Vietnamese girl. Officials seized e-mail between Rostoker and the girl by serving a search warrant on Rostoker's e-mail provider, Hot Mail. The e-mail, the affidavit states, shows that the two have engaged in sex on several occasions. Now my point is that what ever you send over the Net via e-mail, whether it is criminal or not, ( Including cyber sex) it is being recorded and accessed by legal or illegal means. Most people are so naive when they surf the Internet or engage in IRC, Chat Rooms, Sending of e-mail or files to one another. John Catlett, president of Junk busters Corporation in Green Brook, NJ stated, " Many people feel that surfing the web is anonymous as watching television or reading the paper, it's more like wandering around a trade show and leaving your name tag on it for others to view. " The White House and many government agencies collect your internet address every time you visit one of their web sites with out your knowledge. They claim the collected data purpose is for catching hackers and terrorists, who then can be tracked to their ISP provider. This may be one purpose, but the main purpose is collecting and building a government profile on it's citizens. With a little persistence you can find out a person's identify and history within hours. Now their are many sites like http://www.anonymizer.com/that can mask your identity, but Michael Lambert, a security expert stated, " If your not going to show me who you really are, then why should I let you surf or visit a certain web site? " Many web sites take the ISP address of these anonymous identity services and block out anyone who tries and enter their site.
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