Hi, james48. Thank you for your question.
When you connect to the internet, you are assigned an 'IP address' by
your internet service provider (ISP) - a series of numbers that looks
like 123.234.45.56, and which is unique to you while you stay
connected. It will most likely change the next time you connect. Since
it is just a number, it cannot be used to identify your name, address,
or any other personal information without the help of your ISP, and
most ISPs are *very* reluctant to give this information away.
When you visit a website, your IP address is sent, and the site will
record this in a log. It is only accessible to the person who runs the
site, and usually it is only used to help generate statistics about
how many people visited the site on any one day, for example. It may
be examined if a crime was committed, such as an attempt to hack the
site.
It is worth emphasising that your IP address is not really a source of
concern, since to be any more than just a number requires the help of
your ISP, and ISPs will generally only hand over information about
you, such as your name and address, if legally required to do so.
There is also the possibility that spyware was installed on your
computer before your erased your hard disk. Spyware is software that
secretly installs itself onto your computer and may serve you ads, may
track what sites you visit, or do various other things, depending on
the spyware.
If spyware was installed, it could have tracked the sites you visited,
usually for the purposes of serving you appropriate ads. Again, it is
very unlikely that this could be linked to you personally.
To be clear, I am not saying that spyware was installed, but that
there was a (small) chance it could have been. There is no way to tell
now that the hard disk has been erased.
The last place information about sites you visit is stored is on your
own computer, in your history, temporary internet files (where copies
of sites you visit are temporarily stored to make them load faster in
the future), and your cookies.
Sites may send pieces of information called 'cookies' to your
computer, and these could be used to learn that some person visited
one particular site after visiting another. Again, this information
cannot be used to discover your name or address, or relate the visited
sites to you.
When you erased your hard disk, you destroyed all the information
stored on your computer about the sites you visited.
The information on your computer is the only record you can
realistically do anything about. The other logs that visiting sites
generate cannot be easily deleted and will automatically be removed
after a month or so anyway. Unless you did something illegal to
warrant the FBI tracking you down, they aren't worth worrying about.
:-)
For future reference, there are less drastic ways of removing your
browsing history from your computer. There is a guide to removing
these records available at
http://support.academic.com/academicknowbase/root/public/acdm9157.htm,
or, if you would prefer a piece of software to do it for you, here is
a very incomplete list of various pieces of software that claim to do
the job:
HistorySweep: http://www.historysweep.com/
WindowWasher: http://www.webroot.com/land/windowwasherb.php
CyberScrub: http://www.cyberscrub.com/
Evidence Eliminator: http://www.evidence-eliminator.com/
To ensure no spyware gets installed on your computer, you can try one
of the following (free) pieces of software:
Spybot Search & Destroy: http://www.spybot.info/
AdAware: http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/
Microsoft AntiSpyware:
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx
The following sites may be of interest:
http://www.newsgroupservers.net/usenet_groups/internet_privacy.htm
http://support.academic.com/academicknowbase/root/public/acdm9157.htm
The following searches may be of use to you:
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=internet+ip+logs+history
://www.google.com/search?q=clear+cache+history+cookies
If you have any questions, please feel free to request a clarification.
-- wildeeo |
Clarification of Answer by
wildeeo-ga
on
07 Feb 2005 12:26 PST
In most cases, yes, those are the only places information in stored.
As mentioned, it is also possible, if unlikely, that companies who
operate any spyware installed on your computer would have a record of
sites you've visited, too.
As for the length of time ISPs keep their records, it is very hard to
say, since it will vary greatly from ISP to ISP. In general, many
delete it as soon as it no longer has any commercial value, with some
deleting logs after only 24 hours. The EU wants to pass laws making it
mandatory to keep logs for 12 to 36 months
(http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/29/eu_data_retention_law/), so
right now, logs are probably deleted after a year or so.
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