"Can Web Bugs Be Squashed?
How secure can you make your computer to outsiders interested in your secrets?
Sandra Underhill
March, 2001
In the previous two articles we discussed the presence of Web Bugs in your email and on web pages that give you the once over and transmit information gleaned from your responses and/or your cookies back to expectant marketers who are busily amassing marketing information on Internet users.
Web Bugs, or transparent GIFs are just one method of scrutiny that profilers use to gather information. There are many other methods, programs and ways to invade your privacy, especially every time when you, youself, volunteer information to a web site, enter survey information or when you participate in a chatroom or on IRC (Internet Relay Chat).
There isn't any foolproof way to shield yourself or the cookies on your hard drive from the inevitable scrutiny you will encounter when you're on the Internet.
Disabling the acceptance of cookies in your browser isn't a viable solution for most web surfers. (To disable or enable cookies in Internet Explorer 5.0 or 5.1, open Internet Explorer, click on Tools > Internet Options > Security Tab. Select the Internet zone, and press Custom Level. Scroll down the settings for Cookies, and select Disable, Enable or Prompt).
When cookie placement is disabled, shopping online becomes impossible and any interactive sites that you should wish to particpate in won't permit you to be involved until you re-enable your cookie acceptance feature in your browser.
You do have options to manage your cookies, though.
Upgrading to Internet Explorer 5.5 offers you the ability to set the Custom Setting for cookies that are either stored permanently on your system or cookies that are used for a single-session at a particular website to "prompt." (for saving or deleting.)
Using the prompt feature of Internet Explorer is handy to control cookies, but it doesn't prevent your browser from revealing personal information like your ISP's domain or the sites that you have visited.
Easy cookie control and added comprehensive privacy protection to your system can be achieved using a third party program like McAfee's Internet Guard Dog or Symantec's Norton Internet Security 2001.
Norton Internet Security 2001 is an integrated suite of security and privacy applications that includes a personal firewall to help you keep your personal information from being sent to web sites without your permission, blocks Java® programs and enables you to control and manage the cookies that you encounter.
McAfee's Internet Guard Dog provides the ability to comprehensively control the placement of cookies on your system and protects the privacy of your surfing habits by erasing the records of URL's that you have visited to keep your web browsing activity private.
McAfee's Internet Guard Dog goes a step further to ensure the privacy of your sensitive data from prying eyes by encrypting any file that you designate from personal files that you wish to keep private, especially financial information that you may have stored on your hard drive.
If you think you don't need any kind of protection at all, then check out Privacy.Net and BrowsInfo to see some typical information that can be retrieved from your browser. You can also run a very interesting Security Check on your system at Norton's Security Site.
There are other methods to protect the privacy of the data stored on your drive, ZoneAlarm is one free option, BlackIce Defender is a more comprehensive software solution... a hardware firewall solution is another option.
So can Web Bugs be squashed? Well, not literally of course. A Web Bug is just a piece of written HTML afterall. But you can lock your system's doors to all the interested Web Bugs constantly looking for data and to all those other methods that marketers use to examine your private travails across the internet and gather personal data from you."
infinisource.com
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