I can’t tell you how much I disagree with this.
Microsoft officials have confirmed that the company is to introduce a way for users to surf the Web anonymously.
As part of the upcoming Internet Explorer 8 release, Microsoft is incorporating ‘inPrivate’ – a mode that will not record visits to the user’s history and will not allow sites to place cookies on the user’s system. Apple currently offers a similar service with its Safari browser.
Sure it would be great to access sites without leaving a trail, but what about the bigger picture?
What about the fucking paedophiles?
Maddie
August 26
7:33 pm
Not only that, but how many cases involving a husband/wife who chose murder over a divorce have been found guilty by the computer forensics?
Do you know if this inPrivate feature effects what remains on the hard drive? When doing searches on child porn, poisons, infidelities, this is a real bad move if you ask me.
Nicole
August 26
8:19 pm
But how is this different from just regularly deleting history and cookies? Or blocking cookies?
Not to mention there are already ways to surf anonymously. This doesn’t seem that new, unless there’s more to it than just this.
veinglory
August 26
9:25 pm
CCTV cameras help ctach criminals too, but they shouldn’t necessarily be compulsary in our homes because of it. I really enjoy seeing who visits my site, the location, google search words (sometimes pretty mind boggling) and so on–but I don’t have any right to know all that. So if someone chooses to hide it… well…
Shiloh Walker
August 26
9:26 pm
I see pros and cons.
The main con being it might make it harder to track criminal activity. It’s said nothing is ever ‘completely’ gone from a computer, but will this make it harder to keep on top of the online criminal activity?
Anon
August 26
9:40 pm
Back when I was a government lawyer, at one point I had to read through materials from about (and I’m not joking) a thousand court cases involving pedophiles and possession of child porn.
In NONE of those cases did the government’s sole source of proof of child pornography consist of internet history and cookies. They had IP access reports from the ISP (which no user can turn off–that’s the joys of being able to subpoena someone); saved folders of disgusting pictures of children (pedophiles save them to swap with other pedophiles); and chat room records. These people are sick and disgusting, and trust me, it is absurdly easy to nail them. All you have to do is find them.
So honestly I think your concern is a little misplaced.
Laura
August 26
9:44 pm
Several websites – including this one – uses cookies to track the number of visitors, where you go after you leave their site, where you came from, etc. Companies like doubleclick.com can then identify you by your IP address and track where you go, what you buy and then retains this info. They then sell this info to the highest bidder. Currently there are no laws that tell them they can’t do this or tell them that they have to be upfront with what they are doing with your info. There are also no laws governing how long they can keep this info.
Everyone’s computer has an identifying IP address (something that looks like 22.12.23.22) that is specific to your connection. It identifies you and can be read by some websites to find out your location, name, etc. It is also included in the headers of your emails. When you are blocking cookies it stops the website from doing this but your IP is still included in your emails.
Your ISP (internet provider) can track where you go on the web and the authorities can still track paedophiles that way. If a paedophile is surfing the web, sending out email, or IMing their IP is still being tracked by their ISP. Depending on the country/state you are in the ISP may even give the government all of this info without a warrant.
The privacy feature just blocks other websites from identifying you and/or placing a cookie on your computer. You can currently do that by going into your security settings and blocking all cookies.
Also, nothing is ever completely deleted immediately from your computer unless you use a shredding program. Any file on your computer that you delete is not really gone and can be restored unless that part of the computer memory that contains this file is over written by new data. If that file has not been written over it can be restored with a simple command from a shell window (DOS window).
Emmy
August 27
12:22 am
I’m tired of people restricting my freedoms because a few fucktards can’t get it together. Quit it.
Anon CFer
August 27
3:59 am
I love how the first rallying cry of people into restricting my rights is always “But what about the chyyyyldrun???”
What about them? They have parents. Let them parent them. I’m an adult, I have no children and I don’t appreciate my habits and business being tracked and cataloged under the thin premise that it’s for the safety of the children.
As has been pointed out, this type of thing is already able to be accomplished through your own security and browser settings, it sounds like they’re just making it one-click enabled rather than having to do each bit manually. Cool. The children will be no worse off than they were before.