June 2010 Edition
Computer Science Department, University of Cape Town
| MSc-IT Study Material June 2010 Edition Computer Science Department, University of Cape Town |
This section investigates how computer systems have intruded into consumers' lives. Often without consumer knowledge or consent, data is collected and distributed to analyze their life patterns. A typical use of the data is to enhance the promotion of business products.
There are three types of trail that will be investigated, although these are not necessarily related to each other. This section will not investigate the ethics of data trails, although it will consider each type's purpose.
Your computer contains information regarding your computer activity. This information is stored whenever you access the Internet. Some of this information is subtle and some of this information is very obvious.
This activity's objective is to investigate some of the data trails that can be found on your computer.
If you are using Microsoft Windows XP, you can view the list of documents that have recently been accessed. This list is available from the Start menu and then My Recent Documents. The Start menu might also show the list of recent applications that you have used.
Your Internet browser will also store history, bookmarks/favourites, cookies (see next section) and other files that you accessed to speed up loading times. Try to learn about these issues with your browsers. Most store this information by default.
What are your conclusions about the availability of information on your machine concerning your Web activity?
You can find some thoughts about this activity at the end of the unit.
It is possible for an employer to analyze the data trails on your machine and also those logged by a Firewall.
Sometimes referred to as magic cookies, these are small text or data files (4Kb) left on your machine by a website. They are retrievable at a later date by the website that set them. They can be used for a number of purposes, such as storing browser settings and preferences, thus allowing more efficient downloading of files. They may also store information about websites that you have visited; this allows advertising banners to be effectively targeted. For example, if you were to spend a large amount of time searching the Web for car related topics, the cookie files on your system will inform the organization that set them of your interest in cars, should you return to their server. You would then notice that advertising banners would become car related.
There are lots of software tools that may be used to destroy data trails, however there is always a trade off between data trails that are useful and those that can be used to "spy" on your browsing habits.
This Activity's objective is to consider how it may be more difficult than is often assumed to discover what an individual has been browsing from home.
It is reasonably simple for an employer to keep track of data requested by employees. It is more difficult for an Internet service provider (ISP) to track clients.
For this activity consider the ways in which we might be identified as a source for Web page requests. How might this differ when we compare the use of a company network and a home computer connected to an ISP?
Hint: think about what changes each time we log in from home.
Write down your ideas.
You can find some thoughts about this activity at the end of the unit.
Surveys inform us that there are many companies tracking their employees' HTML requests and e-mail messages. This is often part of company policy.