In the digital age, your computer might be keeping a closer eye on you than you think. Every click you make on your Windows start menu is logged into a hidden, encrypted database within your computer. It's crucial to understand the privacy policies of the websites you visit to know what information they collect and how they use it. Your online and offline activities are recorded, and companies are increasingly monitoring their employees' computer usage. This article delves into the world of digital surveillance and how to protect your privacy.
Companies are increasingly monitoring their employees' computer usage, even after working hours. If you've been browsing the internet or sending emails during work hours, your job could be at risk if your employer disapproves. This might sound extreme, but it's a reality for many workers.
In July 2000, 50 workers at Dow Chemical Co.'s headquarters in Michigan were fired, and another 200 were disciplined for distributing, downloading, or saving inappropriate content. Merck fired two workers and disciplined several others for what the company termed "Inappropriate Use Of The Internet." Xerox Corporation and The New York Times also terminated employees for similar offenses.
On January 5, 2001, leading insurance company Royal and Sun Alliance sacked 10 people and suspended at least 77 over the distribution of inappropriate emails.
Your computer records both your online and offline activities. Everything from the web pages you view, the movies or videos you watch, to the .wav or .midi files you play, is recorded on your hard drive. Even your internet searches are logged into hidden, encrypted files on your PC.
Forensic analysis has become technologically advanced in finding evidence of all sorts. They can remove your PC's hard drive and discover things about you that you probably didn't even know were there. Things you "thought" you deleted. You might think you've cleaned out all your sensitive files, but the truth is, many of them are still there.
Peter Constantine of Data Discovery says that "....today's computers are "grabbing material and tucking it away in little pigeonholes... The user has no idea that the data is out there."
Digital Intelligence, Inc, has developed F.R.E.D.D.I.E. (Forensic Recovery of Evidence Device Interrogation Equipment) which is portable and can be used in a crime scene (or any other time for that matter) to recover data from a multitude of electronic devices including, hard drives, CD's, Floppys, Zip drives and tape cartridges.
To understand the extent of hidden files on a computer, an experiment was conducted. The steps involved deleting all files from the Windows 95/98 recycle bin, clearing the browser history and cache, and noting down the hard drive's total capacity, used space, and free space. Then, the Evidence Eliminator™ free trial program was downloaded and run. The results were astonishing.
The experiment revealed that Evidence Eliminator™ removed over 260MB of files from the computer. It found 295 Windows Application logs, almost 90 "components" that had installed themselves without the user's knowledge, 271 Start Menu Recent Documents logs, 3601 IE cache files even after clearing the cache and history, 1960 IE cookies, and 5636 Windows .TMP files.
The experiment proves that there is a significant amount of information about a user's computer usage habits stored on their computer. This not only takes up valuable space but also contains information that the user might not want to be public knowledge. It's always a good idea to keep your computer clean of unwanted files and protect your privacy at the same time.
In this world of high technology, it's essential to be aware of every single file on your computer. Protect yourself from digital surveillance and regain control of what information is stored on your PC. You never know when this information could be found and used.
