Keeping Your Personal Information Safe

The average American household has access to at least one Internet-ready computer now. That means that every time your family boots up the computer system, you are potentially exposing your information to the rest of the world. In a matter of seconds, your Internet privacy can be compromised by hackers, identity thieves and other criminals who can use your family’s information for illegal and immoral activities. Protect your family’s personal information by utilizing some of the free and low cost Internet privacy software available today.

Internet Surfing History “Erasers” – Whenever you visit websites, check your email or conduct transactions online, your personal web surfing history is stored in your computer cache. Criminals who can access your hard-drive can get to your sensitive personal information, including the keystrokes you’ve made. Even if you try to delete your web browsing history, clear cookies and temporary files from within your Internet browser, this information is still not fully erased from your computer records. There are several Internet surfing history eraser software applications now available that can clear all remnants of your Internet browsing history.

Internet Browser Security Settings. Many people are not aware that you can select at any time your desired level of Internet security. For example, on MS Internet Explorer, going into the tool menu, you can choose the security tab and change the security level you would like from the menu from low to high. At each level, you can decide what information you want to pass to and from the Internet for different types of activity online.

Annonymous Web Surfing. When you spend time online surfing the Internet, your computer can identify you via a unique address called an Internet Protocol address, or IP address. This series of numbers tells a lot about you and it’s one way that authrorities can track illegal activity online. However, criminals can use this information to access your personal information. It is important to block your IP address from the world by using an anonymous web surfing software. This is generally called anonymous proxy software or an invisible proxy server. There are many free and low cost versions of this to consider, but the free versions do not fully encrypt data, so be careful.

Image Protection. Have you ever posted pictures of yourself or your children online? Most families have done this at one time, especially with the advent of popular social networking sites. Sometimes, without even knowing, your pictures can be posted online by the schools your children attend, your employer or even strangers. So, how can you protect the images that are out there? You can only really protect the ones you put online by either watermarking the images or placing some other text across the image. One other little trick that many people are not aware of is disabling another user from copying and pasting your images. You can easily do this with the “right-click” method. Simply choose “right-click disable” from the tools menu.

Thousands of people are victimized everyday on the Internet, but you can take measures to protect your Internet privacy as much as possible. In most cases, by following the above tips, you can reduce and deter any criminals from using your personal information for illegal or unsavory activities.

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