When I visit the jw.org website, can the WTS IT Department know that I've also visited this site? I use a freeware program called CCleaner but I don't use it every time after I've visited here. I also don't know if my browser (I usually use IE9 or Chrome) keeps records of my browsing history, independent of the ones on my PC that CCleaner deletes, that can be accessed by Big Brother WTS. I googled this question and most of the forums that discuss this subject are in techno-speak, so I can't understand what they're saying. Does anyone have network security or IT experience with this issue, and can you give me an answer in layman's terms? I know it seems paranoid, but I'd like to know how to protect myself. Thank you.
How BIG is Big Brother?
by Socrateswannabe 15 Replies latest jw friends
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designs
Not being a techno-geek I would say they can. Even here your searches show up as the advertisements on the sides.
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Barrold Bonds
Literally every website has a log of every IP address that visits it (even this one). With that, they can determine who your ISP is. Your ISP isn't going to just tell WT who the IP belongs to. The only time they do that is with a subpoena. You're safe. No one from the Branch Committee is going to knock down your door. Besides I doubt the page is even actually hosted at WT. I doubt they have the infrastructure in place.
You clearing out your browsing cache has no bearing on this at all. Don't worry about it. Seriously.
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Socrateswannabe
BB-Thank you for that assurance! Obviously you are well-informed. I should have also said that occasionally I have to login to the jw.org website for congregation business. So they can connect the dots between my login and my IP address, I assume. Can they use that information somehow to discover that I've visited here?
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Barrold Bonds
Umm no. Why would this site hand over its IP address logs?
Yeah if you log into JW.Org they definitely know the IP & username for every login. Again, you're fine.
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jgnat
This is what I think I know.
Any site would record your IP address and possibly the site you came from right before or went to right after. They do not have access to your full browsing history. They don't hack in to your machine.
We get personal ads because google has our browsing history, and personalizes our browsing experience. jw.org can't hack in to google's browsing history log.
You can also suspend google's trackng history.
All you would have to do is open a fresh browser when going to jw.org, or go to an innocuous third site before going there.
The uber-geeks can correct me if I am wrong.
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Barrold Bonds
" Any site would record your IP address and possibly the site you came from right before or went to right after. "
Not quite. If you link to a site, they can see where you referred from. For example, if I linked my blog here and you went to it, I'd see that you were referred to it from JWN. They can't just 'see the site you were just at or the one right after.'
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jwfacts
For them to gather your personal details and then track what other sites you visit would require installing illegal spyware on your computer, which I think would be highly unlikely.
A doubting JW is more likely to get caught by slipping up with what they say to others in the congregation, or be observed becoming less active at meetings and field service.
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jgnat
Good point, jwfacts. I came back to this thread to point out that posters most often get caught out by being found out by their partner, or by posting too many details here.
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Pterist
IP address:
The WTBTS will be able to track all the IP addresses that visit its own site, it can then determine the demographic of those who visit, but NOT them personally as regular users use "leased" IP addresses that are owned by your Internet provider. No worries there !
Cookies:
Cookies, however can be a necessary evil. Some "bad" sites can gleen some tracking information from their cookies that come down with the webpage, so make sure you delete your cookies frequently. For more intrusive programs like spyware and viruses use appropriate software and update daily.
HTTP cookie
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaA cookie, also known as an HTTP cookie, web cookie, or browser cookie, is usually a small piece of data sent from a website and stored in a user's web browser while a user is browsing a website. When the user browses the same website in the future, the data stored in the cookie can be retrieved by the website to notify the website of the user's previous activity. [ 1 ] Cookies were designed to be a reliable mechanism for websites to remember thestate of the website or activity the user had taken in the past. This can include clicking particular buttons, logging in, or a record of which pages were visited by the user even months or years ago.
Although cookies cannot carry viruses, and cannot install malware on the host computer, [ 2 ] tracking cookies and especially third-party tracking cookies are commonly used as ways to compile long-term records of individuals' browsing histories — a major privacy concern that prompted European and US law makers to take action in 2011. [ 3 ] [ 4 ]
Other kinds of cookies perform essential functions in the modern Web. Perhaps most importantly, authentication cookies are the most common method used by web servers to know whether the user is logged in or not, and which account they are logged in under. Without such a mechanism, the site would not know whether to send a page containing sensitive information, or require the user to authenticate himself by logging in. The security of an authentication cookie generally depends on the security of the issuing website and the user's web browser, and on whether the cookie data is encrypted. Security vulnerabilities may allow a cookie's data to be read by a hacker, used to gain access to user data, or used to gain access (with the user's credentials) to the website to which the cookie belongs (see cross-site scripting and cross-site request forgery for examples). [ 5 ]