Lesson 5.4: Anonymity, privacy and digital traces
Privacy, anonymity and pseudonymity are different things. What a website, your provider and your own computer record about you; what VPNs, proxies and Tor actually hide and what they don't; browser fingerprints and cookies; the Anonymous collective and why its members were still identified; and data retention laws that make providers keep traffic records in many countries. In the lab you sit on the defender's side and follow one visitor through a shop's log: a VPN changed their address, but a cookie and a rare browser string tie the visits together, and the VPN's own records lead back to a paying account.
18 min
You will learn to
- Tell privacy, anonymity and pseudonymity apart
- Name the traces a website, a provider and your own computer keep
- Explain what VPNs, proxies and Tor hide and what they don't
- Link visits with a cookie and a browser string in a log
- Explain data retention laws and the limits of anonymity
Key terms
- Privacy
- Your right to decide who learns what about you.
- Anonymity
- Acting without anyone being able to tell who you are.
- Pseudonymity
- Acting under a consistent name or ID that isn't your real name but can be linked over time.
- Digital footprint
- All the traces you leave online, on purpose (posts, photos) and without noticing (logs, cookies, metadata).
- Metadata
- Data about data: who, when, where, which device, but not the content.
- VPN, proxy, Tor
- A VPN or proxy sends your traffic through someone else's server, so websites see that server's address. Tor sends it through three volunteer relays, so no single one knows both who you are and what you visit.
- Data retention
- Laws that oblige internet providers, and sometimes cafés, hotels and other shared connections, to keep records of who connected when, for a set period.
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