Web porn privacy worry

[fenghuang]

My favourite porn site allows me to vote for pictures. It seems to only allow you to vote for each picture once. Not a problem.
But it seems to know that I've voted for a picture even if I'm not logged in and have cleared all cookies and history from my browser.
How does it know and should I be concerned about the security implications?
(I have ZA firewall, AVG free and Spybot all installed.)

 

[emap]

i'm going to assume you don't use dial up.

Except for dial up you always have the same IP address, or designation or whatever the heck your provider decided to call it.

It's of no danger to yourself, they just recognize the address you are using and remember that.

As I mentioned earlier dial up you are issued a different address every time you sign in, which is something of a haven for the hackers I suppose and it's also good for those who wish to run up the score of whatever they want to. Pictures of themselves, favorite video so on so forth.

It's possible to change address with cable modems and DSL connections though usually difficult and requires a call to the company to re recognize the modem. I looked at the stuff from Cox when we got a cable modem.

 

[cd1_christine]

i'm going to assume you don't use dial up.

Except for dial up you always have the same IP address, or designation or whatever the heck your provider decided to call it.

Not quite true, although for most purposes, close enough. If you're on cable, you're pretty much stuck with the same IP address until your ISP wants to change it. Although if you leave your modem off for a day or two, around here, anyway, you tend to get a new IP address when you fire it up again. The only question is, can you live without Internet for that day or two, just to be able to vote for a picture a second time.
I've also never had to call the cable company to re-recognize the modem. I've had to reboot the modem to get it to talk to a new computer in some cases, but that's not a problem when you're turning it off for a while, anyway.

With DSL, on the other hand, you get a new IP address each time you connect. This will be done either with your computer, or with your modem, if it's a modem/router combo, which a lot are. Pull the power cable on the modem, wait ten seconds, plug it back in, and you've got yourself a new address. Bit of a pain, but much better than the cable situation.


Caveat: This is all true in my area, with my local cable and DSL providers. (Rogers and Sympatico, plus some independents, if you're interested.)
Whether this is true in other areas, and with other providers, I have no way of knowing.

 

[fenghuang]

Thanks for the insight.

The only question is, can you live without Internet for that day or two, just to be able to vote for a picture a second time.

Granted it was an attempt to vote for a picture twice that prompted the question, but not the reason for my concern.
And no, I don't think I could live without my favourite porn site for two days!

 

[Pure]

check into JAP,

http://anon.inf.tu-dresden.de/index_en.html

it obscures your IP number and you can change the routing.

 

[Eritz]

Try using Firefox with the Noscript plug in is what I would suggest.

 

[WistfulWanderer]

If you are concerned about websites tracking your IP, you may want to use a proxy server.

When you use a proxy server, basically your computer sends the information to that server and they send it to the site from another IP address. It generally costs a bit, and there are different kinds-- some are more easily detected as proxies than others. Also, some will automatically change your apparent IP every x number of hours, but others will assign you only one proxy ID for the duration of the lease.

I personally think a proxy server is a waste of time and money, but if you are really concerned about it, you might want to look into Cnet's download.com, where they have customer and editor reviews on different programmes.

Basically, though, if you are not doing anything you shouldn't, you have no need for a proxy, and if you are doing something you shouldn't, someone with the right software (cops, anyone?) will be able to discover your real IP anyway. If you just want privacy, though, a proxy might be a good idea.

To see what your IP address is, or to look up the location of someone else's, try ip-lookup.net.

Hope this helps!

 

[borisk]

Look into VPN services to encrypt all data from your ISP to the VPN end point provider. This effectively makes it look like you are in a different location when a service looks at the IP traffic.

Also useful if you travel abroad and need to access restricted sites.

 

[kinkycapitalcpl]

My favourite porn site allows me to vote for pictures. It seems to only allow you to vote for each picture once. Not a problem.
But it seems to know that I've voted for a picture even if I'm not logged in and have cleared all cookies and history from my browser.
How does it know and should I be concerned about the security implications?
(I have ZA firewall, AVG free and Spybot all installed.)

I think the other folks are over complicating things just a little bit. IMO, that website is most likely just using a tracking cookie. Cookies don't care about your IP address but just track information about your habits and actions on their website.

If you clear you cookies and cache you should be able to vote for your favourite picture more then once if its that important to you.