Privacy is a big part of today’s world. As people’s information and data become more and more sensitive, the need to keep it hidden becomes more and more necessary. Ten years ago, someone’s IP address wouldn’t have been treated with any security what so ever, now it must be hidden at all costs. People probably wouldn’t have known what an IP address was at the time!

The demand for Internet privacy got to be so strong, that there began to be a market for it. People would pay for the services they provide, and would do so willingly. At first, these companies charged ridiculous amounts for their services, but today they are often dirt cheap.

Anonymous Proxy usage became more and more important. These are programs or web sites that actually alter your IP address, which is a virtual nametag showing location, browsing history, etc. The programs then allow you to surf on their encrypted networks to be sure all of your information is encoded upon you sending it. Then, they actually go and retrieve the websites you wish to visit for you, allowing you to bypass blocks set on work and school computers (or possibly an oppressive government) and enjoy the sites you want to. They will allow no traces of data such as cookies or cache to stay on your computer, allowing no one to see your browsing session. All your employer or teacher would see is the name of the anonymous proxy over and over and over again. If this isn’t good enough for you, professional fee-based proxies offer a “delete session information” function that completely deletes history of your browsing for that session, leaving no traces anywhere.

There are two major types of proxies; a software based proxy and a web based proxy. We’ll focus on the web based one first.

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Every computer comes stock with some sort of Internet browser; whether it be Internet Explorer, FireFox, Safari, etc. These browsers start out completely uncensored and unblocked. This is the prospect of America; you have absolute freedom unless you choose to limit it. Parents who buy their young kids computers have to go in and manually install child-blocking software and other censoring programs. This is all done by choice, and is completely unnecessary to the correct function of the computer.

This is true of most countries, the United States being the most prominent. There are some places where the government censorship is running rampant and is instated unwillingly upon its citizens. These places are few and far between, but are highly publicized for their censorship and other injustices on their citizens. China is a prime example. “The Great Firewall of China” is what China’s censoring agenda is satirically known as, and its citizens are becoming fed up with it. The people of this nation used to just be defeated by it, and would never do anything to try and help themselves out of desperation, but recently, movements have been made to free them. People in the Americas and other free nations set up proxy servers to send aid to their companions in less-than-democratic nations. These anonymous proxies ensure anonymous browsing for the citizens, who run the risk of being caught for their “crimes”; YouTube, FaceBook, etc.

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The importance of anonymity cannot be stressed enough while online. Consider the fact that you are amongst thousands of random people you don’t know while online. These people could just be there to do their required surfing and then get off, but others could have bad intentions. Being anonymous can shield you from their bad intentions and not allow them to hack into your system.

Since anonymity is so important, people know this, and have created products to help one ensure their anonymous browsing while online. Enter the anonymous proxy, a godsend to all people concerned with their Internet safety.

The anonymous proxy is pretty much an all encompassing Internet privacy tool. When hackers look for their prey online, they look for people who are unprotected and will be easy to get into; the path of least resistance. These people usually just use their stock systems their computer was pre-loaded with to gain a false sense of security. Often times, they haven’t even properly set up these programs! This doesn’t matter though, even the most well configured firewall couldn’t stop a determined hacker. These criminals cower at the sound of anonymous proxy though.

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The United States have always been wary of terrorism and other threats to our national security. Other countries seem to despise us, whether it be for differences in religion or ethics, difference in cultures, or simply a strong envy of our opulence. While America has always been very conscious of our security, the 911 attacks showed us that our defenses were not infallible, and there is always a chance for disaster to strike. This woke us up so to speak, and in today’s day and age, security for our nation is top priority of the government.

You have seen the changes all around you, and they were often blatant. The medium that allowed the attacks, air travel, has been most affected by that fateful day. Many people remember before the attacks when they could go and meet their loved ones in the terminal to greet them, while now they must wait outside. Many people remember zipping through the security lines, while now you are in there forever being searched and prodded. Everyone has heard the news of the airports possibly putting in full body scanners to scan passengers even more thoroughly, and to avoid even more accidents from filtering through.

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Do you remember the days when you would get random advertisements on your computer that had absolutely nothing to do with what you like? Those days are long. The Internet took a page out of television’s book. First, they began to place appropriate ads on appropriate sites, just like T.V. Consider a sports channel; likely there will be many ads about football and baseball tickets, and little about the new Cabbage Patch kids doll. The Internet then became the same way. On a guitar chat website, one would see guitar cables, amplifiers, and guitars rather than miracle-grow garden solution. They have stepped it up once again, but this time not everyone is happy.

Enter behavioral advertising. This new form of ads actually investigates your browsing history and other documents on your computer to form a keyword profile of what you like and are interested in, and then brings ads to you based on those investigations, and this is all involuntary. Privacy advocates are having fits over this, and the public are scared that their sensitive information will be compromised, and it won’t have even been their faults.

“Is it worth it” is their slogan, and they say that it isn’t worth having someone’s entire computer scanned just for more ads to be thrown at them. It also is involuntary, often an entire ISP (Internet Service Provider) signs up all of their customers for a portion of what the advertisers make. It is all about the money. That’s what these advertisers think; these tailor made ads will lure people into spending their hard earned money.

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The Internet is a place in which it is imperative to remain anonymous at all times while working or just relaxing. When surfing online, you are side-by-side with many people you have never met before. Many of them are just there to do their business and leave, but some are there for other reasons. Where there is money, there are criminals. These criminals realize being online and doing theft is much easier and less risky than doing so in real-life and running the risk of being caught red-handed.

While this data should never be handed over willingly, this just recently happened. A cheerleader at a school in Mississippi was demanded to hand over her FaceBook information to her cheer-leading coach. The cheer-leading coach heard about this girl making a fuss about some internal politics of the team, and figured the information would have been conversed about on FaceBook. She was right; the girl surrendered her information and the coach found the conversation and alerted the rest of the school faculty. The girl was quickly reprimanded for her actions.

This seems wrong, and it is. The girl was forced to give up her personal information for her FaceBook account and then her account was hacked during school hours and on school property, then she was punished for her speech. This is unconstitutional, but unfortunately happens often on the Internet.

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Although the Internet has many uses these days, the most popular use of it has to be for online shopping. It seems that Ebay may have started the craze, but these online vendors have blown up since its advent. Amazon, Craigslist; they all are successful sites and are probably the most highly populated sites on the Internet today.

Although these places say they are all about the customer, one cannot sometimes always be fooled so. Many of these companies are coming out of the woodwork and coming into scandals regarding the privacy of their loyal consumer’s data.

When you sign up for these stores services and go to buy something, you are prompted to enter all sorts of data. At the time, it all seems to be for the good of expedited shipping, and other company related things. Even a credit card number is required, so that the seller may have access to his or her money.

Everybody is familiar with the stories of people getting swindled by false companies, or being tricked by an unreliable seller. This is not a big concern on the big selling sites, but there is another thing that is. They sell your private information to third party companies who then in turn try to sell you even more things.

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You may have heard privacy sites use the term “cloud computing” and speak of it as a privacy issue. If you aren’t privy to the vernacular of Internet users, cloud computing refers to storing information virtually on the Internet, instead of on private, physical servers. There are a couple of tangible advantages to this; for one, you don’t have to take up such a massive amount of space for huge computer servers. Then, it is cheaper. The Internet has unlimited storage space, and is often very cheap or free to put all of your information there. Lastly, it isn’t the company’s responsibility to store, look after, and keep safe the information of its clientele. While this all sounds good, you know the old saying: there’s two sides to every coin.

This universal adoption of cloud computing among many different companies represents a serious privacy concern. First of all, these companies are no longer the ones protecting the information. When the data is stored on their own physical, private computer network, it would be significantly harder for a hacker to break in and steal all sorts of sensitive information. These things almost never happened.

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We live in an age of many concerns and fears. Children aren’t allowed to play outside anymore as they were ten years ago for fear of being stolen by some interloper patrolling the neighborhood. People are now given intensive scans at the airport for everything from knives, to drugs, to guns. Even your loved ones waiting to greet you are not allowed to come up to the terminals anymore, instead having to wait outside in the crowded lobbies and baggage claims. The Internet has also changed. Once there was only a few sites to go on, and nobody knew a thing about spy ware or malware. People sent e-mails and went on sites in a totally blissful and carefree manner, but that soon changed.

With the advent of the “Information Generation”, people flocked to the Internet for its unlimited resources and its great exploring potential. People began to have virtual lives online, living vicariously through games or social networking sites. The Internet unknowingly conglomerated with television through YouTube, and is currently putting television on its last legs. Even the drudging commute to work is becoming archaic, and being replaced by the coffee-fueled masses that earn their bread working from home.

America has always been a land of change, as well as freedom. Right now, we are in the middle of another Industrial Revolution; although perhaps it will appear in history textbooks as the Technology Revolution. As the people evolved and changed their habits, so did the inventive criminals. Crime has always been a plaguing leech on America’s side, but one that is inevitable by the amount of freedom each citizen enjoys. Although criminals are often stereotypically portrayed as completely ignorant, uneducated low lives, they know quite some about their art; it is their chosen profession. They follow people and find out where they are most unprotected and will strike there when the opportunity arises. They also factor in how likely it is that they will be caught.

When everyone began using the Internet, criminals began to see that this was an excellent new avenue for them to exploit. Instead of having to rob someone in a suspicious back alley or on a crowded subway train, they could do so surreptitiously online, without even a trace of fear. A robber mugging someone in an alley will be plagued by the screams of his victim, and most likely caught by police as he tries to escape. An Internet hacker who hacks into an innocent person’s bank account online will not have to worry about the victim screaming for help, nor about a quick escape. It is likely the victim won’t even know that they have been robbed until months later, and by then the criminals will be gone, without a shred of evidence left behind.

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This day and age isn’t called the “Information Generation” for no reason. Nearly every worker does all of their work online and over the computer, and the number of people working from home on the computer has grown to number that could never even be comprehended ten years ago. It has even trickled down to kids. What kid doesn’t have a computer in the house or own one personally. Many schools have begun to do classes and class work online as well. Everything is going digital, but there are problems as well.

The Internet is a great way to just have fun exploring. Doing a Google search about something you are interested in is a great way to pass the time and become more educated. The Internet is also very distracting. Anyone can contest to the devil vs. angel they feel every day while at work; they want to work, but the Internet is so alluring. Some can compromise, and just use it on specific, time allotted breaks, but others will spend all day on YouTube or fantasy football and get absolutely nothing done, and probably an angry call from the boss later for lack of productivity. For this reason, many employers and schools limit and censor the Internet. A hired worker is one thing, but a student in a boring class they hate will have no problem blocking out the droning teacher and wasting an hour away.

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