Cover Tracks

[Sabbath]

How can you tell, when your computer is part or a network, if someone is watching what you are doing online? Also how can you cover your tracks so they can't tell where you've been?

[big_block_buick]

i would guess that depends on how good of searchers they are..you could flush your cookies,temporary internet files,erase history..thats the 3 obvious that come to my mind...tweek ui has a paranoia section...maybe thats your solution..let's see what the rest of the gang says..

[sharder8]

TweakUI's "Paranoia" section would help, but they may not let you install it if you are part of a network.

Flushing cookies, temp internet files, and erasing history would help, but if you are part of a network, the network administrator can catch any and all clicks on the internet and record them.

NOTE -- I said clicks on the internet, that doesn't mean you actually went there, but that you clicked to go there. Example -- If you click on an ad to go to a "No-No" site, but you click stop before your screen changes, it will still record you as going there. Then it's your word against theirs that you didn't and you have to explain why you clicked on the ad in the first place.

[zskillz]

if the network admins really know what they're doing, the can track everything that you do... everything

a program like sniffer pro can do some really amazing and sort of unsettling stuff

-Z

[DVNT1]

and who needs to use a detailed sniffer anymore for Internet tracking? There some good programs that will monitor user's Internet access, calculated time online (not perfect but decently done), and will send alerts if thresholds are exceeded (time, place, size, etc...). All of this without using any logs on the user's PC.
Of course there are ways around parts of that, like using alternate IP addresses in place of host names like http://3507112341

[Jeff7]

You might be able to install a firewall, like Zonealarm; it can detect unauthorized ingoing and outgoing data. Of course, with the sniffer program, they'd be able to see you installing the firewall.
If you know the name of the directory, using a boot disk might let you change the directory name. I had done that to Fortres already - no harmful intentions, I assure you. I just didn't like having to open Paintbrush, Notepad, Calculator, etc, by creating a custom Database file with buttons that ran programs. That was about the only way left to do it - Start Menu wasn't allowed. I'd always re-enable Fortres afterwards though.

[Sabbath]

Thanks for all the tips. Looks like I will just have to cross my fingers and hope they stay asleep at corporate headquarters.

[Harold7]

You might look into programs such as IE Clean or NSClean here: http://www.nsclean.com/
Depending on which browser you use, these programs let you control which cookies you want to keep, set a Web /mail alias, hide your web History and clean everything you don't want to keep when you go off-line. http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif
You can also get a good, free program called IDcide for IE5 which gives you some control over where info from cookies goes... check it out here: http://www.idcide.com/index.htm The Privacy Companion Tour gives a pretty good demo of what the program does... I haven't had any problems using it yet.
http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif