ISP Logs – Privacy Risk

When people semi-research into anonymous surfing they often forget about the most important aspect the ISP log. The hundreds of firms and web sites promising you some privacy by merely surfing through their anonymous proxies are only telling you a very small part of the story.

There is another important player in this area and that’s your Internet Service Provider or ISP, this is where the focus of any privacy problems are not in dispersed logs on web servers across the planet. European Directives and US safety Acts all focus here on the centralized electronic profile that is contained in the ISP logs.

 

ISP Log – Your Complete Internet Diary

This is the most important single aspect of protecting your privacy. The ISP log stores details of every web site, every email you send, every message you post on a forum or blog. It is a complete record of everything you online. This is why there is a European Directive forcing ISPs to hold these records, this is why the US government regularly forces ISPs to hand over these details. There are all ready plans in place to make all this information even more accessible via means of central databases collating this information.

Forget about protecting your privacy, the mere existence of your complete surfing history in the ISP logs means you really don’t have any.

AHA but I surf through an Anonymous Proxy

That’s great that means the web sites you visit can’t record your IP address when you visit. But as far as the ISP log, it does absolutely nothing to protect your privacy here – all your details are still logged in exactly the same way – using an anonymous proxy makes absolutely no difference to what’s being stored in your ISP Log.

It’s why you do need to consider Hide IP software if you’re serious about keeping your privacy intact online.

So remember ninja proxies, elite proxies, super secure anonymous proxies it’s all fairly pointless if you don’t do something to protect your ISP logs. These are what Oppressive regimes use to prosecute free speech bloggers, this is how governments snoop on their citizens – they don’t need to seize the logs of hundreds of different web servers to spy on people – when there is a complete and total list in clear text on your ISP logs.

If you’re serious about privacy – read my review of how Identity Cloaker can give you the power to surf anonymously In the meantime has anyone ever read your ISPs privacy policy ? Some of them can make interesting reads especially regarding ISP logs.