Basic Questions About the Web

What is a web browser?

2003-06-30: When you sit down and look at web pages, you are using a web browser. This is the piece of software that communicates with web servers for you, translates HTML pages and image data into a nicely formatted on-screen display, and presents this information to your eyeballs -- or to your other senses, in the case of browsers for the vision-impaired and other alternative interface technologies. Web browsers also appear in simpler devices such as Internet-connected cell phones, like many Nokia models, and PDAs such as the Palm Pilot.

The most common web browser, by a large margin, is Microsoft Internet Explorer, followed by the open-source Mozilla browser and its derivatives, including Netscape 6.0 and later. Apple's new Safari browser is gaining popularity on Macintoshes running MacOS X, and the Opera shareware browser has a loyal following among those who are willing to pay for the fastest browser possible, especially on older computers. The Lynx browser is the most frequently used text-only browser and has been adapted to serve the needs of the vision-impaired.

What is the World Wide Web?

2003-06-30: The term "World Wide Web" refers to all of the publicly accessible web sites in the world, in addition to other information sources that web browsers can access. These other sources include FTP sites, USENET newsgroups, and a few surviving Gopher sites.

What is the Internet?

2003-06-30: "The Internet" refers to the worldwide network of interconnected computers, all of which use a common protocol known as TCP/IP to communicate with each other. Every publicly accessible web site is hosted by a web server computer, which is a part of the Internet. Every personal computer, cell phone or other device that people use to look at web sites is also a part of the Internet. The Internet also makes possible email, games and other applications unrelated to the World Wide Web.

Who invented the World Wide Web?

2003-06-30: the World Wide Web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee, while working at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research). He went on to found the World Wide Web Consortium, which seeks to standardize and improve World Wide Web-related things such as the HTML markup language in which web pages are written. Specifically, Tim Berners-Lee wrote the first web browser and the first web server. Tim Berners-Lee invented both the HTML markup language and the HTTP protocol used to request and transmit web pages between web servers and web browsers, in addition to coining the phrase "World Wide Web."

Who invented the Internet?

2003-08-11: very good histories of the Internet are available on the web site of the Internet Society. They provide such excellent information that it would be superfluous to try to reproduce it here.

How do I translate web pages from another language into English, or my language?

2003-07-13: the major search engines have offered a web page translation service for some time now. Specifically, Google Language Tools provide a way to translate any web page between any of several languages. Use the "translate a web page:" option on that page.

Of course, the results are far from perfect, but they are often sufficient to get what you were hoping for from the web page in question.

How do I use the web to find the answer to a question?

2003-08-11: start with a search engine; type in your question, or the most important words of your question. As of this writing, Google remains by far the most effective search engine, and the majority of all web searches are done through Google or a search engine that is "powered by" Google.

When I visit a web site, do the owners of the site know who I am? Is there any way they can find out that information?

DISCLAIMER: I am not a lawyer and do not give legal advice. If you have legal concerns, consult a lawyer.

2003-08-01: when you visit a web site with typical web browser software such as Mozilla or Internet Explorer, your software does not normally volunteer any information that can be used to identify you directly. Your email address is not given to the web server. Your web browser does hand over the following information:

1. Your current IP address. This is the address your computer currently has assigned to it on the Internet, and looks like this (just an example): 10.250.55.22. When you dial out and connect to your ISP, you are assigned a temporary IP address, and your address typically changes again when you call in later. Your IP address can only be used to identify you if your ISP chooses to cooperate with the investigation, which they may be forced to do in a legal proceeding. Under the USA Patriot Act and the DMCA, the government can force companies to hand over such information, and even before those laws there were already cases of ISPs handing over such information in response to a subpoena. Your ISP's records can be used to determine who called into what account at what time, and what address was assigned to them during that time.
Some users do have "static" (unchanging) IP addresses, which run a greater risk of revealing your identity.
2. The page you came from, known as the "referring URL." This is a useful convenience for webmasters and does not normally compromise your privacy, as the site still does not know who you are. There are products available that will block reporting of this and other information, however.
3. Miscellaneous information less important to your privacy, such as the name of your web browser software.
4. Cookies. Web sites that wish to know whether the same person has returned again another day have the ability to set a user-identifying "cookie" which is recorded by your computer. In theory, this is harmless because the site only knows that you are the same person, returning again -- not your name. However, the trouble begins when you give your true identity to one site that requires cookies. Now, that site does know your real name, and they can pass this information to other sites you visit, which can then set a cookie of their own to establish their own lasting awareness of your actual identity.

These are the pieces of information that are given out under normal circumstances. Security bugs in your web browser software can be another source of potentially serious privacy problems. When a serious security bug is found in a web browser, it can be explited to run any program on your computer.

Taking the following steps can enhance your privacy:

Read the privacy policies of web sites before giving them any personal information. Remember, however, that companies can be acquired, and the acquiring company may not be bound by the privacy policy.
Install security fixes for your browser. Always obtain these directly from the organization that created your browser! In the case of Microsoft Internet Explorer, make sure you are using the free Windows Update service. In the case of Mozilla and/or Netscape, I recommend keeping up with the latest stable version available from mozilla.org.
Set your browser to ask first before accepting cookies. In some cases you may need to go ahead and accept them, but most sites will let you in without them.
Use a personal proxy server that strips out as much identifying information as possible.
Consider using a public anonymizing proxy server. Of course, this is not perfect. As of this writing you can find a useful list of such proxy servers at the multiproxy and anonymous proxy list site (warning: fairly annoying ads).
Use a proxy server shared by many members of the same organization, giving them all the same apparent IP address; make sure this proxy server is configured to log no information at all.

Of course, there are many other ways to compromise your privacy on the web, but these also apply to traditional off-line businesses. Giving your personal mailing address, email address and phone number to a company that later goes bankrupt and sells its assets, including its customer lists, is a common way to find yourself on many new unwanted mailing lists.

What is a firewall?

2003-06-30: a firewall sits between your computer and the rest of the Internet, filtering out unwanted traffic and foiling attempts to interfere with or take over your computer. Firewalls can be separate devices, which is very common today, or simply pieces of software for your own computer, which is also fairly common. Separate firewall devices are often preferable because their very simplicity makes them less likely to have unknown security problems; however, it is still important to keep up with "firmware updates" released by the manufacturer, otherwise your firewall may be vulnerable to attack. "Cable/DSL routers" and similar devices sold by companies like Linksys provide simple firewall capabilities which are adequate for most home users.

What is ActiveX? A web page asked whether I want to install XYZ software from ABC corp. Should I say yes?

2003-08-31: ActiveX is Microsoft's technology for signing plug-ins that add additional software to your computer when a web page is accessed. If all goes well, you will be asked whether you want to trust a plug-in from that particular company and you will have the option of saying no. In principle, this is a useful way to allow the installation of worthwhile add-ons, such as Adobe Acrobat Reader, Macromedia Flash Player and RealPlayer. However, if you do not run Windows Update regularly, all will not go well -- there have been security flaws in Internet Explorer in the past that have resulted in software being able to install itself without permission.

If you do not have a specific, clear reason to want and trust the software you are being asked to install -- that is, if it is not the Macromedia Flash Player or the Adobe Acrobat PDF Reader or something similarly crucial that you really need -- SAY NO! Many nasty pieces of awful "spyware" are properly signed and will ask permission to install, knowing that some people will naively give it. You do NOT, for instance, want to say yes to installing things like "WeatherBug" or "MemoryMeter," among many others. These programs are used to present annoying and unwanted advertising throughout your web browsing experience and are very difficult to remove. The name "spyware" comes from the fact that these programs may also return personal information about you to their authors or to advertisers, such as information about your browsing habits; at a bare minimum they will display invasive advertising. If you install one of them by mistake, you should use SpyBot and/or AdAware, two excellent pieces of freely available software, to clean up the mess. These utilities do a fine job of removing spyware and other unwanted garbage that has been installed on your system. However, neither of these programs automatically updates itself to recognize new types of spyware, so be sure to click on the "fetch updates" button in either of these programs first before starting a search for spyware on your computer.

More to Come...

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