No peeking 
PaperDoll, if it’s your computer (or your husband’s), create a seperate user account for yourself with a password, and then have an unlocked “guest” account for everybody else to use. Unless your relatives are digging around actively LOOKING for something it’s unlikely that they will accidentally stumble across anything that way. Just make sure to log off when you are done looking at Rude Nude Dudes or whatever it is.
The rare times that I have actually disposed of a computer, I have always removed the hard drive, opened it, and shredded the disk with tin snips. I remember seeing a “60 Minutes” segment a few years ago in which some people legally obtained used and outdated computers that were formerly used by the US Military. Even though the disks were supposedly erased, these folks were able to recover some data.
It’s not that I have illegal content on the drive but when you think about it, imagine what could still be on a hard drive after several years of use. Passwords? Bank account numbers? Credit card numbers?
After I saw that “60 Minutes” segment, I’ve made damned sure the disk is completely destroyed in any computer that is going to be thrown away. As is widely known, people search through garbage cans on trash nights to find this information. Imagine if they came across a computer with the hard drive still intact?
Honestly I think that’s a bit extreme - there are any number of free utilities that do a triple overwrite of the entire disk which is good against most attempts at data recovery unless you’re talking about major industrial espionage, the NSA, CIA, etc. At that point, sure - crack the drive open, remove the platters, grind to powder, burn the powder, bake into bread, serve to 7 different individuals and have them each poop on a different continent.
All the cases I’ve heard of (sensitive data pulled off an old computer) have involved machines that were either not wiped at all (that is, the PC was turned off and then sold as is) or only the most rudimentary steps were taken (delete the private data, or FDISK the drive) - that’s the sort of stuff that can be easily recovered with that copy of Norton Disk Doctor you get down at the office supply store.
I work in an industry that deals with extremely valuable and sensitive information and I know how our equipment is wiped before it’s disposed of - it’s not necessary to do something that drastic.
Something interesting that I did discover is that heavy-duty magnetic wiping of a hard drive doesn’t destroy any data. I ran a laptop drive over our demagnetizer, it’s so powerful you could actually hear the driver platters smacking around, then put the drive back into the laptop and booted right back up, zero problems.
How can you know which cookies are good and which are bad? Is there any way to delete your browsing activities of, say, the past half hour only?
You might think that’s secure, but I heard of this one case…
Sure. Open your cache, order the files by date and delete all those of the last half hour.
CCleaner works well for me. You could also check Privacy Mantra. It erases all of your cookies (even the non-porn) and other internet traces…
There is evidence of recent searches in your registry as well. Granted, most casual snooopers won’t look there, but it’s something to be aware of.
[QUOTE=MangetoutThe only truly secure way to cover your tracks is to irretrievably destroy the entire internet.[/QUOTE]
Take off and nuke the site from orbit.
It’s the only way to be sure.
It’s pretty much bullet-proof.
Anonymizer will work as a proxy server, routing all of your traffic to websites you visit through their servers. Thus any website has no way to tell where the request originally came from, it only shows the Anonymizer IP address, which is used by hundreds/thousands of other users. Anonymizer claims that they don’t keep any record or logs so that even if government orders to divulge info couldn’t be done since none exists. On this point, I suppose you’ve got to trust them.
In order to secure the communication over your own IP address from your box to the Anonymizer servers, you can use an SSL connection which encrypts all the traffic on that leg of it’s journey. Thus, even if someone “tapped” into the wire running from you house to the street, all they’d see is gibborish.
Not a bad deal for $30.00 a year, IMHO.
I know all the above sounds like a cyber-criminal’s wet dream, but it’s also good for regular Joes who just don’t want to be snooped on or tracked by companies.
Of course spyware, viruses, rootkits, keyloggers or other local machine nasties invalidates the whole thing.
Don’t forget the tracks left all over the place by those pesky index.dat files, too.
Be careful with any proxies. Others have been caught out - such as Safeweb - and some claim limitations with anonymous services. Bear in mind also that using a proxy from a workplace is sometimes listed as a disciplinary offence (I’ve seen it included in well-written acceptable use policies).
If someone is peeking at porn at work, God help them. Eventually he or she will be caught and there will be no second chances. We have caught several and terminated all. No warnings.
Y’know this is a good point. I mean, I habitually configure my browsers to wipe all cookies, histories, disk caches, etc at exit. But that just encourages people to look harder…I think what I need is a ‘random SFW history & cookie generator’. Now that’d be sneaky.
Band name!!
On topic:
You could also buy a thumb drive (or whatever they’re called these days) and store your porn on that. Just a supplementary step in addition to the cover-your-tracks things posted above, in case (like me) you’re a Rabid Porn Collector ™. I just hate finding stuff and never seeing it again.
Can someone tell me the steps to delete my temporary internet files and history? Sorry if I sound dumb, but I’m totally lost.
I forgot to add that I’m using Internet Explorer and Windows XP, if that’s any help.
Tools menu, Internet Options, then Delete Files and Clear History. This is assuming you’re using Internet Explorer and it hasn’t changed that much since my antique version.
This won’t make you immune if someone goes carefully digging, but it gets rid of the obvious traces.