Just FYI I deliberately use the same uids (gwenny and gtpooh) because I WANT to be tracked. LOL I’m working at ninja-ing the first three pages of google results for both.

Information Security Carnival is up here and your submission was selected.

By the way, great article!

@TC: You are correct, your MAC address is only used on a LAN. IP addresses work across a WAN/Internet.

My point about changing you’re MAC address not only comes into play at free wireless access points as you mentioned but also if you’re remoting in to another LAN via a VPN or similar connection in order to conduct some work.

@Matt – as I understand it, your MAC address would not normally be available anywhere beyond the first router. It does not go over the internet, like the IP address does. So the only scenario where you’d care about it, is when you were using a free wireless access point to obtaina temporary IP address which could not be traced to you.

Thanks for the insightful comment. I completely agree with your points. Being overly paranoid in life will only hinder your overall productivity and general happiness. I don’t think people need to alter their habits such that they completely prevent the act of leaving a digital trail behind, but I do think people need to be aware that this digital track record exists. Awareness is important, and so many people are clueless.

I’m glad you briefly mentioned TOR, many people haven’t heard of it much less used it.

Don’t forget you can always change your MAC address, surf the net from public locations, pay with cash, use a service like 10minutemail, and search via Googlonymous, block third party cookies, use a good Hosts file, etc.

Of course, this is all for the really paranoid conspiracy theorist. Its much easier to just live a normal life and not worry about this stuff. I mean why would someone unless they’re doing illegal stuff or just really interested in security.