Vassar Technology Today | How to ensure computer data stays private

Matthew Leung Assistant Managing Editor

George Orwell’s concept of Big Brother would not be possible without computers. As computers become more integrated with the Internet, Big Brother is becoming a reality. Not many people have a phobia of computers, but considering the Big Brother’s surveillance tools are becoming accessible even to users with little computing knowledge, people’s confidence in computers is not well-founded either.

One way to become Big Brother is to find out whether the recipient has read the e-mail that you sent. Companies such as Rampell Software (DidTheyReadIt.com) offers a service that can ensure that nobody else is reading the e-mails you send.

With this service, for example, once you send out an e-mail, you can determine the time the recipient opens your e-mail, the length of time spent reading your e-mail, the Internet service provider of the recipient, the browser used to open your e-mail, whether your e-mail was opened once or several times, if your e-mail was forwarded to someone else and the physical location of the recipient.

The service accomplishes this by inserting a small piece of code in the e-mail you send, called a web bug, which is invisible and undetectable by the recipient. It is compatible with most e-mail clients and webmail services, and the companies providing the service claim that it works 98 percent of the time and promises its customers undetectability. Although it is controversial and highly debated, this service is legal.

There is one obstacle to becoming Big Brother: the code inserted into such e-mails can be activated only if your e-mail client or webmail application displays HTML. You can disable HTML to prevent the code from running. This is the default option in Vassar’s SquirrelMail (webmail.vassar.edu). With e-mail clients such as Outlook or Eudora you can manually disable HTML using the Options menu. This is usually called the “text-only” option. Disabling HTML, however, will not allow you to see rich contents such as formatting (italics or bolded words) and pictures in e-mails, but is worth it to keep data private.