Traceability of Actions on the Internet

It's sometimes surprising that so many people still believe in the anonymity the Internet provides.

In the early days of the "commercial" Internet, there was a strong belief that everything happening on the Internet was anonymous. It was partly true, since systems logged very little and the need for authentication was marginal. That was normal, since the Internet was built to serve a limited number of institutions that knew each other and were spread over a large territory.

If that were still the case today, we could still consider that there's some anonymity on the Internet. Except that the commercialization of the Internet radically changed the paradigm. It's no longer a limited number of institutions connecting, it's now the entire planet connecting to the Internet. At every level (from the ISP, to the intermediate carrier, all the way to the service provider), logging has been turned on to better understand usage and optimize the use of resources. Big corporations want to squeeze every last bit out of the resources they've invested.

The apotheosis of analytics is Google, the analysis and aggregation tool par excellence. One of its products is Google Analytics, which gives webmasters a tool to analyze behaviour on their websites. The fact that it's free to use (in exchange for Google being able to use that information to improve the advertising it sells) and the depth of its analysis make it the tool of choice.

So, is the use of Google Analytics a sign of the traceability of actions on the Internet? It's one tool among others. It's more visible than the others, since it injects itself into the web pages concerned. Meanwhile, the website keeps logging the accesses made to it, the intermediate routers between source and destination log some information about what goes through them, and finally the access provider also logs what happens on its infrastructure. Your ISP knows everything you do on the Internet.

There's not much room for anonymity on the Internet. In fact, with the rise in crime, defamation and other activities punishable by law, police forces increasingly rely on this information (already available for other purposes) to conduct their investigations and bring charges. Likewise, in civil lawsuits, a simple subpoena is enough to obtain the web host's logs. Everyone who abused it is responsible for the gradual erosion of anonymity on the Internet.

Is that a bad thing? Precisely because of the proliferation of crimes against persons and property taking place on the Internet, it's the unfortunate path we have to take to maintain some form of order and peace on the Internet. Even so, there are technological means to keep some anonymity on the Internet. Using Tor is one example.

Before you jump into using Tor, it's good to know that exit nodes don't protect the confidentiality of the content, only the anonymity of the source. There have been several cases of people using unencrypted services who were surprised when their password became public. You should also consider that many exit nodes are controlled by intelligence agencies around the world, since they're the only organizations with enough budget to provide exit nodes for free. Also know that a single mistake in protecting who you are is usually enough to blow your cover… Just ask Sabu.