Bernie Goldbach is where?
I USE INCOGNITO mode in my Chrome browser to show no trace of my electronic footprint in my laptop's history . The incognito mode also increases the speed of Google Plus because of the numerous extensions I use.
We need to tell new third level students about incognito's effects on local browsing history and ensure students know proxy servers as well as websites visited will still have records of visits. And there are other issues.
If I sign into my Google Account while in incognito mode, my subsequent web searches are recorded in my Google Web History. To prevent searches from being stored in your Google Account, you need to pause your Google Web History tracking.
By far the most unsettling thing I do with all this tracking malarky is show my physical presence 80 to 500 miles away from my actual location. I can do this by using proxy servers while on my O2 Mifi or Vodafone USB modem. I hear, "I thought you were in Dublin" a lot around my workplace because I can convince my Twitter clients to use O2's Dublin antenna as part of my status updates. Some people also get easily confused when I check into Foursquare venues a few counties away, then auto-post images from those places on Flickr. Those data cross-post to Pinboard where I can show a stream of activity well removed from where I actually was.
Even though I know it's easy to spoofing location data, the Irish courts often read the geodata of suspects into the record with no challenge from the defense. Using electronic masts or proxy servers as the primary evidence in where someone conducts their business shows little forensic awareness about how people can cloak their locations today.
Bernie Goldbach curates info on location.
