How Private Is Your Computer ?
The answer is "Not at all private". Not only can a hacker break into your computer, or someone dump a trojan on your system, but anyone who has access to your computer, and has a little knowledge of Windows, can "read" all sorts of embarrassing information about you on it.
On your home computer that means your family, and on your work computer that means your boss and your colleges. Do not rely on "passwords" and "user profiles", at work your boss will have "master access" to all computers, and many of the people you work with will have enough knowledge to be able to override your password (it is not difficult). At home your kids will also be able to override your password. Believe me, your kids will be more computer wise than you.
If your computer is at home do you ever visit a site you do not want your family to see. Maybe it is something as simple as a surprise gift for your wife, or something more serious such as a do it yourself divorce site. Either way you do not want your wife to accidentally (or deliberately) see what you accessed. And what about your kids, there must be sites that you visit that are either unsuitable for children (and I do not just mean porn, there are plenty of things it is OK for an adult to look at, but not kids), or things that it would be embarrassing for your children to see (Do you want them to know that you visited a Viagra site, a birth control site, an extreme political site, etc.).
And if your computer is at work do you want your boss to see what sites you visited ? Even something simple like you visited the competition's site to see how you can be better that them can be misinterpreted. Your boss may assume you were thinking of resigning or even selling your company's information to the competition.
And what about the financial aspect ? Your computer stores things that you type into it. Say, for example, you use your credit card on a totally safe and trustworthy site. They will not rip you off, but your computer now has a note of your credit card details, and if another site forces a trojan onto your computer they will be able to access that information and use it to spend money on your card.
Plus you have to worry about serious misunderstandings. Here is a frightening but possible scenario (as you read this remember, this sort of thing HAS HAPPENED to other people, it COULD HAPPEN TO YOU). Imagine your kids are being bullied by someone. Typically they will not come to you, but you will see the signs. You want to help, but you do not know the best way to go about it (you have no idea who is doing the bullying, and your kids are too afraid of the bully to tell you about it). So you do the sensible thing, you hit the net, you visit all sorts of sites on violence against children.
At the same time you noticed the signs so did one of your kid's teachers. But they did not assume bulling, they assumed child abuse by the parents (you), and called the police. Normally there will be an embarrassing investigation but you will be cleared. But what if the police search your hard drive ? They will find evidence that you were visiting sites that show violence to kids and will consider this evidence that you were looking for ways to hurt your children. The result will be your kids taken into care and you will go to jail for a long time.
Do you really want to risk this ? I don't. That is why I use evidence eliminator software. This simple piece of software searches through my computer and clean out all incriminating files. It is the only way to protect yourself.
