Jonathan Moneymaker is VP of Operations at Anonymizer. He is a certified Project Management Professional and also holds a BS in Systems Engineering from the University of Southern California.

In this interview he tackles headaches related to privacy and identity theft.


As more people get online, problems related to privacy multiply. What should an everyday user pay attention to in order to safeguard his/hers online activities from potential attackers?

More and more of our everyday activities are being carried out online - work, email, chat, banking, shopping, research or just browsing. Employers and individuals should understand that every Web site they visit is logging information about them and their organization, such as IP Addresses, domain names, software versions and such. In many cases this information is captured in order to enhance the user’s experience by remembering passwords, displaying relative content or sorting out possible compatibility issues. However, with ultra openness also come vulnerabilities. Depending on the type of activity users are engaging in, here are a couple of suggestions from the basic to the slightly more technical.

• For most of us, the linchpin of our online presence is our personal email address. Managing it can serve as a powerful tool of prevention. I recommend creating intermediary email aliases that all forward back to their main email address. If, for example, a Web site has sold the intermediary address, you have the ability to simply remove that alias, leaving the main one uncompromised from spam, phishing scams or other attacks.
• Always be aware of providing personal information online. Look for indications that the site uses SSL to encrypt and protect your information. Also, try and limit the use of cookies. These may seem convenient at the time, but not so much if your information gets into the open.
• The majority of people now operate with a work and a home computer. The best practice is really to keep them separate; using one computer for both business and personal issues may potentially expose both a person’s private information and their company’s information.
• For the slightly more tech savvy users: Virtual technologies allow a single computer to behave as two discreet ones. In this scenario, individuals can use the virtual computer to browse the Web and their “real” computer to access secure sites. The more separate, the better.

Even in this constantly changing high-tech world, Ben Franklin’s advice still applies: “An ounce of Prevention is worth a pound a Cure.”