Increasing Privacy and Security Issues of Internet Usage by Dealing With Cookies

8/6/2019 Increasing Privacy and Security Issues of Internet Usage by Dealing With Cookies

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M.Sc in Computing and Networking Security

Research Project Report

Increasing privacy and security issues of Internet

Usage by dealing with cookies

Submitted to:

JOHN CREAGH

BY

SUKUMAR REDDY DUVANTULA

Student No: R00051394


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Increasing privacy and security issues of Internet Usage by dealing

with cookies

Now a days, privacy is a challenging issue for Internet users. Most web servers use

cookies to collect personal data from users, which are used without the consent of the

user for various purposes. Many users are unaware of what cookies are. The objective

of this research was to study the familiarity with cookies among Internet users and the

measures they adopt to maintain their privacy. A survey was going to done and

responses collected from various students of both genders and of different educational

backgrounds.

Detail description of the Project

Internet plays an important role in day-to-day life, users to chat with friends, perform

online shopping, send e-mails, and browse information. With the increased use of the

Internet and the emergence of the newest technology, many users are concerned about

their privacy. For example, while browsing the Internet, users may be concerned

about whether the website collects information about their shopping habits and

interests and markets the data to a third party. Third parties use information to

personalize the website, according to the users taste when users revisit the website.


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Privacy was defined as the right to be let alone. The right to privacy includes

personally identifiable information linked to a specific individual, such as their name,

address, and user id. The information privacy is the right of individuals to control the

disclosure and use of the personal information without their consent.

Through Internet use, cookies are used to track users and collect information such as

an IP address or email address. A cookie is a normal text file stored on the users hard

drive by the web server to recognize the users when they revisit the website.

Browsing habits are collected by websites to personalize their web pages according to

the users interests. With cookies, the information is gathered and sold to third party

advertising agencies.

To come across this the privacy of users, technological tools have been developed,

such as privacy preferences project, anonymous e-mailers, and proxy servers. Using

this technology, users can browse the Internet without letting others know their

personal information.


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In the world of the Internet, the most frequently discussed topic is privacy. People are

attracted by the services available through the Internet; thus, the number of users

increases daily. Although people are using the Internet for various purposes, most of

them are unaware of Internet cookies and their uses. Cookies make web browsing

much easier to navigate, almost all website developers use cookies because they

provide better user experience and make it easier to gather information about website

visitors.

Cookies

Cookies are small text files sent from web servers to users hard drives. They have a

string of characters, letters and numbers that store certain pieces of information about

users.

Websites use cookie technology to know the details of the users

who visit their website. Netscape first introduced cookies to Internet browsing. The

initial purpose of cookies was to maintain the sessions on the website because the http

protocol is a stateless protocol, it means that it does not hold any information about

the users between requests. Later, they gathered personal information. Without the use

of cookies, the identity of the user could not be maintained.


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The primary issue with cookies was in revealing personal identity, which many users

considered an invasion of privacy (Krupansky, 2005). The results of a study

conducted by the AT&T privacy bird showed their respondents were more

knowledgeable about cookies than other Internet users (AT&T, 2002).

For example if a user opens a webpage on a online shopping website like ebay.com,

the text and images regarding the item are downloaded and assembled into the web

browser. If the users want to examine the cookie set by the website, the code appears

as:

Set cookie: ID= 37678; Expires=Tues, 26-Dec-

07 12:00:00 GMT;

Domain = ebay.com

The code above is a cookie. Each time the Web Browser returns to that particular

webpage, the information in the cookie would be accessed by the web server.

Cookies download automatically into the users

system without the users consent. Cookies come from the web server of the website,

which the user has browsed. Even though the user may browse only one website, it

creates more than one cookie on the users hard drive. Even if the user does not visit a

particular page in a website, the web server creates cookies related to that page on the

users hard drive. Cookies contain the IP address of the user system. Most cookies are

lost when the user closes the web browser. The contents of the cookie are simple and

easily read


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There are two types of cookies. They are session cookies and persistent cookies.

Session cookies are lost when the user exits the browser. Persistent cookies are lost

after the expiration date of the cookie.

Uses of cookies

Cookies are based on a two-stage process. First, the cookie is stored in the users

computer without their consent. During the second stage, the cookie is automatically

transferred from the user's hard drive to the web server, whenever a user directs the

web browser to display a certain web page from the server. With the use of cookies,

the web servers can know the users interests and the profile of the user.

Websites and their servers have no memory. A cookie is

a key, which enables swift passage from one place to the next. Without a cookie, web

is stateless. It is just like a vending machine, it is only concerned with the product

requested and how many. If the web is stateless, every time a new web page is

opened, the server where that page is stored will treat the user as a new visitor. Users

are recognized when they move from page to page within one website, information

entered by the user, such as username and password, are remembered by using

cookies.


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Deliverables related to Research

The main objective of the research is to discover Internet user familiarity with cookies

and their privacy concerns among IT experience, Computing students and genders.

People with this IT experience are more familiar with cookies.

The most Internet users have some idea about cookies and believe about cookies. To

determine whether Internet users in this study were familiar with cookies and their

behaviour. A variety of surveys noted that people with IT experience were more

familiar with privacy issues

Gender has no effect on cookie familiarity.

Initially, the Internet was characterized as male-dominant but showed the number of

female Internet users was increasing daily.Many researchers conducted studies on

privacy and cookies, however few considered gender, the most women Internet users

from Internet shopping because they are concerned about their privacy.


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This Research focuses on the survey methodology adopted for this research. Research

is the process of finding solutions to a problem after a thorough study and analysis of

the situational factors. The main objective of this research was to discover Internet

user familiarity with cookies and their privacy concerns about cookies when they

were browsing the Internet.

Survey Research

A survey is a system for collecting information from people to describe, compare, or

explain their knowledge, attitude, and behaviour. Surveys included the systematic

gathering of information from respondents for the purpose of understanding or

predicting some aspect of the behaviour of the population of interest. Surveys are

used to describe attitudes, opinions, and behaviors of a group.Survey approach were a

good method to carry out exploratory, descriptive, and analytic investigations.

Survey methods are further classified according to their mode of administration, such

as postal, telephone, personal, or web. There are many advantages in using survey

methods. These survey methods provide a wide range of coverage of people or events,

thus the results are likely to be representative of the wider population. The data can do

by short time and at a reasonable cost.


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Web Survey

The Internet offered researchers a good platform to conduct web-based surveys to

collect data. Web-based surveys had a thoughtful influence on the survey process.

Respondents faced a new challenge in completing the web survey. The web link was

sent to various respondents. Once the questionnaire was answered, it was instantly

submitted to a database and prepared for analysis. The main advantages of this survey

were low cost and high speed.

Postal Survey

This method involved preparing a questionnaire and posting the questionnaire to

respondents. This method was time consuming while waiting until the responses were

returned. The main drawback of this technique was that it was still and did not give a

clarification from the respondents. Moreover, there was no guarantee that respondents

would reflect on the questionnaire. With this, low factors of data will be return with

this method.

Face-to-Face Survey

This method involved preparing a questionnaire with a researcher personally

administering the questionnaire to respondents. In this method, the researcher was

present at all times to clarify the doubts of the respondents while answering the

questionnaire. With this method, there was a great deal of flexibility but it was time

consuming.


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Methodology

This research method is a face-to-face survey. The research was concerned with the

Internet browsing habits and privacy concerns with cookies when the users browse the

Internet. In order to have a clear understanding about the use of the Internet and

privacy issues, it was important to have respondents who frequently used the Internet.

Educational institutions provided the best place to conduct surveys to locate different

users from different backgrounds. As I want to do this face-to-face survey was at CIT

to acquire more information regarding Internet privacy from users with IT and non-IT

backgrounds. A face-to-face survey clarifies the questionnaire to the respondents.

The data for this research were collected though a questionnaire

with a series of questions designed to discover Internet users familiarity with cookies

and privacy issues.

Documents

Increasing Privacy and Security Issues of Internet Usage by Dealing With Cookies