Google can store your internet searches - how to stop that

[American Psycho]

Maybe old news but this has recently come up in some research I've been doing. I know my google searches alone would reveal a lot about me and possibly even be able to identify me. We know that Google retains the IP addresses of every search carried out for a seemingly indefinite period. Even where internet companies no longer store the information on the owner of an IP address, Google could in theory still dig up a tonne of information relating to an IP address.

My question is besides Google themselves and the NSA who can actually search this data? Can law enforcement or subpoenas?

[Modee]

How Private is Your Online Search History? | ACLU

First of all, you may easily delete your Google web search history, and stop it from being recorded:
All about indoor rock climbing

Also, the search information is useless unless it is traceable back to person. That's why when I do a search I use Firefox, set according to the Short List to delete all data on each restart, and a VPN or even a VPN on top of an untraceable cellular based ISP. Even if there is some way for the government to figure out, without a warrant, what searches are being done for "sensitive" information, that information is useless unless traceable back to a person. I don't do this because I have anything to hide, but just out of habit. "Women and children can afford to be careless, but not men."

At a minimum, delete your browsing history from your browser regularly.

It's actually not as easy as you think to gather the information to which you allude. Typically it is done not by going to outside sources, but by confiscating your computer directly, pursuant to warrant and then, pretty much everything ever done on your computer comes up under a search of the computer's log of activity. When computers are seized, forensic experts never simply turn the thing on to start searching for what they want. Rather, they remove the unit's hard drive and make a clone of it, and then use that clone for searching. This way they may establish for evidentiary purposes that the "Last_accessed" file/record on the computer predates the seizure - otherwise it may be difficult to prove that the data unearthed predates the confiscation of the computer.

Once a computer is seized, internet searches may be located too:
Broadcom Community - VMTN, Mainframe, Symantec, Carbon Black

but there are ways to combat all that. One way is for example via Apple's FireVault
Just a moment...
which makes it effectively impossible for anyone without the encryption key to even access the hard drive, which really foils anyone who is trying to clone the hard drive, let alone use it. There are equivalents to FireVault for PCs, but all of them slow down the already slow PC to an even slower rate. Apple's latest versions of FireVault on their newer computers result in no discernible slowdown.

Assuming somehow the searchers do gain access to your hard drive, the techniques in the Short List for deleting all search history help too. It all depends on how determined the searchers are to gaining access to the hard drive and its "secrets." As well, a hard drive with millions of pieces of data on it will prevent forensic experts from narrowing down what they what to find ("clutter is the enemy of a thorough search").

Plus, in situations where an outside search is done of your searches, it is not done through Google, but rather - your internet service provider (ISP). Many ISPs log all of your activity. But if you use a VPN or an untraceable cellular based ISP, then there is no way to trace it back to you anyway, because the search did not happen via your ISP or did not happen traceably. Plus, an ISP search starts not with your IP address, but rather with - who is this person, what is his ISP and then let's execute a search warrant on his ISP find out what he has been up to. You follow?

Generally the only reason a search warrant is done on an ISP, is to identify the user or owner of the IP address, for something the government already knows about, such as some illegal activity done via a certain IP address. In other words, the search warrants executed on ISPs are not usually to determine what has been done - because somehow that has already come to the attention of the authorities, but rather to figure out who has done it.

However, not every ISP even maintains a log of your past IP addresses:
http://www.thestar.com/news/privacy-...browsing-.html
and some ISPs give you a new IP address every time you turn your modem on and off.

Why are you so determined to avoid anyone finding our about your past bank accounts, internet searches and identifying information? You up to something?

[American Psycho]

Very good information there, hits all the marks.

The issue I was highlighting though was say you have an IP address, 123 used by a typical person. They might carry out a few searches for businesses and stores near their home, they might Google their own name on a somewhat regular basis, perhaps some things related to their work or company, and many of their hobbies and interests. Forgetting about law enforcement needing probable cause to query with an ISP who owns an IP address, simply anybody who has a list like this of all searches carried out by an IP can probably go a long way to identifying the person. I am of course talking about a normal person, not someone as experienced as Modee, once there are enough searches to identify that person undoubtedly there will be some searches made that they don't want people to know about.

My question and concern is - who can search and view the data of searches carried out by a particular IP?

One quick fix of course is to use the search engine Duck Duck Go which does not retain any search data, but the simple fact is 99% of people use google for their searches and there's little sign of this slowing.

[Modee]

You're just basically saying the same thing in a different way, and the answer I posted above I believe addresses it.

[American Psycho]

Do you use TOR as an alternative to VPNs?

[Modee]

I do not use any proxies for eBay per the Short List, but for some applications such as described in this thread I use VPN, just because it is easy to use on MAC OS X or most any browser including PC browsers, and is free. Example VPNs are given in the Short List.