Smokescreen

   

Mission 13 Extra

   

Posted by Adrian on November 4, 2009 at 12:19 p.m.

   

Almost everything we do on the web creates trails in the online landscape.

Your investigation on Melissa's laptop shows that browsers like Internet Explorer and Firefox record a perfect picture of which websites you've visited, when you visited them, and how many times. This is handy if you're uncovering a crime - not so handy if you have a legitimate reason for keeping your browsing history private. If you don't want your browsing history recorded, the newest versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Chrome now allow 'Private Browsing' (the links will tell you how).

But (there's always a 'but'!) that doesn't solve everything. Browsers mark pages that you've visited with a different colour - usually purple. It's a good way of letting you figure out where you've been and to scan through pages quickly. Unfortunately, it's possible for websites to work out what colour your links are, which means they can work out which websites you've visited in the past - see for yourself! Other than turning on 'Private Browsing' all the time, there are no good ways of fixing this problem...

Lost Laptops

Melissa knew that even though her laptop stopped working, all of her files, including her browsing history, would probably still be on the hard drive. That's why she asked Jo to destroy it, in case someone 'helpfully' moved it to another computer or repaired the laptop. If Melissa wanted to be really sure that her files were gone (and she had time), she could have also 'securely formatted' her hard drive.

Formatting a hard drive takes only a minute and wipes it completely clean, but there are tools that can recover files from normal formats like this. A secure format takes much longer, and makes it near impossible to recover any files.

You might think that Jason Bourne and Melissa are the only people who'd need a secure format, but just think of all the information that's on your laptop - your photos, your emails, and all the saved passwords on your browser. If you sell it on eBay or throw it away, don't just delete your files or do a normal format - do a secure format (or physically destroy it). And if you're worried about what someone could do with your laptop if it's stolen, there are other ways you can keep your files safe.

Criminal

Melissa committed a whole range of crimes in the process of framing Max, which could include deception, theft, fraud, defamation, and more. Just because she's under 18 doesn't mean she gets off lightly either - after the age of 14, young people are considered to be fully responsible for their own actions. However, young offenders go through a different system to adults - the Youth Justice System - where imprisonment is a last resort (but still possible for serious offences).

The last we hear of Melissa is that she's still in hospital for psychiatric assessment, which means she probably claimed insanity or diminished responsibility as a defence, due to her grief over Jamie's death.

Given the seriousness of what happened to Max, if Melissa was over 18, she could have been sentenced with several years in prison.

The Cookie Monster

The moment that Jo visited Fakebook - and saw Max's login details already filled in - is when she first started suspecting Melissa. Most people like having their browsers pre-fill their login details, and most people like staying logged in to sites like Facebook - it can be annoying to keep on filling your email address and password in every few hours.

Browsers use a feature called 'auto fill' to remember your login details, and they usually ask for your permission to keep those details. But websites track you differently, by using 'cookies'.

When you log in to a site like Facebook, it creates a 'cookie' file on your computer; the next time you visit Facebook, that cookie tells Facebook who you are, so you don't need to log in again. Cookies are on millions of sites for perfectly fine reasons, like remembering your YouTube viewing preferences or in games (like this one!).

Not all cookies are innocent though - 'third party' cookies are used by advertisers to track your movements across the web and to target adverts to you. It's when this information gets joined up with other information - like your email and your home address - that things can get uncomfortable. All new browsers let you restrict who you accept cookies from, so you can deny third party cookies - or even all cookies (although that can break some websites).

Smokescreen

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