How to surf in silence

Web sites can track your every move online. The following tools listed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (www.epic.org) can help safeguard your Internet privacy, and show you what information companies can find out.

See what they see:

Several Web sites show you what corporate techies see when they follow your online habits. Among them: www.privacy.net and www. ElfQrin.com.

Surf anonymously:

Basic software can keep your identity secret by "sitting" between your computer and any Web sites you visit. Find out more at www.the cloak.com and www.aixs.net.

Cookie crushers:

Web sites place cookies, or electronic tags, on your computer to create a profile of your visiting habits. Online advertisers are increasingly using them, too. The award-winning Cookie Crusher (www.thelimitsoft. com) can stop them.

E-mail encryption:

A few companies like ZipLip (www. ziplip.com) and Hushmail (www.hush mail.com) offer services that block people other than the sender and receiver of an e-mail from reading the message.

Remailers:

Remailers help you evade corporate spam by giving you a generic e-mail address. Jack B. Nymble (www.skuz.net/potatoware/ jbn/about.html) is just one of many available services.

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