More information than you can imagine is left behind on your computer, whether after surfing the web, chatting
or even when you remain offline but view or open downloads already on your computer or on separate media such
as portable hard drives or USB sticks. Your computer's operating system and programs handle data in a myriad
of ways that leave all sorts of information fragments behind which are easily pieced together.
Apart from lower-level privacy concerns (e.g., people being able to discover information about a medical problem you are concerned about
or, more generally, simply the sites you are surfing and what you are downloading), hackers could
recover very sensitive information from your computer including passwords or financial information.
These fragments or trace data can be very difficult to remove from your computer. Ideally, you want to remove
them so that they cannot be recovered.
The book,
Complete Guide to Internet Privacy, Anonymity & Security
,
outlines the many ways trace data come about and how to get rid of them permanently beyond
the reach of even the most sophisticated hackers.
