Comments for Can my ISP monitor my internet usage?

Comment from John Doe on 2009-11-16

2009-11-16T22:08:00Z

I looked at pornographic sites, nothing dodgy, merely women in bikinis and celebrity spyshots from paparazzi and used automobile sites, would an ISP really be interested in spying on me for that?

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Comment from hugh on 2009-11-10

2009-11-10T14:32:05Z

I think my friend has looked at undesirable sites and worry they are looking at me, if he has done how long before i found out.

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Comment from Jim on 2009-10-19

2009-10-20T05:58:11Z

You're right, ISPs usually aren't very interested in monitoring and recording your online activities, but the government intelligence agencies are.

I would warn you about what's to come as far as the death of online privacy, but the fact is that the death has already occurred.

Over the past decade, the intelligence agencies have received virtually no resistance from ISPs in their pursuit of full monitoring access.

This is mainly because they lie to ISPs.
They tell them that their intention is to catch horrible people such as 'terrorists' and child pornographers, and then assure them that only those people will be monitored.

So, at this point, I guarantee you that the U.S. intelligence agencies are recording every single thing you're doing online.
And, thanks to exponentially advancing data storage technology, they have absolutely no reason to ever delete the information they've recorded.

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Comment from Alex on 2009-10-12

2009-10-13T02:53:13Z

Hi Leo. Alot of great info here. What a great find. Anyway, I have a question. If the government agency has a court order to search one's email conversation, how likely are they to search past email conversations? I mean do ISPs keep all emails from all their users or they have a time limit after which all emails beyond the time limits are erased from the ISP's database. Can ISP pull out all my email contents on a moment's notice? Just something I wanted to ask but no one to ask until now. Thanks.

There's no way to know "how likely". What will be available will vary from ISP to ISP, and how much effort the authorities are willing to put in depends on the situation.

13-Oct-2009

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Comment from Ginger Peechez on 2009-09-29

2009-09-29T16:20:41Z

Oh, there's one more reason they might want to spy on you, as some of us Comcast subscribers have learned. They want to know what you think of them. Send a message with "Comcast Sucks" or "Lousy Comcast Service", etc., in your message subject line and you'll suddenly get "generic" messages from them wanting to know how to improve their service. Don't tell me they're not watching.

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Comment from Krish on 2009-09-23

2009-09-23T12:30:51Z

ISP may not be interested in our email or websites we visit, but it is possible for a renegade or corrupt employee to do this with a little prodding and loose change from our enemies or competitiors. This is very true in a county like ours where cyber laws are still evolving and supervision and enforcement are lax. It is easy for the perpetrator, who by now would have ruined the customer, to go scot free while the ISP may get its reputation tarnished. In my case this snooping was happening for sometime and when I complained,the ISP, part of a billion dollar entity, was in denial mode at first and now have come around saying we'll investigate. Now I have decided to approach the top management to enlighten them on this and put in proper processes to help customers.

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Comment from Prowler on 2009-07-22

2009-07-22T20:11:16Z

Hello Leo, and all who have posted on this article!
My question is possibly like a few others that makes me wonder... However I do know that my ISP can do what ever they want too, if need be spy on me and what I'm doing online like, Surfing, Downloading, Reading Emails blah blah etc! But mainly its downloading that they are looking into on my PC. Is there such a way to possibly spy on my ISP!!!! to find out why they wanna know so much about me / what I do on my free time! I would be glad to know if anyone can answer that for me. Or help me find a better way to stop my ISP from knowing what I do online, Which is my own business not anyone elses. See I feel that it is a invasion of my privacy which no one should know what I do online. It is my own business like I said!

What's important to understand here is that just because an ISP can spy on you doesn't mean that they are spying on you. In fact I'm sure that 99.9999% of the time your ISP doesn't give a toot what you're doing and isn't going to take the time, bother and expense to spy on you.

When ISPs do look at what you're up to, it's typically for one of three reasons: 1) someone complained to them about some aspect of your behaviour, 2) law enforcement has some kind of interest in you and came to your ISP with the appropriate paperwork, or 3) you caused some kind of technical difficulty - like perhaps using tons of bandwidth by running a server - that caught the ISPs attention.

There's only so much you can do. You can encrypt everything you're doing over a VPN, tunnel or some other kind of anonymization service, but even then things like the amount of bandwidth you use will always be visible to your ISP and may start them asking questions if it's causing problems.

The important thing here is simply to know that your ISP can see what you do by default. The probably don't, unless there's a good reason.

Don't take it personally, but you're just not that interesting.

- Leo
23-Jul-2009

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Comment from Bit worried on 2009-06-22

2009-06-22T23:20:13Z

Great site! Can my ISP legally reveal internet usage to an employer if I use a company USB modem?

i understand they can only provide stats not details.

Sorry, but I'm not a lawyer. The answer probably also varies based on where you live. I wouldn't think so, but like I said, I can't know for sure.

- Leo
23-Jun-2009

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Comment from Carlos on 2009-06-03

2009-06-03T21:31:39Z

Leo, even though i use VPN can my ISP know the bandwith i'm using at any given point or the amount of data that i've downloaded?

Yes.

- Leo
04-Jun-2009

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Comment from Joey on 2009-04-04

2009-04-04T20:02:31Z

My ISP, Wow Internet, gave me a second offense (first one was cause someone was downloading video game torrents) because I complained about stuff on my Twitter account. All I did was say that I hated my mom and that I hate that adolescents have no freedom. So yes, your ISP is monitoring your internet 24/7. And because I'm a minor, I can't do anything about it but sit there and be paranoid because I can't trust my ISP anymore.

While watching for torrent activity is common, it's more likely that someone complained to your ISP about your behaviour when you made those comments about your mom.

- Leo
05-Apr-2009

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Comment from Dilshan on 2009-03-19

2009-03-19T18:29:32Z

hey Leo. do u think an ISP can take screen shots of my monitor? or record my monitor screen while i connected to the internet? please answer. thanks!

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Comment from Anonymous on 2009-03-12

2009-03-12T15:56:50Z

If I access the internet using my PC, using my employer-provided ISP, and employer-provided modem (which I also use to access the internet on my company laptop, from home) can my employer see what sites i visit on my PC, even if i am not connected to the VPN?

They could. Whether they'd bother to is a different question. No idea on that.

- Leo
13-Mar-2009

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Comment from Anonymous on 2009-03-06

2009-03-06T11:19:07Z

if i change the properties of my vpn i think they couldn't catch me,right :)

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Comment from let it be known on 2008-10-22

2008-10-22T16:34:11Z

yes the isp's always monitor your internet usage.... why i say this is because i got a call from my isp....so hell yeah i know they do monitor in somewhat a way your internet activity ... but not 24/7 paranoid kind of way... but its not like they dont even glance at it at all....

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Comment from tonja on 2008-09-08

2008-09-08T15:55:55Z

my ex wife is a school teacher. she emailed me from her home computer. why did her home IP address not show up. only her her school email IP did. my son emailed from the same house under his yahoo email and their home IP address came up. it is confusing me.

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Comment from Brandon on 2008-09-01

2008-09-01T11:04:48Z

do they tell us if we ask what sites we have visited?
Do they know if we are using vpn?
and i'd like someone to answer david's quiestion if they can still peek even when we have cleared the history...
Do they have the sites that we have visited in a database record or something?

*DO* they? There's no way to know for sure. Some might, but I suspect most do not. You're just not that intersting.

*COULD* they? Yes, of course.

There's no way to know exactly what any specific ISP is actually doing. And whatever you might find out today about one ISP will be different tomorrow, or for any other ISP. The important thing here is to know that they COULD, not try and rely on what the DO.

-Leo

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Comment from bogdan on 2008-08-21

2008-08-21T14:23:44Z

Try http://www.cry.ro/
to anonymous surfing on internet

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Comment from Alex on 2008-05-27

2008-05-27T13:43:54Z

Also you can use logless public vpn service called VPN Privacy and surf anonymously.

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Comment from Shawn on 2008-04-30

2008-04-30T08:53:33Z

There are many service providers who provide VPN service. I use VPN service of mp4you.net so I don't worry about my employer.
I was using another VPN service www.vpngates.com, but there are serious bandwidth limitations.

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Comment from pooky on 2008-04-15

2008-04-15T17:46:55Z

i'm not worried about the ISP so much as the low paid customer service staff who hate their jobs, their lives, and have nothing better to do than cause havoc using my identity

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Comment from David on 2007-12-07

2007-12-07T20:48:40Z

If I delete the history, and all associated files to my internet usage, such as porn, etc... Can they still view it? I'd like to know how to cover some tracks... I definately have learned that I can't be looking at non-business material at work... HELP?!?!?!?

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Comment from Leo A. Notenboom on 2007-11-27

2007-11-27T20:41:47Z

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Possibly. They could have installed spyware, or configured your system to
access their proxies even though you've not explicitly done so yourself.

Thanks,

Leo

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iD8DBQFHTIEcCMEe9B/8oqERAmLAAJ49ZoCo1kBjVHj3oSojF5rZ+GgOggCfR9Bb
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Comment from Andy on 2007-11-26

2007-11-27T03:43:52Z

I sometimes use my company wireless laptop to surf the net while I'm on business trips. Can my employer see what I'm surfing if I don't log onto the company VPN or network?

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Comment from sassora on 2007-06-24

2007-06-24T11:20:27Z

Try
http://www.speedtest.net/

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Comment from Davie P on 2007-05-22

2007-05-22T16:54:10Z

How can I monitor what connection I have(I'm on a 2MB line)as I dont think I'm getting what I'm paying for on a regular basis.
TIA

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Comment from George Arauz on 2007-05-08

2007-05-08T11:39:21Z

Employer ISP definitely can track what sites you visit. My cousin found that one out the hard way.

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Comment from cle_and on 2007-05-04

2007-05-04T09:23:55Z

I think you may not have answered his second question... if 'employees of ISP' can tell other people about what they saw. This is rather a question of legality, rather than technicality. Yes, tehnically it is possible, but legally..? I think ISP is responsible enough to prohibit it.

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Comment from Paul Masters on 2007-05-01

2007-05-02T05:52:06Z

John,

Yes, they can, and do. Many people have lost their jobs because of their surfing habits at work.

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Comment from John Dennis on 2007-04-27

2007-04-27T17:02:30Z

Can my server (like the server that my employer uses for the network) find out what internet sites I visit?
Thanks

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