Residential Internet Support

Many people are concerned with the level of security and confidentiality on the Internet. These are very valid concerns, and this document hopes to address and clarify the issue of privacy, security and confidentiality on the Internet.

Allstream and Security

We often get asked: "Can people find out information about my internet account?" The answer is a hearty NO! Allstream has implemented a keyword policy, where anyone who asks for information about an account must provide the account keyword, which was designated during the registration of the account, and specific payment information. As an added measure, Allstream does not store sensitive customer information on computers that are accessible via the internet.

What your Surfing says about You

Web sites can gather a small amount of information about you as you surf through the internet. Information such as your web browser type, your ISP (Internet Service Provider), and how you reached the particular site can be logged for future review.

As with everything else about the Internet, you are only as anonymous as you want to be. No Web site knows who you are until you tell it who you are. Once it knows, it is reasonable to expect that it will find a way to remember that information. The extent of that knowledge does not go beyond that site, so your identity won't become public to the entire Internet because you reveal it once.

While the perception is that privacy is being violated, the simple fact is that if you don't reveal private information to the Internet, it won't be known to the Internet. A COOKIE CANNOT READ YOUR HARD DRIVE TO FIND OUT WHO YOU ARE, WHAT YOUR INCOME IS, OR WHERE YOU LIVE. The only way a cookie can get that information is if YOU provide it.

More information about Internet Security and Privacy can be found at:

Electronic Frontier Foundation: http://www.eff.org/pub/Privacy/

Yahoo: http://www.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/World_Wide_Web/Security/

What is a Cookie?

A cookie is a text file saved in your browser's directory or folder and stored in RAM while your browser is running. Most of the information in a cookie is pretty mundane stuff, but some Web sites use cookies to store personal preferences. (MSN, and Netscape all have personalization processes that use cookies to store information).

A cookie is like a passport in your computer. Whenever you visit a web site, the web server can send a cookie to your computer, which is then stored on your hard drive. As you visit additional sites, you may pick up additional cookies. Each cookie can be a miniature record of your visit to a specific web site, complete with information such as an ID number, time of your last visit to that specific site, and any other information that you give up willingly such as password or email address.

The effect is something akin to "Caller ID" on telephones. By retrieving the cookie left previously, a web site can "remember" your site-specific password, your preferences, and other tidbits of information. When you re-visit a site, a cookie left on your hard drive will identify you.

In other cases, cookies are being used to keep track of how many visitors visit a site. These types of cookies don't get stored permanently in your computer they expire immediately, so they can't be used to determine how often you re-visit the site.

More information about cookies can be found at:

Cookie Central: http://www.cookiecentral.com/

The EPIC Cookies Page: http://www.epic.org/privacy/internet/cookies/

Internet Commerce Security

Most respected Commerce Sites offer their customers a "secure server" environement for online purchasing. Secure Servers use software encryption to mask your banking information.

More information about Secure Server Transactions can be found at:

Cnet: http://www.cnet.com/