Can My Internet Provider See What I Download

Can My Internet Provider See What I Download My Phone
Can My Internet Provider See What I Download My Pc

Can my isp see what I legitimately download? [duplicate] Ask Question 0. Your ISP can see every byte of data you transmit on the internet, and every byte any server sends to you across the internet. I highly doubt that CSIS or the CIA (or any hacker for that matter lol), would want to hack an email provider just to see mundane emails.

By now, many of us are familiar with the Copyright Alert System (CAS) that’s been implemented as an anti-piracy program to address copyright infringement and protect rights holders. Vuze is fully supportive of copyright and we require our users to respect IP. Read our recent blog post on CAS to learn more.

But, apart from CAS, what can your Internet Service Provider (ISP) actually see when you’re browsing and downloading content? If you’re making an online purchase can they see what you’re buying? What if you’re using a web-based email service like, Yahoo! or Gmail, can your ISP see what you’re typing or who you’re corresponding with? Are Internet Service Providers watching you? These are legitimate questions so we’ve set out to shed some light on the subject by debunking myths and clarifying what’s happening behind the scenes with an ISP.

Are my connection speeds being throttled by my ISP?

There has been occasional evidence and reports of ISPs throttling (restricting) bandwidth, particularly bittorrent traffic. For example, there has been concern that ISPs may throttle traffic from major content distributors, like Netflix, which is part of what the Net neutrality or open Internet debate is about.

Additionally, ISPs have also been known to reduce connection speeds when customers are downloading or uploading large amounts of data. Over the years, it’s been noted that some ISPs throttle more than others, which is why testing your Internet speed can be helpful in identifying if there’s any traffic shaping occurring.

Many ISPs have their own tools to for customers to test download and upload speeds thanks to Ookla, a B2B company focused on speed testing. Here are a few of the different speed test services available for a free check-up:

Two other tools are M-Lab’s NDT (Network Diagnostic Test) and Glasnost. NOTE: Both of these tools require Java plugin, which has been known to cause some security issues in the past. If this is a concern, you can allow Java to run during the test and then disable it once your test concludes. Staff Writer Will Oremus with Slate.com has a great post on Java’s vulnerabilities, plus how to uninstall it by web browser type.

M-Labs has an array of different tools to choose from. Developed by researchers to diagnose and troubleshoot a variety of problems. Glasnost can run tests based on different types of traffic. This makes it easy to identify if bittorrent traffic is being throttled by your ISP.

So, is my ISP spying on me?

Unfortunately, there isn’t a concrete answer to this question. It’s true that almost all ISPs track the IP addresses their customer’s contact, which means that they know the web sites that you’re visiting.

Mostly, ISPs are collecting metadata — ports and IPs. With that being said, they have granular capabilities that enable them to drilldown on content. In essence, they could see the content on the pages that you’ve visited or what you wrote in an email, but because of legal limitations and privacy issues they probably aren’t. Check your ISPs terms of service and privacy policy for specific details.

Something else to consider, ISPs retain customer IP-address logs for specified periods of time depending upon the ISP. Why does this matter? Because it’s difficult to say what an ISP is doing, or might be doing with that data. Edward Snowden’s mission to provide NSA documents and protocols to new organizations has revealed to the world how our personal, business and other data is being tracked.

If a peeping Tom lurking about and looking in your bedroom window makes you feel uncomfortable, then allowing a private or government entity to watch your Web activities might too. Both instances can be perceived as invasive and probably not something that many of us would openly embrace even without anything to hide.

How can I better protect myself?

There are several steps you can take to try to keep prying eyes at bay, but this requires embracing technology to some extent. Using a proxy service, enabling encryption or using a virtual private network (VPN) can all help to protect your right to privacy, bolster anonymity and make it tougher to track your online activity.

We’ll be taking a closer look at the options referenced above in a future blog post. Stay tuned.

Photo Credit: [ henning ] via CC

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Sarah Hartshorn is a marketing, public relations and social media professional with Vuze. She blogs about content, torrents, social media and a number of other tech topics. Sarah has been involved with traditional and digital marketing since 1998.

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This question already has an answer here:

Whats the best way to make my internet traffic anonymous? 9 answers

Ok so I'm LGBT, but I'm not out to my parents. They wouldn't be very accepting- and I don't want to be in an environment where they know because trust me it would be a bad situation. However, I want to start connecting to online LGBT resources. I'm currently living at home and I don't want them to find out if I go to LGBT sites and things like that. If I use incognito mode on google chrome I know it stops it from displaying the sites on my internet history, but the ISP still can see it. Is there a way my parents could get the list of what sites I visit from my ISP? My dad knows a lot about tech and security as well- so is there anything I can do to stop him seeing it knowing that he knows a lot about internet security and might know if I'm trying to hide something?

ElliotElliot

marked as duplicate by RoraΖ, Bacon Brad, Xiong Chiamiov, Rory Alsop♦Sep 18 '17 at 23:19

This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.

3 Answers

All the sites you visit regardless of what you use software wise (incognito mode etc) need to do a DNS resolution, i.e query the domain name for an IP address.

If you are in the UK your ISP will have a record of all this, I cannot comment on other jurisdictions but would be surprised if the vast majority did not have the same level of data.

If the sites you are visiting are HTTPS, then that is all the ISP will have just the domain name of the site, if however the site is only HTTP, your ISP will also have full visibility of the sites content.

If your dad is tech savy he can also see all of this if he wants. At the very least he can view router logs and see the site domain names.

Your best defence here is to use a hardware based VPN, again you could use a software VPN but there is a chance it may be interrupted and you device would just revert back to the regular network while it re-establishes a connection (There are way to stop this but it requires some know how).

Another option is TOR, however this may be more trouble that it is worth if you are not familiar with it. It would allow you to mask all your internet traffic from both your family and your ISP but there is a learning curve with it.

Some valid arguments against your dad for using such devices include:

Getting round content restrictions
Using a lot of public WiFi, you want to be sure you are safe
Your uni/school/place of work have request it
you don't want your ISP knowing what you are doing

TrickycmTrickycm

Free

Tor Browser (but if your dad monitors any traffic ... he will know something is sketchy)

Cheap (but less suspicious)

Setup a VPS through a provider like Vultr (shameless affiliate link)
Do initial security setup on the VPS Tutorial Link
Setup a SSH tunnel with dynamic port forwarding & browser proxy settings link (random blog w/ screenshots found via first google search)
Setup DNSchef on your VPS and use SSH port forwarding on port 53 (also need to set your computers network settings to use 127.0.0.1 for dns)
Setup a Wordpress blog or something so if your dad asks about SSH traffic you can honestly say that you are working on a website.

CaffeineAddictionCaffeineAddiction

Depending on your jurisdiction, the ISP could be forbidden to monitor what website you visit or your ISP could be mandated to do so. Whether your dad can access this information is another matter entirely. Basically, you do not provide enough information for us to give you a meaningful answer for this question.

Also, you do not mention if you are using you own computer or not. If you are using a computer your dad has access to and if you dad is skillful, there is little you can do to be sure that you can hide you browsing habits from him. The best advice one can give you in this case is not to use your dad's computer for this stuff, but go to a library. You can also use a live Linux distribution on a USB key, like Tails, using the Tor Browser to go on the web. Also, do not use your house WiFi when using your smartphone to browse LGBT websites.