how do i ensure all surfing data is erased? I have most in my home directory erased, but are there log files in /var or elsewhere that i need to worry about? network ip address logs?

Thanks

Not knowing what distro your using or how your system is setup, the most common place where system logs are kept is /var/log/messages. But, generally no web surfing activity is logged there. If you really want to make sure your system is clean of your activity, you could always reinstall your OS.

If your paranoid about your surfing activity have you considered your ISP network logs and the web site HTTP logs you've visited?

You should focus on preventing the data from getting on the hard drive in the first place, instead of wiping all traces of it (which is difficult). I suggest you use a LiveCD like Knoppix.

Good call.

lol, thx. Can you turn logging off in /var/log/messages ? Using Ubuntu and Zenwalk. Don't even know if its on, don't see any recent info there. Does it affect performance to disable? Is there an advantage to troubleshoot with it on?

Yes, prevention is the way to go going forward. A LiveCD will work either as a standalone boot CD/DVD or VM. For the ultra-paranoid there is JanusVM. It takes security and privacy to the extreme. From the their website it looks like they only have a VMware image but I think I read somewhere that there is a standalone LiveCD version.

you DO NOT want to turn off logging for /var/log/messages !!!
well if firefox 2 cleaning the web history is one way
if firefox 3 it is different
if seamonkey still a diff. way
if konqueror it is one more diff way
-- added --
if opera still diff

so what browser are you using ??
also micromedia flash sets it's own cookies in ~/.macromedia/Flash_Player
you might want to link ~/.macromedia/Flash_Player to /dev/null

If you want to wipe your browsing traces, try this:

1) create a new browsing user account
2) configure your browser the way to like it
3) copy newAccount/.mozilla to say newAccount/.mozillaMaster

When you want to browse, open a shell and 'su - newAccount' and fire off the browser with 'firefox &'

When you need to clean things up, use 'shred' to destroy everything in newAccount/.mozilla and recopy the folder from newAccount/.mozillaMaster.

On my machines, I've got this scripted to actually create a user account from a skeleton and destroy it when I'm done so there's never really any trace of the user anymore - except the account event logging stuff that happens in /var/log.

And everyonce in awhile, run 'dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/cleaner; rm -f /tmp/cleaner' to clean up any leftovers.

does that last command clean up left overs from the skeleton accounts?

off the top of my head, it does something like:

newUser="user$RANDOM"
useradd $newUser -k <skeletonDir>
firefox
find ~$newUser/* -exec shred {} \;
rm -Rf ~$newUser
userdel ~$newUser

Browser configuration info:

• Firefox || Iceweasel
• Opera
• IE (option 2)

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