Pocket PCs: privacy? Or piracy and porn?

Abstract

In an age obsessed with information sharing, people have become curiously coy about their computing habits. Compelled to commit every detail of our day to Twitter or Facebook, we still want to keep our web browsing and file download history to ourselves. This privacy paradox drives the thriving market for products that claim to either anonymise or completely wipe out records of computer user activity, producing headlines along the way. In an age obsessed with information sharing, people have become curiously coy about their computing habits, and this is driving a thriving market for products that claim to let us work anonymously. A new generation of PC-on-a-stick devices offers users the ability to plug into a computer, run applications and interact with data in a way that leaves precious few clues for administrators and forensic analysts. Jan Collie of Discovery Forensics examines how these devices work and assesses the dangers they pose.