Naked Science Forum
General Discussion & Feedback => Just Chat! => Topic started by: Carolyn on 06/06/2006 16:34:30
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Do any of you know if it is possible to find out if a website has been visited even it has been deleted from the history.
Carolyn
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I am not sure that I properly understand the question.
Is this your web site or someone else's web site.
From the client side (i.e. your PC), as far as I am aware, the only usual trace of what has been visited in in the browsers history. Ofcourse, you could add other software that would log web site accesses from the PC, but I am not aware of anything that is naturally available in that respect.
Ofcourse, one other thing you could look at is whether you can undelete the deleted history. I have not looked at that as a possibility, so I am not sure what would be required by that (it also depends upon what file system you are using and how full your disk is).
From the server's perspective, the server maintains a log of everyone visiting the site, but there too, once the log is deleted, then it is gone.
Some of the intermediate gateways between the client and the server could maintain logs, but that will depend very much on the intentions of those running the gateways, as well as the legal requirements and prohibitions that they are subject to.
George
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Hi George, a friend actually asked me this question. An address to a porn site was on her address bar, but when she checked the history, that website was not there. This was not just a site where you view pornographic photos. It had live chat and lots of other interesting features, that cost a good deal of money. She confronted her husband, and he denied it. He told her the address was in the address bar because it was a pop up. (He tells her ridiculous stories because he knows she is completely computer illiterate).
What we are trying to find out is if her husband went to this site, then erased it from the history, is there another place she can look to get proof he was there.
Carolyn
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George
Am i correct in my thinking that an address isnt held in the pull down menu of the address bar unless it has actually been typed in. afterall in the registry the folder these addresses are held in is actually called "typed urls" ( i need to be careful as someone life or marriage could be in danger [:)]
Hi carolyn you didnt read the above did you,(it was private and was meant for george [:)] and if you did then wait for georges response in case i'm wrong, because pc's are notorious for doing things that their not meant to do, sometimes browser windows do get hijacked and popups do occasionally appear.
She could also look in the cookies folder and see whats in their.
or
Its possible to hide a folder containing pictures etc so they cant be seen just by ticking a checkbox in the properties window for the folder you wish to hide .
you can temporally turn off hidden folders and have a look just in case.
Open a folder(not web page) and from the menu at the top click on TOOLS/FOLDER OPTIONS/VIEW and look through the hard drives.
OR
Download one of the many free programs which will check her pc for porn.
But should you get involved, their marriage could be at risk and they may not thankyou
Please be careful carolyn.
Michael
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quote:
Originally posted by ukmicky
George
Am i correct in my thinking that an address isnt held in the pull down menu of the address bar unless it has actually been typed in. afterall in the registry the folder these addresses are held in is actually called "typed urls" ( i need to be careful as someone life or marriage could be in danger [:)]
Hi carolyn you didnt read the above did you,(it was private and was meant for george [:)] and if you did then wait for georges response in case i'm wrong, because pc's are notorious for doing things that their not meant to do, sometimes browser windows do get hijacked and popups do occasionally appear.
She could also look in the cookies folder and see whats in their.
or
Its possible to hide any folder containing pictureS etc so they cant be seen just by ticking a checkbox in the properties window for the folder .you can temporally turn off hidden folders and have a look just in case. Open a folder(not web page) and from the menu at the top click on TOOLS/FOLDER OPTIONS/VIEW and look through the hard drives.
OR
Download one of the many free programs which will check her pc for porn.
But do you and should you really get involved, be careful carolyn.
Michael
Hi Michael - you are absolutely right. I don't want to get involved. This is one of my oldest friends and she keeps asking for help, and it's difficult to say no. She lives several hours away from me, and it's hard to help over the phone. I don't know why she wants to know all of this, she's not going to leave him. They have 3 young children, and he has told her he would never give her any support if she left. He wont let her work, so she has no skills to support herself and children. Sounds like a nice guy, doesn't he.
Anyway, thanks for the help. I'll try to walk her through it, unless I can talk her out of it. I think she's just looking for something she can use as leverage against him if she ever needs to.
Carolyn
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quote:
Originally posted by ukmicky
Am i correct in my thinking that an address isnt held in the pull down menu of the address bar unless it has actually been typed in. afterall in the registry the folder these addresses are held in is actually called "typed urls" ( i need to be careful as someone life or marriage could be in danger [:)]
Yep, it's there.
It is possible for some other software to play around with the registry entries, and add a value there (particularly if, as most people do, you are running your computer in the administrator account, which is fairly dangerous but no-one knows the risk they take with it). On the other hand, I can see no real benefit to any software to make changes to that particular registry entry, so it is a possible but highly unlikely scenario.
quote:
Originally posted by Carolyn
Hi Michael - you are absolutely right. I don't want to get involved. This is one of my oldest friends and she keeps asking for help, and it's difficult to say no. She lives several hours away from me, and it's hard to help over the phone. I don't know why she wants to know all of this, she's not going to leave him. They have 3 young children, and he has told her he would never give her any support if she left. He wont let her work, so she has no skills to support herself and children. Sounds like a nice guy, doesn't he.
Anyway, thanks for the help. I'll try to walk her through it, unless I can talk her out of it. I think she's just looking for something she can use as leverage against him if she ever needs to.
I agree with Michael.
It serves little value to your friend to build up ammunition against her husband. Either she gets up the courage to get out of the marriage, or do what it takes to keep the marriage going; but simply finding ways to score points off her husbands while still trying to stay within the marriage sounds like a recipe for destroying her own life. If she wants to destroy her marriage, then she had better have an effective exit strategy in order to protect herself.
George
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Thanks guys. For the most part, I agree with both of you. However, there's so much more to this. I do not want to be involved, but this is someone I grew up with. My childhood best friend, she practically lived with me in our teenage years. Her husband is a manipulative and abusive control freak. She would love to get out of marriage, but doesn't see this as a possibility. She tried once before, and he disappeared with the children for several days. She told me she's just looking for proof against him in case they end up in court. As difficult and painful as it is to watch all of this go on, I can't turn my back on her.
Carolyn
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It could well be a browser re-direct trojan. I had a few of those before I got my security sorted out. The trojan intercepts where you want your browser to point and inserts its own address. In other words, you type in an address but before your browser accesses that URL the trojan says "uh-uh, you're not going there... you're going HERE!" & hey presto you're somewhere you didn't want to be. It's a bit like getting on a bus that should go to London but it takes you to Bournemouth instead. Well, maybe not quite THAT annoying!
It looks, to all intents & purposes, as if the address has been typed in but it doesn't usually appear in the history.
The fact that the site has premium content makes it even more likely that some kind of trojan is responsible. There's no point sending out trojans & spyware for free sites. Your friend's husband could well be totally innocent.
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quote:
Originally posted by DoctorBeaver
It could well be a browser re-direct trojan. I had a few of those before I got my security sorted out. The trojan intercepts where you want your browser to point and inserts its own address. In other words, you type in an address but before your browser accesses that URL the trojan says "uh-uh, you're not going there... you're going HERE!" & hey presto you're somewhere you didn't want to be. It's a bit like getting on a bus that should go to London but it takes you to Bournemouth instead. Well, maybe not quite THAT annoying!
It looks, to all intents & purposes, as if the address has been typed in but it doesn't usually appear in the history.
The fact that the site has premium content makes it even more likely that some kind of trojan is responsible. There's no point sending out trojans & spyware for free sites. Your friend's husband could well be totally innocent.
I understood the question to be whether the site address in the address bar was likely to have been anything other than was typed.
Certainly, the page brought up in response to the address typed is another matter. That can easily be verified by typing the address on another machine (preferably in some relatively dumb browser that has JavaScript disabled, and certainly not using IE). Alternatively, download the page using CURL, and see what you have brought down. This will tell you whether the page you should be getting from that site is really the one you are getting from the site.
George
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George - with the type of re-direct adware I was talking about, it doesn't matter what you type in the address bar; the adware overwrites it so it appears in the address bar just as if you actually HAD typed it.
The 1 I remember having on mine re-directed me to a site advertising viagra, cialis, etc. It didn't matter what I typed in the address bar, the URL for the rogue site appeared as soon as I hit "go".
However, it didn't happen if I had copied an address and used the "Paste & go" function.
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But it shouldnt be held in the address bar memory as it hasnt been keyed in.
Michael
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I believe the original question was about an address being in the bar but not in the history
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The address bar has a history of its own.
Michael
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Thanks everyone. I emailed her all of the above information you provided, and told her that I really didn't want to be involved with it anymore than this. She was able to find where he had been to this site several times. She confronted him with it and he admitted to it. She told him the children found it in the address bar, and that he really needed to be more careful, so I guess all is well. Thanks again.
Carolyn
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quote:
Originally posted by ukmicky
The address bar has a history of its own.
Michael
True, but it wasn't made clear which history was meant.
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