Caution on Sharing Documents, and Linking to WOL

[apollos0fAlexandria]

There has been some speculation on how PDF documents that go into circulation might be tracked as to their origin. One method is via the meta-data associated with the document. This has led some to conclude that stripping out this meta-data, or simply scanning the document will make such a document untraceable. However, that might not be the whole story. It has been noted that there are very subtle changes in the kerning of the text when comparing versions of the same document. This could be used as another source of tracking. Therefore we recommend that NO copies of original documents are ever put into general circulation.

The other matter to be cautious of is providing links directly to the WOL. Any user who clicks on such a link can easily have their IP recorded along with the referring URL. If the same user then accesses a private area of JW.org with a login, then the two records can be matched automatically. In other words the systems at JW.org can keep a record of who has been on what external sites, when those site contain links to WOL and those links are clicked.

It is our recommendation therefore that you refrain from linking to WOL or any other part of JW.org unless absolutely necessary.

In turn, if you have a login to JW.org, you should be particularly cautious about clicking any such links that exist, not only from this site, but from any site that you would not wish to have associated with your account.

P.S. My thanks in particular to Nick_O for highlighting some of these issues.