While having dinner with the cast of Follies, (teehee) I met a nice young woman named Lee. Lee was a bit concerned (rightfully so) about her online privacy, especially when looking at her bank statements."I logon and logoff as fast as a I can," she said, "I don't want to take any chances with anyone seeing my details!"
Perhaps I missed an opportunity to enlighten the table, but my social faux paux early warning system prevented me from explaining why that statement was ... inaccurate. Perhaps not polite (or even very interesting) dinner conversation, but excellent blog fodder!
You see, Lee, when you get online, you would be right to think that anyone could 'see' what you're doing as you send information to/from your computer through the web. That is true, even if you are connected via a wireless encrypted network!
However, when you visit a bank, you no longer send information in a readable format across the web; it is encoded in a format which makes it unreadable to humans, and for the time being, any computer that isn't yours or the bank.
So, yes, in theory, someone could tell that you're sending data to/from a bank, but they would be unable to decode that data and make any sense of it.
Finally, the danger of your 'screen being read' comes not from how long you keep it up on your screen, but rather during the time the bits travels from the bank to your computer. It's like a real letter. If you send me a letter through the mail, who knows what eyes could read it in transit (unless you encode it!), but by the time it's in my hands, no one else could then read it.
So relax, sip a cup of coffee and enjoy how much interest you've earned... you're safe from prying eyes as long as there isn't anyone with binocculars over your shoulder! ;)
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