I have always heard and seen on a few movies where the internet records of persons are inspected to ascertain the site that they have been visiting. How exactly is this done?

For a start there has to be a court order requiring the ISP to hand over the records to an appropriate agency. I wouldn't worry about it honestly unless you are doing something particularly unsavoury.

Yup, it works pretty much like the "phone record" searches of olden days. The provider prints a list of stuff you've done instead of who you called. I'm not sure how far back they keep though.

I didn't think the ISPs actually kept tabs on what each person was doing online. That must generate some massive archives somewhere with millions of people going to billions of sites each day.

My sibling was involved in some illegal activity online a couple years ago, and in addition to subpoena'ing the isp records, they confiscated his computer. If you are doing something illegal online, and are caught, the agents have ways of finding what you were doing, even if you were careful about deleting caches and things.

So just don't do anything illegal, and you'll be fine. Internet crime is federal.

Exactly-you only need to worry about this if you have cause to worry about it. So don't have cause to worry...

The trouble with deleting caches is that until they are overwritten they are not actually gone, just the pointer to them is gone. They can be retrieved.

That is kinda creepy and "big brother" like to think that the ISPs are keeping a record of where we go! Is that really true? Not that I have anything to worry about, but perhaps I'll start viewing the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights a bit more frequently, and perhaps the ACLU's site.

It's true that there are records kept yes. And honestly, given what it is they are to protect against, I don't think it's a bad thing. The internet can be used for an awful lot of terrible, terrible things, and innocent children can be hurt, and for that reason I fully support the small loss of liberty.

Added to this is the fact that websites we visit can also, and some do, store lots of information about theit visitors. Just last week, YouTube which is owned by Google, was ordered by a court, to turn over the details of over 100 million people who had logged on to the website.

Wow, I guess I had no idea! What would the court want with the IP/user information from YouTube?

I guess I should consider more carefully what sites I visit... I mean, I'm not doing anything illegal, but still. I really don't like the idea of tabs being kept on me.

And studies show that most children who are vicitimized are attacked by family and friends, not random people on the internet. Just saying.