check this http://php.net/manual/en/security.globals.php and also What are register_globals in PHP?
but if I want to say it simply : if register_globals be ON all $_POST and $_GET and $_SESSION variables will automatically copied to the variables with a same name of their index.So for example when you have a $foo you can't understand where it comes from ($_GET['foo'], $_SESSION['foo'], etc).
AND as @EricCitaire mentioned "Just disable it, its default value is false since PHP 4.2, deprecated in 5.3 and simply removed in 5.4 because of serious security concerns."
you can set it off using php.ini, .htaccess and also using ini_set()
ini_set('register_globals', 'Off')
other links:
Dealing with register_globals
http://php.net/manual/en/function.ini-set.php
register globals php