Race On To Fingerprint Phones, PCs

theodp writes "Advertisers no longer want to just buy ads, reports the WSJ. They want to buy access to specific people. In response, the race is on develop digital fingerprint technology to identify how we use our computers, mobile devices and TV set-top boxes. Start-up BlueCava, an anti-piracy company spinoff, is building a 'credit bureau for devices' in which every computer or cellphone will have a 'reputation' based on its user's online behavior, shopping habits and demographics. By the end of next year, BlueCava says it expects to have cataloged one billion of the world's estimated 10 billion devices, and plans to sell this information to advertisers willing to pay top dollar for granular data about people's interests and activities. It's 'the next generation of online advertising,' said Blue Cava's David Norris. As controversy grows over intrusive online tracking, regulators are looking to rein it in — the FTC is expected to release a privacy report Wednesday calling for a 'do-not-track' tool for Web browsers."

Comments

Looks like it's time to:

[phyrexianshaw.ca]

put together a company that rents out devices.

"monthly/weekly/daily device rentals, just pay your cell phone bill on time and we'll ship you a used device every month! just hang onto your SIM/SD card and we'll default the device/let somebody else use the 'fingerprinted hardware'"

Re:Looks like it's time to:

[silverglade00]

NO! That lets them know it is okay and that we have to work around it. They need to stay out of our business. This needs to be illegal immediately. This is way over the line. I never gave them permission to track me. Bluecava needs to be shut down.

Interesting For Computer Forensics

[bc90021]

This has VERY interesting possibilities for digital forensics as well. I get the feeling that the bluecava guys aren't even aware of that possibility yet. This would allow web interactions to be more thoroughly traced to a particular machine. Given the ability of most companies to put a particular person behind that machine (whether surveillance or electronic controls), suddenly your machine AND your interactions are subject to investigation at any time.

Re:Interesting For Computer Forensics

[_Sprocket_]

This has VERY interesting possibilities for digital forensics as well. I get the feeling that the bluecava guys aren't even aware of that possibility yet. This would allow web interactions to be more thoroughly traced to a particular machine. Given the ability of most companies to put a particular person behind that machine (whether surveillance or electronic controls), suddenly your machine AND your interactions are subject to investigation at any time.

I would be very surprised if it hasn't dawned on them yet. From an interview:

Businesses can also determine if devices have a history of committing fraud, so they can protect themselves.

Note in that interview, BlueCava CEO David Norris is very careful to portray the technology as linked solely to the device and not the user. And there is a lot of effort to portray BlueCava as providing control of information to the end user. But the reality is that linking user to device is trivial (as you noted) and end users tend to not grasp implications of data security. However, the initial money is unlikely to be in forensics and for the system to work, you have to convince people to not fight it.

Re:Will the United States of America be renamed...

[LordNimon]

This would be the reaction:

Your post advocates a

( ) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante

approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)

( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
( ) Users of email will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business

Specifically, your plan fails to account for

( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
( ) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
( ) Asshats
( ) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of spam
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook

and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever
been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
( ) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough

Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

( ) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your
house down!

Re:Will the United States of America be renamed...

[gstoddart]

Psst ... you're supposed to check the appropriate boxes or it's not funny. ;-)

Terminology

[HTH NE1]

When one person does it to another, it's called stalking. When a corporation does it to everyone it's called marketing.