Slashdot Mirror
Interview With Mozilla's Ryan Merkley: Tracking the Trackers
colinneagle writes "Among the eye-opening statements in his recent TED talk, Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs said, 'Privacy is not an option, and it shouldn't be the price we accept for just getting on the Internet. Our voices matter and our actions matter even more.' After you download and install Collusion in Firefox, you can 'see who is tracking you across the Web and following you through the digital woods,' Kovacs stated. 'Going forward, all of our voices need to be heard. Because what we don't know can actually hurt us. Because the memory of the Internet is forever. We are being watched. It's now time for us to watch the watchers.' I've been using Collusion for some time now and it is jaw-dropping to watch all the sites that still stalk us across the web even with DNT and privacy add-ons. The Collusion page states: 'The Ford Foundation is supporting Mozilla to develop the Collusion add-on so it will enable users to not only see who is tracking them across the Web, but also to turn that tracking off when they want to.'"
I'm just a random Tor exit node, up one day, down the next, replaced by another random exit node.
Use the Tor Browser Bundle:
- https://www.torproject.org/
Read the Tor OPSEC article:
- http://cryptome.org/0005/tor-opsec.htm
- https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/01/tor_opsec.html
"HUGE Security Resource" - enjoy a smart selection of Security
Blogs and other security related information
- http://pastebin.com/Cm2ZHuz3
You don't need that to see how we're being tracked (although I do have it installed).
I'd been looking at having laser eye surgery for some time. Money was the only thing stopping me from doing real research.
There was an advert for an Optical Express laser clinic, with a competition for free treatment, so I clicked. It's probably the only time I've ever clicked, and this was at work with no Ad-block installed.
I went through the process of consultation, price negotiation and all that stuff. I was happy with everything offered, and went ahead with the surgery (two weeks ago, best thing I've ever done).
Top of Slashdot today? Adverts for laser eye surgery at Optical Express. In fact, every blinking website I visit at work is trying to show me adverts for Optical Express. This has been going on for nearly two months!
I'm sure it must happen to everyone, everywhere.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
And if Google withdraw their funding over this Collusion addon, how do you think that will look?
As far as I know, Google have been very upfrontabout what they have on me and what they use that information for. Collusion doesn't change anything for Google, especially if they respect the DNT option. I think Google would be quite alright with this, as what it really does is reveal how much OTHER people are tracking about you, and not telling you about it. Especially if OTHER people are ignoring DNT.
Like it is said, if you have nothing to hide from Collusion, then you have nothing to fear.
As far as I know
Which is only what Google tells you. You don't think they're tracking you by IP address too? You don't think they're using browser fingerprinting? Google's cookie is one tiny part of the problem.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Seems like a lot of people are praising Ghostery, which leads me to believe that you haven't heard the backstory.
Evidon, which makes Ghostery, is an advertising company. They were originally named Better Advertising, Inc., but changed their name for obvious PR reasons. Despite the name change, let's be clear on one thing: their goal still is building better advertising, not protecting consumer privacy. Evidon bought Ghostery, an independent privacy tool that had a good reputation. They took a tool that was originally for watching the trackers online, something people saw as a legitimate privacy tool, and users were understandably concerned. The company said they were just using Ghostery for research. Turns out they had relationships with a bunch of ad companies and were compiling data from which sites you visited when you were using Ghostery, what trackers were on those sites, what ads they were, etc., and building a database to monetize.
When confronted about it, they made their tracking opt-in and called it GhostRank, which is how it exists today. They took an open-source type tool, bought it, turned it from something that’s actually protecting people from the ad industry, to something where the users are actually providing data to the advertisers to make it easier to track them. This is a fundamental conflict of interest.
To sum up: Ghostery makes its money from selling supposedly de-indentified user data about sites visited and ads encountered to marketers and advertisers. You get less privacy, they get more money. That's an inverse relationship. Better Advertising/Evidon continually plays up the story that people should just download Ghostery to help them hide from advertisers. Their motivation to promote it, however, isn't for better privacy; it's because they hope that you'll opt in to GhostRank and send you a bunch of information. They named their company Better Advertising for a reason: their incentive is better advertising, not better privacy.