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Opting Out of Big Data Snooping: Harder Than It Looks
Lasrick (2629253) writes "Princeton sociologist Janet Vertesi writes about her attempt at hiding her pregnancy from 'the bots, trackers, cookies and other data sniffers online that feed the databases that companies use for targeted advertising.' Big data still found her, even though she steered clear of social media, avoided baby-related credit card purchases, and downloaded Tor to browse the Internet privately."
Want to be anonymous on the web? Unplug your computer and kill it with fire.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
It's almost as if when you try to hide they get an imprint of your negative space.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
It doesn't say big data still found her anywhere in the article. She made no mention of evidence that they had, despite the Uncle sending a congratulations message on Facebook.
Was there more to story than just the article on Time where she said her measures weren't able to keep the information private?
This is not the funny you're looking for.
We also need better tracking of men who make women pregnant! See, for a first child, she's going to go through things she's never experienced before. They need to learn the Gerber brand, need to learn what diapers are about, told what's current at Toys 'R Us (are their any competitors left?) and more.
Sorry, you just can't opt out of that one. If you don't want it online, it's going to land in your mailbox.
:(
That this is news to anyone is interesting.
First the advertisers will stalk us, then the government will, then the revolution? (or more likely, circus and bread intensifies, and idiocracy results.)
Who cares? Block all tracking javascripts and use ad and pop-up/animated gif blockers and you will never see their advertisements when you browse.
It's easy enough to throw all junk mail away without even reading it when it comes to snail mail in your mailbox.
For obvious reasons I don't have a Facebook or Twitter account yet Facebook mailed me with the positive message I should join them so I could communicate with good friends like *name1*, *name2* and *name3*.
Meaning my daft sister and a somewhat remote cousin/journalist had stupidly and carelessly dumped their adress books on Facebook who dutyfully analised their input for links and found me as a common point.
I have cursed both and written Facebook I was not impressed by their spying.
Strange enough they did supply a link where I could free myself from receiving further mails from them.
But for eternety I'll be watched by them and those they deal with, see my sig.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Pay in cash and don't use loyalty cards works for in-store purchases. The Amazon gift card thing could work only if her husband bought them in cash and didn't fuck up by using his debit or credit card. Using TOR to try and keep advertisers away from her online presence works fairly well.
The very first thing she did wrong in trying to keep this private is ultimately what would ensure she got found out - it was opening her fucking mouth to her family and friends. "Always keep your mouth shut and never rat out your friends..."
and downloaded Tor to browse the Internet privately
Of course, unless she establishes a new exit node every time she visits a new website, and uses a browser with a different fingerprint each time, it is still possible to track her browsing behavior.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
I've worked with this software in the past. You can't hide from it, period. I even saw one that considered TOR browser as a data point to help identify you. Even staying off the net wont help. They have deals with your grocery store, walmart, your car dealership, everything... They get all your data all the time. Our only saving grace right now is its so much detailed information they don't even know what to do with it all. They can send you adds that might better appeal to you, but other than that they're not really sure what else to do. I suspect that at some point, someone will figure out how to do horrible things with this kind of information, and then this will suck.
EFF is launching a new extension for Firefox and Chrome called Privacy Badger. Privacy Badger automatically detects and blocks spying ads around the Web, and the invisible trackers that feed information to them.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/...
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
Buying things with cash and not using membership/credit/debit cards, is about the best we can hope for, if we do not what our purchases and lives tracked.
Likely this using-cash-only anonymity costs more, as well as the inconvenience(?) of not making any internet purchases.
Really seems a truism, that "anonymity isn't free."
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
From TFA:
a warning sign behind the cashier informed him that the store “reserves the right to limit the daily amount of prepaid card purchases and has an obligation to report excessive transactions to the authorities.”
If that is not a sign of a totalitarian state, I don't know what is.
You do realize that being an AC and as such, the most prolific, mentally maladjusted and developmentally compromised persona on the largest un-social network on the web gets you tracked by every governmental organization on all seven continents.
They're watching you.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
"But social interactions online are not just about what you say, but what others say about you."
Thats one of the reasons why I have no facebook or any other social network. If I can't control what happens with my data when they are in the internet (which others like the MPAA and Erdogan don't realize), and I can't control whether my data come online, I have no other option than to minimize my online presence.
Having no social media accounts just means that your social media profile hasn't been confirmed and associated with a credit report, not that it doesn't exist. For it to not exist, you need to ensure that everyone else who uses social media doesn't know you exist.
Very, because your name is completely irrelevant. Imagine you want to know everything about penguins. You look at what they do all day, where they eat, where they hunt, which other penguins they hang out with, where they shit, whether they have eggs, who looks after the egg at what time, what kind of fish they're eating, what color their shit is, on and on and on. At that point, what extra information would a name give you? It would tell you absolutely nothing. You can assign the name yourself, just to ease the process of telling penguins apart. That the name didn't come from the penguins directly doesn't matter in the slightest.
Names are not how Big Data tracks you. They simply look at what connections are made from where to where at what time, and assign labels to the points where information flows from, and where information flows to. One of those points refers to you, and if they're any good, to your smart-phone, laptop, toaster, and all other internet-enabled devices you use as well.
From a sociologist? Surely you jest.
Acxiom has been doing this for decades before the web existed. If you spend money electronically they have a record of when, where, and what you purchased. With a sufficient enough sample of data they can determine interesting things about people like when they're likely to be pregnant or menstruating or any number of other characteristics marketers can use to improve their chances of a sale. For instance, if women are more likely to buy certain products at certain parts of their cycle then a marketer can synchronize their junk mailing to coincide with the the optimum time for them to be most receptive to spend their money on something. Yes, this really happens.
You have to disconnect from the internet AND spend cash only AND never use loyalty cards AND hope no one you do business with still sells your information to a data broker to be able to hide from them. Tor alone won't cut it.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
She's a faculty member - so right there you know here connection to the real world is pretty tenuous.
(No, I am not attempting to make a joke. I work with faculty every day)
#DeleteChrome
So for 9months:
Pay for your prenatal supplies with cash.
Don't surf the web for anything related to pregnancy or children.
Surf the web for chainsaws and snowblowers.
Read books.
Read Newspapers made from paper.
Read Magazines made from paper.
Buy them at the local store in cash.
Don't give them your "Frequent Shopper Card"
Stay offline.
Not so tough.
I'm puzzled. The summary says " Big data still found her...", but the actual article doesn't support that statement-- she just says how hard it is to keep a secret, and that multiple big transactions makes her look criminal.
She does say that despite telling her friends not to, two people messaged her privately on Facebook... but doesn't say that the info got picked up.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Oh no, not Another Piece of Krap again!
Ezekiel 23:20
I have a vision...I see people starting randomly exchanging banknotes on the streets!
Ezekiel 23:20
This "sociologist of technology" (self proclaimed?) might want to go back to school. As far as I am aware, even if you use TOR and gift cards, and have you stuff shipped to a po box, you still need a legit account with a name, in which case off goes your private data.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Apparently one person's "rude" is another person's common sense. (Invocation of "blame" is another red flag that common sense has left the building.) 100% of the rudeness here derives from unbalanced technology, because Facebook wants it that way.
Entire countries filter the internet. Yet as an individual, it's not practical for me to contract a public identity management agency which allows me to enact controls over what personal information I'm willing to see splattered into the public space on malign service hosts.
Nothing should go onto your social media pages that doesn't first go through your own appointed screening filter, if you choose to have one.
Had such an option been available, her personally appointed screening filter would have simply bouncing back a message to her uncle to the effect that "Janet doesn't wish to see her reproductive status conveyed on cloud services".
It's not rude. It's common sense.
Woah. Mind blown.
#DeleteChrome
A "friend" might comment on your condition and upload your photo as well.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Clearly, the best path for people to take is to start feeding misinformation into the system. Periodically do searches for things you're not remotely interested in. Make them think you're a completely different age, sex, race, and socio-economic group. A database full of incorrect marketing information is worthless to anyone.
worldmobilenet.com -- World Prepaid Wireless Internet plans
All bill numbers are recorded as they leave ATM machine and the cash flow is tracked.
Even if this were true, there is no recording of serial numbers on banknotes from shop cash registers, so the moment you spend a large banknote, there is no way that they can track that you're holding the banknotes that you get as change, nor of what you spent the original banknote on.
worldmobilenet.com -- World Prepaid Wireless Internet plans
Her insurance company probably sold the information once she was diagnosed, All insurance companies sell mailing list type information. When I was diagnosed with a potentially fatal disease several years ago I was suddenly deluged with emails and snail mail spam for prepaid funeral services. I eventually found that my friendly HMO had sold me out. I don't want to mention any names but the initial are KP.
Here are some to get her started.
0.0.0.0 www.facebook.com
0.0.0.0 facebook.com
0.0.0.0 www.static.ak.fbcdn.net
0.0.0.0 static.ak.fbcdn.net
0.0.0.0 www.login.facebook.com
0.0.0.0 login.facebook.com
0.0.0.0 www.fbcdn.net
0.0.0.0 fbcdn.net
0.0.0.0 www.fbcdn.com
0.0.0.0 fbcdn.com
0.0.0.0 www.static.ak.connect.facebook.com
0.0.0.0 static.ak.connect.facebook.com
Apart from that, though. If she signs into Amazon to buy something, OF COURSE they'll know it's her.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
This is why technical writers will never run out of work.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
Thats one of the reasons why I have no facebook or any other social network.
Well, of course Slashdot commentary is a social network.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
> Periodically do searches for things you're not remotely interested in
Any attempt to fight an inexpensive algorithm, with expensive cognitive activity, especially when you have no feedback on how you are effecting the system, is a losing proposition. Fight automation with automation, or just don't bother.
> Clearly, the best path for people to take is to start feeding misinformation into the system.
These systems are probabilistic, not deterministic. So, they are pretty much built with the assumption that they won't be getting perfect data. Your occasional misdirections won't mean a thing. They will just go below the threshold of significance.
they are one and the same.
In TFA, Janet admits to actively using a facebook account during the entire experiment. What the heck did she expect?
And how much is a stroller anyway? Many appear to be under US$100, so that's just 2x $50 cards. Would it really have fit in a locker? How much other stuff from Amazon was she buying? Couldn't an Entropay card have worked? Why Amazon in the first place?
The article concludes with When it comes to our personal data, we need better choices than either “leave if you don’t like it”. It seems like Janet was trying to do more than is usual online, specifically using sites known to track user buying habits, so IMO this is not a real world test.
It's GNU/Linux dammit!
At the start of every day, go to amazon and Google and search for lingerie (or appropriate underwear for your gender of choice).
All day long, web pages you visit will be filled with pleasing images.
Works great until the FBI crashes in with flash bangs because you're supposed to be Carlos the Jackel or Osama bin Laden's local rep.
You're missing the point. They (the information illuminati) don't care what your name is. They don't care who you are. Not even a little. You may as well be John Doe 338564 or Jesus Christ.
It doesn't matter who you are as long as they can figure out how to sell you more stuff. Their intent is not to release private information, but they do in their zeal to sell you as much as possible. As with the OP, perhaps sending you a glossy "welcome to motherhood " diaper coupon pack because they found out you're pregnant or - if you're a guy - a glossy "snip, snip - you're safe on Maury" labeled package for frozen peas and take-out pizza coupons after your vasectomy.
People who are paranoid seem petrified that big-corp will find out who you are. They don't care, they just want to guide your buying experience. They also seem to have a tremendous sense of self-worth, expecting that the Government is watching them at every moment, ready to "take them out" for some political reason. Unless you're running for office and in the cross-hairs of a viscous opponent above the state level who also has corrupt friends willing to risk their careers and livelihood on an illegal leak, or you owe them money, or are hunting down and killing agents, they don't give a rats ass about you.
So, really, if you use a loyalty card - even with cash - they will have a profile on you. If you share it, it's an aggregate profile, but one of a small number of your friends - still statistically valid for marketing (targeted register coupons, etc.).
BTW - if want loyalty discounts without the hassle of tracking, just give them your phone number: (area code) 867-5309. It's worked in every state and every store I've ever tried. That's a profile that - no doubt - has a lot of action, or at least a good time. ;-)
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I RTFAed but I didn't find any examples of rudeness.
All I can think of, is that maybe some people consider Facebook unfriending to be rude. Has that become true? Or was it some other act (e.g. asking people to help collect gift cards, maybe)?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Stand in line at your bank, have a human hand you cash from a cash register drawer.
Hopefully those bills are not tracked as to which serial numbers are given to which bank customers, as they usually just pull them from the cash register drawer, count them out in front of you, and then you are on your way.
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
I think that cash-only life style might, overall, cost more in terms of time (our time is money, right?), for the extra time spent having to go to the bank, standing in line for a teller, then doing a human/human transaction, and the possible inconvenience of not doing internet shopping.
But, I will be happy to be wrong. Haven't been doing cash-only long enough to really track the savings/cost difference as opposed to the days of plastic, ATM use, and internet purchases.
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
I still want dnsmaq or Bind or something that serves up this hosts file to my entire LAN/WLAN on my gateway box.
It seems tiresome to manage this on every device, and impossible on some devices (game console, smart TV, etc).
Can common router firmwares like Tomato or OpenWRT manage this? Seems easy to setup DNS rules, but managing changes to the file is the hard part.
For it to be libel it would have to be false. Both downloads were flagged by ESET as being infected. That post claims the source code has been looked at. Good for him. That doesn't explain it being flagged as infected. As the software is free why not make it open source. Prove it can be trusted, prove it is safe and make it open.
Downloaded 30 minutes ago from both links on the start64 site. ESET flags both as containing a virus.
Your case has not been made. You want to make it then make your source code public. The app is free so what do you have to lose? Put up or shut up as the saying goes.
Part of the problem of big data driving personalised advertising -- they do such a bad job of it.
Buy a car - they try to sell you a car, try to sell you insurance you already have because it's needed to register the car.
Buy a toilet cistern float valve, won't need another for 10-20 years, but the ads come.
I'd start worrying when the personalised ads are for shyster defense attorneys and bail bondsmen. And it's a surprise.
Or how to get a Russian visa, toot sweet. And, yes, I know it's French, but they spell it wrong.
Worst job in the world: Some poor telemarketer cold calling to sell funeral pre-payment plans --
"Big Data indicates you will die soon. Please waste your money on a funeral you will attend but not enjoy very much."
He called twice last week.
--
It was a dark and drunken night. Four shots sang out -- drink us.
Putting '... apk' at the end of his posts while still posting as an ac is hardly identifying himself. Is it actually him? Is it someone pretending to be him? Got a good answer to that or are you just full of shit and trolling?
look how easy it is: ... apk