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Verizon Subscribers Can Now Opt Out of "Supercookies"
itwbennett writes Verizon said in January that it would allow subscribers to opt out of having a unique identifier placed on their phones that critics have labelled a "supercookie" because it's almost impossible to remove, but it didn't say when. On Tuesday, Verizon said the identifier won't be inserted for customers who opt out of its mobile advertising program: "Verizon Wireless has updated its systems so that we will stop inserting the UIDH after a customer opts out of the relevant mobile advertising program or activates a line that is ineligible for the advertising program, such as as a government or business line," Verizon said in a change to its policies.
So what's the movie reference? It's obviously a joke story...
Okay this is last month's news and not a joke, but anything that reads like "BigName Telco Admits They Were Evil" has me waiting for someone to say "April Fools".
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I can set up a WiFi port to capture the data over that medium (really nice switches that allow port mirroring), but how can I test that 3/4G data requests not only no longer have the "supercookie", but have no new flavor of tracking tag? I'm concerned that they might have one that gets stripped except for special destinations, such as paying businesses, so I couldn't test it against my own web server.
Nope. It's 'crony capitalism', where large corps grow the size of the state with lobbies and use it to corner the market and impose the ethics of the principals on the rest of us. It's a revolving door at the top of the pyramid, and they're all friends. A corp can only refuse to employ you or refuse to sell to you, the state can confiscate your property and imprison.. It's both tracks together that create tyranny.
Cookie Monster gets all Cookies now.
http://www.amibeingtracked.com...
I just checked this. My phone is on a corporate account, so it shouldn't be eligible for the advertising program they're talking about in the first place. The cookie is gone.
I still hope they get sued out of business over this. Of course, they'll probably settle for something in the low millions that won't impact their profits.
*sigh*
Capitalism isn't a bad thing. Communism isn't a bad thing either. Nor is democracy. However, any form of government can be corrupted by bad men. Especially if the masses of poor clueless chumps sit around just watching. And, that is pretty much what happens with all forms of government.
I'm not in love with the concept of capitalism, but I do get tired of listening to poor clueless chumps blathering on about how evil it is.
In effect, you prefer to be manipulated by a communist leader, than by capitalist leaders. Maybe you would prefer not to be used and abused by any corrupt leaders. But - the latter choice really isn't an option, now is it?
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
FU Verizon and your GD opt-out program.
My mobile carrier is an MVNO that uses Verizon's network. I just went to the www.amibeingtracked.com website and it said that I am not being tracked. I had always wanted to know this, and it's good news for all the other users of Page Plus Cellular.
i opted out by leaving their entire network. fuck them and their unquenchable greed.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
But whats this got to do with Verizon?
How about we pick freedom and give up being ruled over.
Liberty.
This is the sort of thing that should be covered by privacy law. This would be the case in Europe where data protection laws would require explicit consent and services would have to be opt-in, not opt-out.
Call me cynical, but I don't think I've ever seen any other kind of capitalism.
Before we get too far down the rabbit home here, I would like to add a correction to the story above.
The Verizon 'SuperCookie' is not "placed on their phones" it is an additional header line 'X-UIDH' inserted in outgoing internet requests by their network management system see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V.... As such it is never present on the users device, but does uniquely identify a user to any server they communicate with if that server either has back end pair access to verizon's customer database or they use services that combine multiple trackers with this one to keep lock on the users sessions relative to the entire history, but not associated with a Verizon customer record.
One good thing (if anything about this can be called good) is that they cannot add this header to TLS/SSL traffic as the headers are end-to-end encrypted, so provided yo stay HTTPS on your connections or run a mobile VPN it does not matter if you opt out or not as they cannot add this tracker to your traffic.
One final thought is that even without encryption if there was a proxy server out on the internet that you set your mobile device to sent all traffic through and that server was to strip out this header from your requests before passing it on to its destination then you would also be protected, which I will be setting up should this 'service' emerge from the slime in the future.
So this cannot happen in communist or fascist or theocratic states. Right?
What makes capitalism unique and useful to the individual is that one can push back against a corporation by not buying their products. This cannot happen when the state does it. At that point it requires guns.
Capitalism gives an option of wallets that you can take advantage of before you go to guns.
From my perspective you're the brainwashed, monkey kissing idiot.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Let me know how that works out for you. So far, history doesn't have many examples of it working. Perhaps there are some good examples in pre-history, or maybe some of the lost cultures, but I wouldn't count on it. Few men really want to be free - they can't handle the responsibility, for starters. Men and women demand good leaders, they are lost without leadership. And - of course - evil bastards covet those leadership positions. Even if you DO find a bunch of good people to lead, that will only last for a couple generations, at best. History is filled with accounts of benevolent monarchs/dictators/emperors/whatever. The ruler finally gets old and dies, his worthless son takes over, and everything goes to hell.
And, that is exactly what our own founding fathers were trying to avoid, here in the US.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Since we must have leaders [citation needed], I prefer that we spread their power around so nobody, nor any associated group of leaders, can have full power.
This is why I would like the US to engage in regular state-led Article V conventions. It isn't guaranteed to change much, I'm not even sure I want much to change, but does remove ultimate sovereignty away from Washington if it ever truly gets out of hand.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
I opted out of all of their advertising programs (including "Relevant Mobile Advertising", which is supposedly the "supercookie") a day or so ago, restarted my 4G hotspot, and the above http://www.amibeingtracked.com... link says I'm still being tracked.
The fools certainly come out on April 1st!
Oh, I wish it only happened one day a year.