Add the part where one of the bouncers starts their own targeting company and does deals with some of the other targeters.
Good one, will do.
Trackers
11–20 of 216 posts
Re: Trackers
#12I think that better than an ad-blocking solution would be to feed all those trackers with fake information Oh you want location data here it is, this morning I've been all over the planet. Want to know all the websites I'm visiting, sure, here's a million of them. Just based on the fact that they keep trying to sell you the thermometer after you already don't care kind of points out that they're being had, and I'm al…
>feed all those trackers with fake information
If you're going to war, sure. But that's a lot of wasted resources.
One would hope that we can find a peaceful solution. But war is always an option.
Re: Trackers
#13Really well put.
I've been operating browser separation (Google in Chrome, social in Chrome incognito, and everything else in a locked-down privacy mode only Firefox - all with uBlock) for a while, and also use anonymising VPNs for anything I really don't trust, and my own VPN with streisand and Dnsmasq (with a hosts very similar to https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts/ ).
On my mobile every link I click in any app I open in Dolphin Zero (still on that DNS blocking VPN - which blocks all trackers in apps too), and I only keep apps I actually use and trust the publishers of on my device.
It feels like a chore (manually copying links from one browser to another depending on trust level), I wonder whether it's worth it sometimes... but then I occasionally get to see someone else's experience of the web and it's so incredibly and perniciously been invaded by advertisers that I am glad I do all of this.
It's become so bad that I even had to change my uBlock origin rules for my online bank ( https://banking.smile.co.uk/SmileWeb/start.do ) to block even first-party scripts... because they use Adobe, Omniture and Tealium tools to measure stuff and for A/B testing of their online banking features.
I now block absolutely everything and tell others to do so too, but unfortunately there is collateral damage.
The very sites I care about may not require advertising revenue, but do value tracking data that helps them spot errors, debug things, find out what screen resolutions they should cater for. Their analytics, client-side debugging, this is all now rendered useless to them.
PS: If you happen to work on Firefox for Android, please enable browser.privatebrowsing.autostart to be configured via about:config. I would love to default enable private browsing in a UA capable of running uBlock on my mobile.
Re: Trackers
#14Thank you Jacques for writing how something that would be completely unacceptable in the physical world is deemed perfectly fine online. It has always bothered me. Take for example how the FBI wants to have automatic access to the data in all iphones through a backdoor. Would that be considered OK if they asked lockers makers to make their locks accept a master key so they would be able to enter in anybody's house, s…
"Would that be considered OK if they asked lockers makers to make their locks accept a master key so they would be able to enter in anybody's house, so they could monitor further people they suspect to be terrorist?"
I don't know. But I know that it would be absolutely normal to pick your lock and/or knock down your door if they had a warrant. It would even be OK for them to ask the lock company, door company, and landlord to help them do that. For that matter, the landlord could even be compelled to surrender his master key for the entire apartment complex.
All of those things could happen out here in the big blue room, and nobody would blink an eye. Funny how these metaphors to the physical world clear things up, isn't it?
Re: Trackers
#15Believe it or not, some stores sympathise with you. They might actually be run by people like you, people who read your story.
They still want to know how you proceed round the store, because that helps them optimise shelf layout, identify hard-to-find items, and so on. So yes, they might use the standard in-store CCTV to observe your journeys, and when they figure that you and people like you always have difficulty finding the eggs (seriously - why is it always so hard to find the eggs?), they'll move the eggs somewhere more prominent, so they can sell more eggs and you can buy what you came to buy.
But that's as far as it goes. They don't follow you out the store, let alone into your bedroom. They don't match anything with third-party data, let alone your mobile phone number. The store just wants to know where to put the eggs.
Unfortunately, your bouncers have simply been told to "hurt them if you have to, I’ve really had enough of it". So last time they came in, they smashed the CCTV cameras. The store-owner remonstrated with them a bit but the whole debate around bouncers has become so polarised that there was really no point arguing.
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And if this metaphor seems a little obscure, this is why it is irresponsible, populist and ultimately self-defeating for uBlock and chums to block self-hosted Piwik and other such internal analytics tools. Because some of us are trying to do the right thing and your bouncers are still beating us up.
Re: Trackers
#16I think that better than an ad-blocking solution would be to feed all those trackers with fake information Oh you want location data here it is, this morning I've been all over the planet. Want to know all the websites I'm visiting, sure, here's a million of them. Just based on the fact that they keep trying to sell you the thermometer after you already don't care kind of points out that they're being had, and I'm al…
Would that be feasible to automate as a browser extension? Something like Ghostery, except that tracking scripts are run in a sandbox that returns random but feasible data for API calls?
Re: Trackers
#17Believe it or not, some stores sympathise with you. They might actually be run by people like you, people who read your story. They still want to know how you proceed round the store, because that helps them optimise shelf layout, identify hard-to-find items, and so on. So yes, they might use the standard in-store CCTV to observe your journeys, and when they figure that you and people like you always have difficulty…
> They don't follow you out the store
This is actually factually incorrect.
Some hints here:
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/10/automatic_fac...
And it goes even deeper than that.
Re: Trackers
#18Are there any publicly know examples of hackers that have used tracking data for malicious stuff. As nasty as it is to have a large amount of your web history stored in a profile, I don't see a clear path to crime (perhaps extortion). Or didn't I get the burglar metaphor?
Re: Trackers
#19Believe it or not, some stores sympathise with you. They might actually be run by people like you, people who read your story. They still want to know how you proceed round the store, because that helps them optimise shelf layout, identify hard-to-find items, and so on. So yes, they might use the standard in-store CCTV to observe your journeys, and when they figure that you and people like you always have difficulty…
> They don't follow you out the store This is actually factually incorrect. Some hints here: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/10/automatic_fac... And it goes even deeper than that.
Self-hosted, same-domain Piwik doesn't track you on other sites, and doesn't pull in any external data sources.
Re: Trackers
#20Really well put. I've been operating browser separation (Google in Chrome, social in Chrome incognito, and everything else in a locked-down privacy mode only Firefox - all with uBlock) for a while, and also use anonymising VPNs for anything I really don't trust, and my own VPN with streisand and Dnsmasq (with a hosts very similar to https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts/ ). On my mobile every link I click in any app I…
I don't know enough about how uBlock works, but I'm mostly concerned about blocking trackers, and dislike invasive advertising. I use Ghostery with everything blocked.
I also bank with smile.
I've just confirmed that Ghostery is blocking Adobe, Omniture and Tealium trackers, but I was able to log into my account no problem. I also transferred some funds to a linked account.
What aren't you able to do with smile? And is it something specifically with the way uBlock blocks?