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Trackers

jacquesmattheij.com

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Re: Trackers

#51

Post by WA »

jacquesm wrote: post #36
karmacondon wrote: post #32

Where this analogy breaks down is that the people sent to track you are invisible and can't be seen without the aid of special technology. So what you end up telling people is that they are being followed everywhere by invisible ghosts, who's only desire is to change what ads appear in their newspaper. And it appears that the reaction of most people is about what you'd expect. If a store has policy of "If you come in…

If that's all you got from it then I should really do my best to write better. One of the key parts - to me - is that the data silos start trading your data as if it is theirs to whoever pays for it, and that goes a lot further than a real time bidding on ad space, even if that was the initial drive to collect that data.

The sad part is: It doesn't even matter what I do about privacy. I'm obviously in someone's address book. That someone wants to play some stupid game that asks for all contacts. Maybe that someone used an app like Cobook, which pulls data from their social network sites (and I'm friends with them there).

In the end, they get my data, along with a picture and whatnot and I personally wasn't even involved. Heck, I could even use a dumb phone and my phone number would be all over the place.

Recently, Facebook asked me once again to add a phone number "to protect my account". One time, my real phone number was prefilled in the box! They pretend that they don't have it, but since some of my friends use messenger, they surely have it somewhere in my shadow profile (a download of "all my data" obviously didn't contain it).

Re: Trackers

#52

Post by timr »

mschulze wrote: post #29
timr wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 la…

But when the FBI gets the key or picks the lock it does not make any other door more insecure, or enables other parties to get into other doors. What if the FBI would ask all landlords to install a special door to every apartment, but only the FBI has the key to this special door? What if someone successfully copies that key? Now they have access to all apartments.

Obviously, "making all locks insecure" is a different situation than bypassing a single door. Which is why we don't do the former, but (currently) do the latter, judiciously.

But hey: what if the lock company makes a standard lock, with a plain ol', low-security, five-pin key, and attaches it to a bomb that destroys the apartment when it's picked incorrectly? Does the lock company now get to beg off when the police come looking for help opening a single door?

"Oh, we'd love to help you, officer, but you see...if we help you open this particular lock, then all criminals will know that you can disable the bomb, and that would make all of our locks less secure!"

Re: Trackers

#53

Post by jacquesm »

WA wrote: post #51
jacquesm wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's all you got from it then I should really do my best to write better. One of the key parts - to me - is that the data silos start trading your data as if it is theirs to whoever pays for it, and that goes a lot further than a real time bidding on ad space, even if that was the initial drive to collect that data.

The sad part is: It doesn't even matter what I do about privacy. I'm obviously in someone's address book. That someone wants to play some stupid game that asks for all contacts. Maybe that someone used an app like Cobook, which pulls data from their social network sites (and I'm friends with them there). In the end, they get my data, along with a picture and whatnot and I personally wasn't even involved. Heck, I coul…

Yes, these secondary network effects are maddening. See also: https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/google-has-most-of-my-email-be...

I've updated the post to reflect this problem.

Re: Trackers

#54

Post by hrbrtglm »

gglitch wrote: post #46
karmacondon wrote: post #32

Where this analogy breaks down is that the people sent to track you are invisible and can't be seen without the aid of special technology. So what you end up telling people is that they are being followed everywhere by invisible ghosts, who's only desire is to change what ads appear in their newspaper. And it appears that the reaction of most people is about what you'd expect. If a store has policy of "If you come in…

If ad-supported sites posted terms of use that precisely defined what info is to be collected, how long it's to be retained, and who will be able to access it, consumers would be able to make an informed decision about what sites to visit. As it is now, without defensive software, one is asked to just blindly trust the sites one visits.

Great. You just inspired another european privacy law where website will be forced to ask you to read the terms before processing reading. What it will achieve is users will be annoyed and install a termblock extension to their browser, I mean kind of defensive software.

Re: Trackers

#55

Post by S4M »

watty wrote: post #49
S4M wrote: post #3

Thank 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…

It's already possible, any physical lock or home or safe can be opened with a warrant. The fact that we're almost at a point where we can hide something from the government (even with a warrant) is groundbreaking.

It's perfectly fine that the FBI or the police can open a physical lock with a warrant. The warrant is supposed to be delivered by someone representing the Justice department, which is (theoretically) independent from the police. What would be unacceptable is that they could just bypass that authority and enter to anybody's home on a whim.

Which is what they are trying to achieve when they asked Apple to put a backdoor in their Iphones.

Re: Trackers

#56

Post by deanclatworthy »

akerro wrote: post #28

Did you start visiting shops and places you didn't like just to mislead them? So you have more and more of them tracking you until they run out energy and money because their targeting is just wrong? http://adnauseam.io https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/adnauseam https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/trackmenot

Fascinating. Is there anything similar for other browsers?

Re: Trackers

#57

Post by jacquesm »

hrbrtglm wrote: post #54
gglitch wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If ad-supported sites posted terms of use that precisely defined what info is to be collected, how long it's to be retained, and who will be able to access it, consumers would be able to make an informed decision about what sites to visit. As it is now, without defensive software, one is asked to just blindly trust the sites one visits.

Great. You just inspired another european privacy law where website will be forced to ask you to read the terms before processing reading. What it will achieve is users will be annoyed and install a termblock extension to their browser, I mean kind of defensive software.

There are other options that lawmakers have.

Re: Trackers

#58

Post by cm2187 »

One can make a very long list of things that would look really really creepy in the physical world.

For instance I can draw a little cat in my agenda to remind myself to call a particular friend that day. The police will tell me: "what? you have not written that in plain english? You must tell me what it means and if you don't you will go to prison". (In the UK one can go to jail for refusing to decrypt one's own data)

I go buy the Telegraph at my local newsstand and the guy will tell me: "can I see your papers please?" "But I just want to buy a newspaper" "yes but I must report to the police every day who reads what, by the way I must also know which pages you intend to read" (the UK is passing a law that would force all ISP to record what websites their customers view)

Etc etc

Re: Trackers

#59

Post by dhimes »

davb wrote: post #41
Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #15

Believe 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…

I find it interesting that a lot of content producers have feel entitled to users' participation in analytics at all. Sure, it may be frustrating when a user blocks tracking tools (especially self hosted ones) but that's the their choice. We got by for decades without analysing user habits (even in a local only context, without correlation with third party data). There are so few examples of cases where analysing use…

We got by for decades without analysing user habits

Depends when you start counting the decades. Since Netscape and the 'coming out' of the www, we've always paid attention to where people go on our own web pages.

Re: Trackers

#60

Post by jacquesm »

wouterinho wrote: post #37

It is funny how things change when you use the physical world metaphor. There was a campaign recently by the Dutch regulatory agency that made people aware of the implications of allowing permissions in "free" apps. They made an (anecdotal) video by promising a free cup of coffee in exchange for your contact list on your phone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYXM56YJWSo (Dutch unfortunately)

That video is brilliant. Thank you.

'Please plug in your phone here, we need to get some data from it'

'Huh?'

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