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Transforming NYC's Payphones into a 'Personalized Propaganda Engine'

villagevoice.com

41–50 of 121 posts

Re: Transforming NYC's Payphones into a 'Personalized Propaganda Engine'

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came here to say something similar. I've seen many people using them all hours of the day & night. People are watching music videos, charging their phone, getting directions, and surfing the internet. The people using them are often those that don't have the luxury (necessity?) of walking around with a nice smart phone and a big data plan. Do they have ads on them? Of course. So do the bus shelters which are funded…

Google's business model is based on selling user-generated data to advertisers, unlike telcos who sell network data to you . See Harvard professor Shoshana Zuboff's video on Surveillance Capitalism, https://vimeo.com/110222526 NYC has the leverage to negotiate better financial terms for capturing the value of city residents data. The money generated from harvesting city resident behavior can then be invested into cit…

> Google's business model is based on selling user-generated data to advertisers, unlike telcos who sell network data to you.

Really? Where?

I have worked on some large marketing projects. We'd love to be able to buy user data from Google.

This facile argument is really getting old. When you get a free newspaper, does that mean you're getting "sold?"

Re: Transforming NYC's Payphones into a 'Personalized Propaganda Engine'

#43
post #4

I really do hope that by now, everyone knows not to do anything they wouldn't want the public to know about on public WiFi, especially these systems. Using a VPN when you are on public WiFi such as this helps solve a lot of the privacy problems that you face using said service.

>I really do hope that by now, everyone knows not to do anything they wouldn't want the public to know about on public WiFi

What's your definition of "everyone"? Those of us in the tech bubble? Sure. Your everyday smartphone user? The internet's just the internet to them, and where it comes from is not a concern.

Re: Transforming NYC's Payphones into a 'Personalized Propaganda Engine'

#44
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A digital ocean VPS is $5 a month. Is village voice.com really that big a draw?

Presumably villagevoice actually pay their writers?

Presumably installing free wifi kiosks actually costs money.

Re: Transforming NYC's Payphones into a 'Personalized Propaganda Engine'

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came here to say something similar. I've seen many people using them all hours of the day & night. People are watching music videos, charging their phone, getting directions, and surfing the internet. The people using them are often those that don't have the luxury (necessity?) of walking around with a nice smart phone and a big data plan. Do they have ads on them? Of course. So do the bus shelters which are funded…

Google's business model is based on selling user-generated data to advertisers, unlike telcos who sell network data to you . See Harvard professor Shoshana Zuboff's video on Surveillance Capitalism, https://vimeo.com/110222526 NYC has the leverage to negotiate better financial terms for capturing the value of city residents data. The money generated from harvesting city resident behavior can then be invested into cit…

>Google's business model is based on selling user-generated data to advertisers

Important distinction: they use their massive user-data collection as a selling point for advertisers. They do not sell the data directly - they'd prefer to keep a monopoly on the data. Their business model is in selling advertisements. They sell advertisements because they have a massive user-data collection to target those ads towards.

Re: Transforming NYC's Payphones into a 'Personalized Propaganda Engine'

#46
post #35

I'd really like to hear from a domain expert whether tor or something like it could a) drastically mitigate the impact of this type of surveillance and b) how likely it is that it (tor) could become mainstream (sort of like WhatsApp made end to end encryption mainstream)?

When you take into account the full range of tracking methods cited in the article, I think the impact of Tor would be limited. For example: you probably already have an app on your phone that has an SDK from Gimbal (beacon company in the article) or a similar firm that reads beacons and tracks your location passively. So while Tor would disguise the source of your web requests, the SDK still has free reign to send your location and your Ad ID back to the mothership.

Re: Transforming NYC's Payphones into a 'Personalized Propaganda Engine'

#47
post #17
post #15

> They're telling you that they can use your IP address, which is essentially you, and all of the pages you've viewed or searched for, including how long you visited them, to serve ads. You don't bring your own IP when you use public WiFi, so this feels like a very confused argument.

You do however bring (and broadcast) your MAC address, which was mentioned as permissible to collect.

Yes, and also, if they like, IMSI (via base station spoofing, aka Stingray/Triggerfish), bluetooth MAC, NFC, etc.

If the phone has any cooperating apps on it, choices are much wider even.

Re: Transforming NYC's Payphones into a 'Personalized Propaganda Engine'

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about an actual solution? https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.chainfire.p... It's pretty much set-and-forget, randomized per-AP macs and random changes while scanning.

But the whole point is that you shouldn't have to do that. The burden shouldn't be on the individual to constantly be finding ways to keep one step ahead of surveillance. The burden should be on those who would surveil them to justify why it's necessary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is-ought_problem

Re: Transforming NYC's Payphones into a 'Personalized Propaganda Engine'

#49
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's business model is based on selling user-generated data to advertisers, unlike telcos who sell network data to you . See Harvard professor Shoshana Zuboff's video on Surveillance Capitalism, https://vimeo.com/110222526 NYC has the leverage to negotiate better financial terms for capturing the value of city residents data. The money generated from harvesting city resident behavior can then be invested into cit…

>Google's business model is based on selling user-generated data to advertisers Important distinction: they use their massive user-data collection as a selling point for advertisers. They do not sell the data directly - they'd prefer to keep a monopoly on the data. Their business model is in selling advertisements. They sell advertisements because they have a massive user-data collection to target those ads towards.

Thanks for the distinction.
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