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Noiszy – A Chrome plugin that creates meaningless web tracking data

noiszy.com

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Re: Noiszy – A Chrome plugin that creates meaningless web tracking data

#111

Post by Insanity »

jehna1 wrote: post #96
Insanity wrote: post #84

Maybe I am being too naive, but could someone explain to me why just using a VPN would not be good enough to hide your traffic from these companies / governments? I understand that perhaps they _could_ ask the VPN provider to give logs (depending on the provider, if they keep logs or not). But that would not work for the algorithms used to target you as an individual. Could someone please explain that to me? :-)

VPN commonly only hides your IP for the time you're using it. There are many other factors that can be used to track you. First is cookies. Say you log in to Facebook with your browser from your own IP address and a hour later you fire up VPN to browse the web. One of the websites you load has Facebook's tracking pixel and - unless you cleared your cookies - boom: Facebook knows you have visited that site. Even if yo…

Well, for the first part, just restrict internet access without turning the VPN on. (For me, I can not access any website when the VPN is not active).

The last part of which you wrote is incredibly interesting. I had no idea they could find out the CPU power or the enabled plugins.

Though, to be fair, I think I'd fall in a pretty large pond to match. And either way, that information does not seem very useful (to me) for targetted advertisements.

Thank you for your answer :-)

Re: Noiszy – A Chrome plugin that creates meaningless web tracking data

#112

Post by noiszytech »

watty wrote: post #51

It's kind of funny their website includes TypeKit, SquareSpace, and Google Tag Manager scripts - all of which can (and probably are) tracking various things. They may not be connected to "you", may be anonymized, may be unique number representing you.

Hi - Noiszy creator here. You're right about the scripts - we're using GTM and Google Analytics. I think it's 100% legit for sites (like mine) to want to know how much traffic they're getting - this to me is a good use of data. I work in the analytics field and actually I love data - I just don't like AI using data in creepy ways. The thing is, there is a big moral grey area between "count visits" and "creepy targeting based on everything you do". My hope is that by disrupting the data, we can make the conversation happen about the right things to do with algorithms. I don't have the answers but I hope to be a part of the discussion.

Re: Noiszy – A Chrome plugin that creates meaningless web tracking data

#113

Post by spenczar5 »

noiszytech wrote: post #112
watty wrote: post #51

It's kind of funny their website includes TypeKit, SquareSpace, and Google Tag Manager scripts - all of which can (and probably are) tracking various things. They may not be connected to "you", may be anonymized, may be unique number representing you.

Hi - Noiszy creator here. You're right about the scripts - we're using GTM and Google Analytics. I think it's 100% legit for sites (like mine) to want to know how much traffic they're getting - this to me is a good use of data. I work in the analytics field and actually I love data - I just don't like AI using data in creepy ways. The thing is, there is a big moral grey area between "count visits" and "creepy targeti…

Your website appears to also be sending data to facebook with App ID 314192535267336. This might be some squarespace thing. It qualifies as "creepy" to me that you're tracking more than you even know, and it's connected back to my facebook identity!

Re: Noiszy – A Chrome plugin that creates meaningless web tracking data

#114

Post by jchw »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #72
jchw wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hosted on Chrome Web Store, but otherwise it could very well work just fine in Edge, Opera and even possibly Firefox. They're all converging toward supporting WebExtensions, a mostly-Chrome compatible API.

Could? or does?

Didn't try. It almost definitely will work on Opera since Opera is based on Chrome and there's ways to install straight from the Chrome App Store. If the author released a direct download, it'd be easy to test in Firefox and Edge.

Re: Noiszy – A Chrome plugin that creates meaningless web tracking data

#115

Post by ComodoHacker »

_wmd wrote: post #59

There have been a few of these plugins floating around recently, and really everything that needs said about them appears in the comments already. Fake traffic is wasteful, hard to make look authentic, and only serves to create more records of the end user around the web rather than less (e.g. your laptop IP was generating fake traffic? That probably means you had the lid open and were doing something with it at that…

Static data caching is solved without p2p. Dynamic (personalized) data caching is unsolvable by p2p.

Re: Noiszy – A Chrome plugin that creates meaningless web tracking data

#116

Post by watty »

noiszytech wrote: post #112
watty wrote: post #51

It's kind of funny their website includes TypeKit, SquareSpace, and Google Tag Manager scripts - all of which can (and probably are) tracking various things. They may not be connected to "you", may be anonymized, may be unique number representing you.

Hi - Noiszy creator here. You're right about the scripts - we're using GTM and Google Analytics. I think it's 100% legit for sites (like mine) to want to know how much traffic they're getting - this to me is a good use of data. I work in the analytics field and actually I love data - I just don't like AI using data in creepy ways. The thing is, there is a big moral grey area between "count visits" and "creepy targeti…

I get it. Everyone, everywhere, is collecting data - whether it's CNN.com or Noiszy.com or Google Analytics. While you may be using Google Analytics for basic tracking of anonymous visitors, Google may be using it for "creepy targeting based on everything you do".

I'm really not opinionated (I think the plugin is interesting and am completely ok with being tracked) I just found it a bit hypocritical to create a product against tracking while simultaneously providing tracking data to Google.

Re: Noiszy – A Chrome plugin that creates meaningless web tracking data

#118

Post by srrr »

noiszytech wrote: post #112
watty wrote: post #51

It's kind of funny their website includes TypeKit, SquareSpace, and Google Tag Manager scripts - all of which can (and probably are) tracking various things. They may not be connected to "you", may be anonymized, may be unique number representing you.

Hi - Noiszy creator here. You're right about the scripts - we're using GTM and Google Analytics. I think it's 100% legit for sites (like mine) to want to know how much traffic they're getting - this to me is a good use of data. I work in the analytics field and actually I love data - I just don't like AI using data in creepy ways. The thing is, there is a big moral grey area between "count visits" and "creepy targeti…

The problem is, Noiszy is corrupting your own web analytics data and the analytics data of all other participants in the web while doing fake visits.

This is all or nothing. You can not separate the "good" use of data vs the "bad" use. It's all the same data. Only the usage is different.

Re: Noiszy – A Chrome plugin that creates meaningless web tracking data

#119

Post by guelo »

_wmd wrote: post #59

There have been a few of these plugins floating around recently, and really everything that needs said about them appears in the comments already. Fake traffic is wasteful, hard to make look authentic, and only serves to create more records of the end user around the web rather than less (e.g. your laptop IP was generating fake traffic? That probably means you had the lid open and were doing something with it at that…

That would be a cache of what's popular. That would actually help on the surveillance side because it would effectively be a filter of the common traffic allowing them to focus on your unique traffic.

Re: Noiszy – A Chrome plugin that creates meaningless web tracking data

#120

Post by kleer001 »

ComodoHacker wrote: post #117

I believe random noise can be filtered out easily with AI. To be effective, this gonna be AI vs AI arms race, much like AV vs malware.

No need to bring a grenade to a fist fight.

If the overall history data is aggregated you won't really need to filter out the noise. Random browsing will just disappear under the threshold of noise and the 'real' browsing will stand out.

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