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Noiszy – A Chrome plugin that creates meaningless web tracking data

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

#151

Post by delroth »

fenwick67 wrote: post #137
noiszytech wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think of it as a product to deter AI processing of your data, not a product against data itself. I, too, am ok with being tracked - but being ok with data collection =/= blanket approval of all data processing & use. Thanks for raising this point.

Google Analytics most certainly does feed user data into "an AI" and use it to track users and sell ads targeting them. I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

Does Google Analytics' privacy policy even allow Google to do that?

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

#152

Post by fenwick67 »

delroth wrote: post #151
fenwick67 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Analytics most certainly does feed user data into "an AI" and use it to track users and sell ads targeting them. I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

Does Google Analytics' privacy policy even allow Google to do that?

They are certainly allowed to according to their TOS: https://www.google.com/analytics/terms/us.html

"Google and its wholly owned subsidiaries may retain and use, subject to the terms of its privacy policy (located at https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/), information collected in Your use of the Service"

Also read: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/

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

#153

Post by nkkollaw »

Excuse the ignorance, but are we safe in Europe..? Are we only talking about American ISPs?

What if an American ISP had a branch in Europe, could they sell our data, or the history must have been generated on American soil, or something like that?

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

#154

Post by noiszytech »

srrr wrote: post #118
noiszytech wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're right that it's the same data, but I think we absolutely must address how to separate the "good" use of data vs the "bad" use. Especially since, for most people, the data is already out there and there's no way to roll that back. I hope we're going to be talking a lot more about the ethics and morality of algorithm development.

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

#155

Post by Neliquat »

programd wrote: post #139
Insanity wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)…

The EFF lets you see all the fun ways you can be tracked by your browser fingerprint: https://panopticlick.eff.org/

And yet that is a tiny fraction of fingerprinting tech. Many devs and companies roll their own as well. It is hard to anticipate or defend against all, or even most.

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

#156

Post by TjWallas »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #90
TjWallas wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here with a tiny twist: opensource and has a SHA512 mentioned somewhere in the repo that could be verified against whatever comes from the chrome appstore.

Would be meaningless because the chrome store auto-updates addons.

Questionable action but, one could freeze extensions via extended file system attributes & permissions or work around the auto-updates through the hosts file or other means... https://serverfault.com/questions/354606/where-do-i-find-the...

.. Or even a combination of the above.

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

#157

Post by aianus »

_wmd wrote: post #98
_lqaf wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite what you're describing, but the venerable Squid cache can do distributed caching. Something, at least, to play with with your nerdy friends.

It needs to happen in-browser because of the modern prevalence of SSL. I think only Firefox has APIs powerful enough to intercept stuff on this level, and even those APIs are obsolete, so I think it really needs to be integrated straight into a browser fork. Chrome / Firefox WebExtensions have request interception, but I'm not sure it's powerful enough to do this kind of stuff (Also, the mere fact such a scheme would…

The cache/proxy just needs to install its root certificate into your system store and no changes to the browser would be necessary.

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

#158

Post by fooker »

guelo wrote: post #119
_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.

Unless your traffic goes through someone else. Wait I reinvented Tor!

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

#159

Post by fooker »

guelo wrote: post #119
_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.

Unless your traffic goes through someone else. Wait I reinvented Tor!

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

#160

Post by mygo »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #125
literallycancer wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's one: why isn't there a feature to export settings without using a Google account?

Bookmarks can be exported via the Bookmarks Manager, and all other Chrome-specific data you can just copy from `%LOCALAPPDATA%/Google/Chrome/User Data`.

having to manually copy a directory from disk is not what I'd call "feature"
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