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Ask HN: Girlfriend is being shown ads depending on what we do together. How?

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Re: Ask HN: Girlfriend is being shown ads depending on what we do together. How?

#51

Post by Rjevski »

amelius wrote: post #50
Rjevski wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The IP can be used to correlate them being together (connected to their home WiFi), but would be unable to track them outside (unless the phones try to connect to “free” public WiFi which is subsidised by ads and will no doubt rat the users out to Facebook). Cell phone towers don’t correlate to IPs at all; the IP layer is added way above all that at the GGSN in the carrier’s network, which doesn’t even know nor care…

> The IP can be used to correlate them being together There you go. Speaking of wifi, by correlating IP address and MAC broadcasts, ad networks could figure out your MAC address. This could also be used to track your location.

Correlating that they’re together wouldn’t explain how the ad networks figured out they were outside looking at houses.

MAC addresses are never transmitted past the first layer 2 hop, so it would require either a compromised switch/access point (like public WiFi) to be nearby and the phone to connect to it (phones randomise MACs when searching for networks to protect against that).

Re: Ask HN: Girlfriend is being shown ads depending on what we do together. How?

#52

Post by djb_hackernews »

CGamesPlay wrote: post #15

A totally plausible explanation for this (as plausible as any Amazon Echo passive speech recognition ad targeting theory) is that she's been seeing these ads for weeks, but they were completely irrelevant and her mind filtered them out until she happened to have house hunting / martial arts movies on her mind after these events.

This has a name! Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon.

Re: Ask HN: Girlfriend is being shown ads depending on what we do together. How?

#53

Post by Rjevski »

Zak wrote: post #47
Rjevski wrote: post #10

Start by switching to iOS, then for each app she installs make sure location permissions are denied. On the laptop, make sure uBlock Origin is installed.

Start by buying an expensive piece of hardware running a different operating system? Why not just use the app permissions built into Android 6.0+?

An expensive piece of hardware from a company that has no interest in spying on you.

The Android permissions are still not enough; there is a lot of nasty stuff you can do on Android (get low-level cell tower information, WiFi, Bluetooth, etc) that is outright impossible on iOS.

Re: Ask HN: Girlfriend is being shown ads depending on what we do together. How?

#54

Post by thomastjeffery »

Rjevski wrote: post #53
Zak wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Start by buying an expensive piece of hardware running a different operating system? Why not just use the app permissions built into Android 6.0+?

An expensive piece of hardware from a company that has no interest in spying on you . The Android permissions are still not enough; there is a lot of nasty stuff you can do on Android (get low-level cell tower information, WiFi, Bluetooth, etc) that is outright impossible on iOS.

> that is outright impossible on iOS

As far as you know.

Since their OS is proprietary, security research is severely hindered, and they are inherently incentivized to hide security flaws.

Re: Ask HN: Girlfriend is being shown ads depending on what we do together. How?

#55

Post by originalsimba »

This is the result of all the years of data mining and tracking. Now they can see your phone is at an open house and make an educated guess (which is all it is), that you're interested in buying homes.

All your web traffic is tracked too, unless you only use sources that explicitly do not track, such as duckduckgo.com. Check out https://ssd.eff.org, you might find it helpful.

Re: Ask HN: Girlfriend is being shown ads depending on what we do together. How?

#56

Post by Rjevski »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #54
Rjevski wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An expensive piece of hardware from a company that has no interest in spying on you . The Android permissions are still not enough; there is a lot of nasty stuff you can do on Android (get low-level cell tower information, WiFi, Bluetooth, etc) that is outright impossible on iOS.

> that is outright impossible on iOS As far as you know. Since their OS is proprietary, security research is severely hindered, and they are inherently incentivized to hide security flaws.

> As far as you know.

Still better than leaving the capability right there in the open, no?

Also you do understand critical parts of Android like Google Play Services are closed source, and also outright malicious when it comes to a privacy standpoint (it’s right there in the name - Google Play Services).

Sure, you can build a privacy-conscious Android from scratch if you’re tech-savvy and have lots of free time and courage. We’re not talking about a tech person here, we’re talking about someone who just wants to sort this problem out and get on with their life. Buying an iPhone solves that problem easily and in little time.

Re: Ask HN: Girlfriend is being shown ads depending on what we do together. How?

#57

Post by philwelch »

adtechperson wrote: post #24

I have worked for a number of ad tech companies over the years. If this really is happening (and it seems possible it could be coincidence) the most likely explanation is cross device targeting using IP address. So, most ad tech companies do cross device targeting, using device maps bought from other companies (Drawbridge being one). These companies attempt to assign a variety of devices from the same person to a sin…

That has some super creepy implications--imagine the father of a teenage girl wondering why he's suddenly seeing so many internet ads for maternity products, for instance.

Re: Ask HN: Girlfriend is being shown ads depending on what we do together. How?

#58

Post by dogma1138 »

philwelch wrote: post #57
adtechperson wrote: post #24

I have worked for a number of ad tech companies over the years. If this really is happening (and it seems possible it could be coincidence) the most likely explanation is cross device targeting using IP address. So, most ad tech companies do cross device targeting, using device maps bought from other companies (Drawbridge being one). These companies attempt to assign a variety of devices from the same person to a sin…

That has some super creepy implications--imagine the father of a teenage girl wondering why he's suddenly seeing so many internet ads for maternity products, for instance.

How Target Figured Out A Teen Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Father Did:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targ...

Re: Ask HN: Girlfriend is being shown ads depending on what we do together. How?

#59

Post by dogma1138 »

adtechperson wrote: post #24

I have worked for a number of ad tech companies over the years. If this really is happening (and it seems possible it could be coincidence) the most likely explanation is cross device targeting using IP address. So, most ad tech companies do cross device targeting, using device maps bought from other companies (Drawbridge being one). These companies attempt to assign a variety of devices from the same person to a sin…

I wonder if agencies register the GPS coordinates of open houses for location based advertisement.

https://www.tamoco.com/blog/location-based-marketing-history

Re: Ask HN: Girlfriend is being shown ads depending on what we do together. How?

#60

Post by Zak »

Rjevski wrote: post #53
Zak wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Start by buying an expensive piece of hardware running a different operating system? Why not just use the app permissions built into Android 6.0+?

An expensive piece of hardware from a company that has no interest in spying on you . The Android permissions are still not enough; there is a lot of nasty stuff you can do on Android (get low-level cell tower information, WiFi, Bluetooth, etc) that is outright impossible on iOS.

I would be very surprised if OP's girlfriend's ad tracking involved anything sophisticated and nasty. It's probably either IP-based as others have suggested, or using the location permission, which can be turned off.
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