111–120 of 213 posts
The article focuses on FB, but identifies Google as a bigger tracker: > “Previous research has shown how 42.55 percent of free apps on the Google Play store could share data with Facebook, making Facebook the second most prevalent third-party tracker after Google’s parent company Alphabet."
Wrangling 3rd party application access to platform providers' suite (ios, android, browser extensions). Cookies seem to be the majority of the aggregate identity/behavior data, which you can use various rules in the protocol to limit tracking to some extent. I've found that opting out on a regular basis of the large adverts for a little extra peace of mind. uBlock/uMatrix Origin, ghostery, duck.com, dns encryption, v…
DDG is fucking horrible
It doesn't work. I'm almost always going back to Google.
There should be a service that searches Google for you behind 7 proxies.
Wrangling 3rd party application access to platform providers' suite (ios, android, browser extensions). Cookies seem to be the majority of the aggregate identity/behavior data, which you can use various rules in the protocol to limit tracking to some extent. I've found that opting out on a regular basis of the large adverts for a little extra peace of mind. uBlock/uMatrix Origin, ghostery, duck.com, dns encryption, v…
one thing that irks me is ppl blindly suggesting duckduckgo over google DDG is fucking horrible It doesn't work. I'm almost always going back to Google. There should be a service that searches Google for you behind 7 proxies.
Image search is subtly broken in the packaged releases tho, so you'll either have to hit up google image search or use the git version
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> iOS apps have similar issues, actually. Which issues specifically?
Being non-free and non-auditable, including proprietary SDKs that can gather tracking info/IDs, connecting to Facebook (even when the app is something other than a FB client)... Stuff that's quite comparable to what the video is talking about.
Wrangling 3rd party application access to platform providers' suite (ios, android, browser extensions). Cookies seem to be the majority of the aggregate identity/behavior data, which you can use various rules in the protocol to limit tracking to some extent. I've found that opting out on a regular basis of the large adverts for a little extra peace of mind. uBlock/uMatrix Origin, ghostery, duck.com, dns encryption, v…
one thing that irks me is ppl blindly suggesting duckduckgo over google DDG is fucking horrible It doesn't work. I'm almost always going back to Google. There should be a service that searches Google for you behind 7 proxies.
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> Thr fact that Apple which could do this without significant adverse monetary impact but has chosen not to They restrict access to most of the things listed above, giving randomised fakes where necessary. The advertising ID they do let apps access is unique to a publisher so they can't be tied together with behaviour from apps by other publishers, and it's trivially disabled/resettable by the end user (Settings > Pr…
>I'm not really sure how you can arrive at the conclusion that Apple are holding back; they seem clearly committed to improving privacy as demonstrated by their continuous work in the area. Given the Apple phone was successfully hacked in the FBI case, I'm not sure why HN seems to think they are the bastion of privacy. Given the other anti-consumer and anti-developer practices at Apple, I wouldn't trust them to prote…
https://www.apple.com/business/site/docs/iOS_Security_Guide....
I seriously loathe the people hating on the web. On the web one can preview, debug, and block stuff at each application and network layer. Use Lynx, disable JS, install ad and tracking blockers, edit hosts file - you are the king. Want to see the true evil? Native Android and iOS applications, there doesn’t exist an alternative platform anymore. You think that app is free? Not even web-style in-app advertisements giv…
Anyone else feeling like there is a resurgence in web? Apps were the hot thing for a while, but now that major players have an app, they have figured out it matters little. I dont do my shopping on the Target App. I'm sure they are getting economic indicators that web on mobile is just as effective.
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This 100%. It will also make your web experience a lot better because so much of the javascript out there just does things you don't want anyway, such as loading ads and displaying popups. If you are a web developer or are familiar with web terminology like origins, domains, frames, XHR, etc on the web, and are willing to put in some time learning how to use it (15 mins for a seasoned web dev, maybe 30-60 mins otherw…
Thanks. Care to share a uMatrix setup that reports a non-unique fingerprint on https://panopticlick.eff.org ?
Is there a blog post or outline that summarizes this talk? I care about privacy, but don't have an hour to watch the whole video. The conference does provide a useful link to a privacy-centric page which catalogs some known facebook abuses: https://privacyinternational.org/types-abuse/facebook but there is no outline of this talk which summarizes the methods that facebook uses to spy on their users and the public.
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For example any kind of Bluetooth companion app, including sensor readers, watch companion apps and pretty much anything there requires access to MAC to complete pairing. Any kind of mDNS and direct WiFi apps. Any kind of Wifi scanning and environment survey apps. Any kind of Wifi helper apps to setup other devices. Are you seriously claiming that our portable computers should lock us out from creating these kind of…
For example any kind of Bluetooth companion app, including sensor readers, watch companion apps and pretty much anything there requires access to MAC to complete pairing. Your app on the phone wouldn’t need your Bluetooth ID (which is separate from the WiFi MAC ID). It would need the ID of the connecting device. Any kind of mDNS and direct WiFi apps. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/networkextension/n... Are…
What exactly happens? A ton of innovative apps can be made? Bunch of enterpreneurs can innovate and built new products without approval from a huge american corporation?
Yes, powerful tools can be abused. But powerful use-cases require powerful tools. What you're defending is akin to saying we should cut out everyone's tongue to defend against people accidentally telling their personal information to strangers. It's NOT a proportional response. You're effectively ceding full control of EVERYTHING you do on your computing device to Google and Apple forever because you're afraid that powerful tool, drivers of innovation and progress, might hurt someone occasionally.
You can't have progress in a kindergarten - instead of demanding that large corporations babysit the public and tell them what to think, we NEED to make sure that people take responsibility for themselves. It's the only way you keep free market and freedom functioning.