Never-Googlers: Web users take the ultimate step to guard their data • Hacker News Board

Re: Never-Googlers: Web users take the ultimate step to guard their data

#31

Post by madez » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 5:50 PM UTC

airstrike wrote: post #22

madez wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm confused by the lengths people have gone through to "protect" themselves from internet giants while freely giving away their info to credit card companies, traditional retailers, small businesses. You are invalidly generalizing. I try to eliminate all contact I have with the tech giants, and I do not have a credit card, I am at a privacy respecting bank (GLS Gemeinschaftsbank), and I use cash. Additionally, by…

> You are invalidly generalizing. I try to eliminate all contact I have with the tech giants, and I do not have a credit card, I am at a privacy respecting bank (GLS Gemeinschaftsbank), and I use cash. You do you, but I'm happy to get free airline tickets and other perks from using my credit card at the expense of....... having someone else know I bought a mechanical keyboard last month? I respect your choice but I h…

I'm not hiding, I'm just not exposing myself. It's a matter of perspective.

More significantly, you are understating and trivializing the kind of information that many services force us to expose. If you share your buying history, that may reveal locations, your movements, your schedule, etc. What a set of data reveals is not up to the one the data is from, but the one analyzing it. For you it is mundande, for them it is enough.

Re: Never-Googlers: Web users take the ultimate step to guard their data

#32

Post by nvrspyx » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 5:52 PM UTC

chiefalchemist wrote: post #11

maximente wrote: post #3

wow, i had no idea someone in what i assume is rural South Carolina is willing to undertake a pretty substantial convenience/time cost - drive 40 miles (and back?) to purchase directly - in order to better guard their privacy. wonder if he also prefers cash? although this article is google-focused, not more generally on privacy which would presumably involve defeating credit card companies with cash. i'm wondering wh…

There's a new bridge near me. No cash tolls. It's either EasyPass or they photograph your plates and mail you the bill. I presume the lack of cash tolls is semi intentional. I mean all cars are being photographed, as you can borrow and EasyPass.

Cash tolls cost more. You either need people stationed to collect the toll or send people every so often to collect the tolls from the machines. The machines would also need more maintenance than the camera or EasyPass system because they're mechanical. You also need the camera system regardless in case someone drives through without paying or simply doesn't have cash on hand. Plus, people will need exact change or have the machine (or employees) return the correct change if it's not a coinage machine. This also means cash tolls are slower and cause more congestion. Finally, fewer and fewer people have cash on hand.

Re: Never-Googlers: Web users take the ultimate step to guard their data

#33

Post by darkwater » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 5:54 PM UTC

airstrike wrote: post #22

madez wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm confused by the lengths people have gone through to "protect" themselves from internet giants while freely giving away their info to credit card companies, traditional retailers, small businesses. You are invalidly generalizing. I try to eliminate all contact I have with the tech giants, and I do not have a credit card, I am at a privacy respecting bank (GLS Gemeinschaftsbank), and I use cash. Additionally, by…

> You are invalidly generalizing. I try to eliminate all contact I have with the tech giants, and I do not have a credit card, I am at a privacy respecting bank (GLS Gemeinschaftsbank), and I use cash. You do you, but I'm happy to get free airline tickets and other perks from using my credit card at the expense of....... having someone else know I bought a mechanical keyboard last month? I respect your choice but I h…

Maybe at the expense of buying that mechanical keyboard you thought you really wanted but actually you ended up purchasing because of continued, subtle advertising?

Re: Never-Googlers: Web users take the ultimate step to guard their data

#34

Post by SomeOldThrow » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 5:56 PM UTC

Taking the ultimate step to guard your data would surely involve writing laws or dismantling data centers (I prefer the former). Ultimately what you opt into has little relation to what people actually know about you: you can't really opt out of credit, or out of things like Comcast requiring your social security number as identification and authorization, or out of the fact that it's become the cultural norm to accept ad-supported services as the sole access to communities.

Re: Never-Googlers: Web users take the ultimate step to guard their data

#35

Post by gringoDan » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 6:04 PM UTC

giancarlostoro wrote: post #28

tantalor wrote: post #26

You can opt out of analytics: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/181881?hl=en

This is not the only analytics company though. There are many others. Others that even buy your credit transaction history, how do you opt out of that? I bet those no annual fee cards would bring back fees if they were forced to keep your data private.

Only way out is to use cash. There are tons of shadowy firms that have linked your credit card transaction history to your address, online activity, etc...

Re: Never-Googlers: Web users take the ultimate step to guard their data

#36

Post by close04 » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 6:11 PM UTC

Zhenya wrote: post #23

>Such never-Googlers are pushing friends and family to give up the search and advertising titan, while others are taking to social media to get word out. That'll show em, post on facebook about it...

It may be easier to use FB to spread the word about Google than the other way around. You have to start somewhere.

Re: Never-Googlers: Web users take the ultimate step to guard their data

#37

Post by eejjjj82 » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 6:13 PM UTC

" In the small South Carolina town of Newberry, Bob's Red Mill muesli cereal is hard to come by.

That presents a challenge for resident Gregory Kelly, who can't get enough of the stuff. He'd rather not truck the 40 miles or so to Columbia to stock up on it, but he's also loath to buy it from the company's website, which he says is riddled with tracking software from Google"

Somebody get this man a Firefox Privacy Tab

Re: Never-Googlers: Web users take the ultimate step to guard their data

#38

Post by bhauer » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 6:18 PM UTC

eejjjj82 wrote: post #37

" In the small South Carolina town of Newberry, Bob's Red Mill muesli cereal is hard to come by. That presents a challenge for resident Gregory Kelly, who can't get enough of the stuff. He'd rather not truck the 40 miles or so to Columbia to stock up on it, but he's also loath to buy it from the company's website, which he says is riddled with tracking software from Google" Somebody get this man a Firefox Privacy Tab

I feel the author was struggling to find a suitable anecdote to open the story. And this one seems a bit far-fetched, perhaps even exaggerated by Mr. Kelly as a means of illustrating the hassle of curtailing the surveillance apparatus of Google. But someone who has gone to the lengths described probably knows how to block requests to google-analytics.com.

Re: Never-Googlers: Web users take the ultimate step to guard their data

#39

Post by chiefalchemist » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 6:22 PM UTC

nvrspyx wrote: post #32

chiefalchemist wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a new bridge near me. No cash tolls. It's either EasyPass or they photograph your plates and mail you the bill. I presume the lack of cash tolls is semi intentional. I mean all cars are being photographed, as you can borrow and EasyPass.

Cash tolls cost more. You either need people stationed to collect the toll or send people every so often to collect the tolls from the machines. The machines would also need more maintenance than the camera or EasyPass system because they're mechanical. You also need the camera system regardless in case someone drives through without paying or simply doesn't have cash on hand. Plus, people will need exact change or h…

Maybe. But the lack of cash tolls also enables the Surveillance State. So once again, we're trading privacy and liberty for what amounts to pocket lint.

I think we have closure on the American experiment. Laziness/convenience trumps anything else.

Re: Never-Googlers: Web users take the ultimate step to guard their data

#40

Post by rjf72 » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 6:23 PM UTC

tantalor wrote: post #30

giancarlostoro wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not the only analytics company though. There are many others. Others that even buy your credit transaction history, how do you opt out of that? I bet those no annual fee cards would bring back fees if they were forced to keep your data private.

Incognito mode?

Incognito mode is mostly useless as an actual privacy tool. You're still exposing a substantial amount of information. The most basic would be your IP. Most IPs are of course dynamic, but there are two factors here:

1) The IP only changes when your lease expires or you manually renew it. This is not a normal part of starting an incognito session. Google has a confirmed identity (such as by being logged into a Google service) of tantalor at IP x. A few seconds later IP x shows up at SteamyHotPornSite.com that's running Google analytics or otherwise providing tracking for Google - a recent study of 22,484 porn sites found Google trackers present on 74% [1]). That's 100% tantalor.

2) Even in cases where the IP does change, it's constrained to within a group. As most dynamic IPs are also geomapped, it's often a relatively small group. Now what information is exposed during incognito can be cross-referenced against a very small group of potentials. You can likely hit near 100% on this as well.

And that's just one datum, though granted it's quite a useful one! Incognito should be seen as a tool that does little more than disable any cookies you have and automatically [kind of - depends on your OS] deletes your local browsing history.

[1] - https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-google-quietly-trac...