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How to Avoid Leaving Tracks Around the Internet

nytimes.com

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Re: How to Avoid Leaving Tracks Around the Internet

#81

Post by ilikepi »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #70
not_kurt_godel wrote: post #68

The omission of "Disable third party cookies" is fairly shocking. From my understanding, it might be the single most effective thing you can reduce tracking. Whenever I get the chance, I recommend the following pieces of Internet hygiene to anyone and everyone I can: * Disable 3rd party cookies * uBlock Origin * Privacy Badger * HTTPS Everywhere These things are all dead simple and will significantly reduce your trac…

Won’t disabling third-party cookies render certain payment gateways unusable? While such advice may be very welcome among savvy computer users who know when they should temporarily turn third-party cookies back on, the NYT is unlikely to give advice that will break online shopping for large numbers of people.

I don't think I've ever run into an issue with a payment gateway. The one major site I've had issues with has been playstation.com. Sony seems to use a bunch of different domains for managing its various PSN websites, and I've never found the right set of rules in uMatrix without also enabling third-party cookies.

Re: How to Avoid Leaving Tracks Around the Internet

#82

Post by rectang »

aesh2Xa1 wrote: post #42
pteraspidomorph wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would suggest Privacy Badger nowadays (as a complement to the irreplaceable uBlock origin).

Does Privacy Badger do something that uBlock Origin does not?

They have different purposes. Privacy Badger is not there to block all ads; it exists to block trackers.

For websites I like, I turn off uBlock Origin but leave Privacy Badger enabled.

Re: How to Avoid Leaving Tracks Around the Internet

#83

Post by doctoboggan »

not_kurt_godel wrote: post #68

The omission of "Disable third party cookies" is fairly shocking. From my understanding, it might be the single most effective thing you can reduce tracking. Whenever I get the chance, I recommend the following pieces of Internet hygiene to anyone and everyone I can: * Disable 3rd party cookies * uBlock Origin * Privacy Badger * HTTPS Everywhere These things are all dead simple and will significantly reduce your trac…

With the latest macOS it is no longer possible to install uBlock Origin in Safari. Do you have a different recommendation that works with Catalina?

Re: How to Avoid Leaving Tracks Around the Internet

#85

Post by twmiller »

doctoboggan wrote: post #83
not_kurt_godel wrote: post #68

The omission of "Disable third party cookies" is fairly shocking. From my understanding, it might be the single most effective thing you can reduce tracking. Whenever I get the chance, I recommend the following pieces of Internet hygiene to anyone and everyone I can: * Disable 3rd party cookies * uBlock Origin * Privacy Badger * HTTPS Everywhere These things are all dead simple and will significantly reduce your trac…

With the latest macOS it is no longer possible to install uBlock Origin in Safari. Do you have a different recommendation that works with Catalina?

Firefox w/ uBlock Origin

Re: How to Avoid Leaving Tracks Around the Internet

#87

Post by yoloClin »

saagarjha wrote: post #5

> If you’re in that category, Ms. Winterton recommended Ghostery, a free plug-in for most web browsers that “blocks the trackers and lists them by category,” she wrote. I’m not sure I can recommend Ghostery, as their business model is a bit suspicious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostery#Criticism > Using websites whose addresses begin with https are also safe; they, too, encrypt their data before it’s sent to you…

> We need to stop treating knowledge of public data like this as some sort of identity metric.

I love how it's easier to steal my identity than to intercept my encrypted web traffic.

Society really could do with a cryptographically sane method of authentication - think an PKI-type verification but in replacement for '100 points of id' / Social Security Number / Tax File Number etc.

Surely the cost of implementation wouldn't outweigh the cost of identity theft and other types of fraud which can occur due to the current flawed system?

Maybe the costs are/would be paid for by different parties, but indirectly we all pay for them through insurance premiums and taxes which cover the (preventable) financial damage anyway.

Re: How to Avoid Leaving Tracks Around the Internet

#88

Post by jjeaff »

windexh8er wrote: post #63
alpaca128 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow I don't understand how you say Syncthing's disadvantage in comparison is that it's a P2P system[1], but at the same time your website says duple doesn't need a server. Maybe I've misunderstood, but this sounds just like Syncthing with an always-on client - except for the file versioning, that sounds like an interesting feature to me. [1] https://blog.duple.io/what-is-the-point-of-duple/

Agreed. I've been using SyncThing for over 4 years and while it has a few rough edges (synced/shared/global file ignore would be great) still it's been fully reliable and a generally great user experience. So if you're trying to cater to existing SyncThing users don't mince words to make it appear that something which you claim is a negative with SyncThing doesn't exist in your product - which it clearly does. SyncTh…

I'm sure what they mean by all devices needing to be on and connected, is that if only one device is connected, there will be nothing to sync to. So if I take some photos while on vacation, but my desktop at home is asleep, then I can't sync my photos to it. So if I lose my phone before then, I'm sunk.

Of course this is fixed by simply having the desktop on all the time, which would then make it similar to a client server setup.

Re: How to Avoid Leaving Tracks Around the Internet

#90

Post by mirimir »

OK, it's not horrible advice.

But there's no mention of Tor, which is arguably the best available way to "avoid leaving tracks around the Internet". And better yet, using Whonix, which prevents leaks around Tor.

Using multiple email addresses is good. But if you're sloppy about browser hardening, they'll all get linked.

More generally, there's compartmentalization. Not just multiple email addresses, but multiple VMs, connecting through different VPNs, and/or Tor instances. Modern machines can run several Linux VMs, and switching among them is as easy as switching among app windows.

So basically you can present online as many different personas. Even if everything that each persona does gets linked, it won't get linked to other personas. If you're careful, anyway.

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