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Sirubo: Packet filtering to block Google and Facebook tracking

peguero.xyz

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Re: Sirubo: Packet filtering to block Google and Facebook tracking

#21

Post by bookofjoe »

contravariant wrote: post #19
Radim wrote: post #14

I applaud the effort (Boston FTW!). But what can we do to treat the cause, instead of just the symptoms? Stopping big-tech's tracking is cool, but strictly inferior to removing their incentive to track you . How to do that? The ads are valuable for a reason – they work. If they stop working (or rather work less – it's a spectrum), then the collected data becomes just impotent bits filling up some HDD somewhere. I fee…

The tricky bit here is that advertisers don't need their ads to work, they just need to convince their customers they do. Even if there are reasons to question the metrics used to measure effectiveness (see e.g. [1]) this is all meaningless if ad companies still succeed in convincing people they are selling something of value. Which ironically does mean that one way or another advertising companies are good at advert…

I am reminded of Keynes' remark: "The secret of success in the stock market is not predicting which stocks will increase in value, but rather identifying stocks a majority of people think will increase in value."

Re: Sirubo: Packet filtering to block Google and Facebook tracking

#22

Post by danuker »

MrWiffles wrote: post #11
dang-guefever wrote: post #3

As someone with more time, I prefer to maintain a massive whitelist for my router. Daily websites receive permanent privileges, incidental websites (such as peguero.xyz) receive temporary privileges (e.g. allow traffic for the next minute), everything else is dropped. I don't have to worry about what chicanery advertising companies are up to when they can't reach me even if they tried. "So the fourth herd of deer too…

I have no idea where that literary quote is from but it’s pertinent here. In related news, what software or tools do you use to manage that whitelist? I’ve been considering stunting similar.

Not OP, but I am using uBlock Origin. Here's how I do it:

https://danuker.go.ro/how-to-protect-your-personal-data.html...

Re: Sirubo: Packet filtering to block Google and Facebook tracking

#23

Post by krono »

georgyo wrote: post #9
blakesterz wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The next generation of tracking tech relies on the backend transfer of server logs between a website and the ad platform, which is invisible to your own network I've not heard of this, what sites are giving logs to networks?

Shipping logs would be an extreme breach in my mind. But I can BS. Without a cross site unique identifier, the logs would not be usable across different sites... Though... I guess a browser fingerprint could be used as a non-centralized method to generate that unique key...

Anonymous metrics, just the basics to help us keep track of service availability. Oh and a unique device identifier along with some information about your hardware and OS. Well... and your IP and connection times of course.

Don't worry though, the marketing websites of the commercial services we use to gather and analyse this data say they're keeping your data very safe and secure!

Your privacy means a lot to us.

Re: Sirubo: Packet filtering to block Google and Facebook tracking

#26

Post by willvarfar »

reaperducer wrote: post #15
georgyo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shipping logs would be an extreme breach in my mind. But I can BS. Without a cross site unique identifier, the logs would not be usable across different sites... Though... I guess a browser fingerprint could be used as a non-centralized method to generate that unique key...

Login name, email address, credit card number. Lots of ways for companies to get together like this to follow you around the web and apps. All invisibly. And you'd never know it.

Matching up is called “entity resolution” and reminds me of this recent showHN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28127650

Re: Sirubo: Packet filtering to block Google and Facebook tracking

#27

Post by iamacyborg »

marketingtech wrote: post #10
blakesterz wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The next generation of tracking tech relies on the backend transfer of server logs between a website and the ad platform, which is invisible to your own network I've not heard of this, what sites are giving logs to networks?

I couldn't tell you a specific site, but here's an explanation of both Google's and Facebook's functionality. FB: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/marketing-api/conversio... Google: https://developers.google.com/google-ads/api/docs/conversion... This is also why companies like Tealium and Segment are currently valued at billions of dollars. They provide a single middleware integration point to funnel customer dat…

Not to forget Google's server side containers in Google Tag Manager.

https://developers.google.com/tag-manager/serverside

Re: Sirubo: Packet filtering to block Google and Facebook tracking

#28

Post by jasode »

marketingtech wrote: post #7

This is cool, but not super useful in 2021. Google and Facebook have already moved their tracking technologies beyond frontend network calls due to a rise in browser-level blocking (browser security policies, international regulations, AdBlock, PiHole, etc). The next generation of tracking tech relies on the backend transfer of data between a website and the ad platform, which is invisible to your own network. It als…

>The next generation of tracking tech relies on the backend transfer of data between a website and the ad platform, which is invisible to your own network.

But doesn't relying on the publisher's website log statistics instead of the end users' browsers introduce trust and "bad actors" problem? This has been a known "principal-agent" problem[1] for all the decades that 3rd-party ads have existed on the web.

I.e. Google getting onclick statistics from web browsers' Javascript and reporting to Google-owned "doubleclick.com" is different from the server logs of "JoeClickbaitContentFarm.com". Doesn't the contentcreator's website have an incentive to falsify the numbers to get higher payments from the ad network?

It doesn't seem like website self-reported server stats can fully replace end users browsers tracking. Instead, it augments it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_proble...

Re: Sirubo: Packet filtering to block Google and Facebook tracking

#29

Post by Yetino »

I have just started to learn differential privacy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_privacy), and am wondering if the following might be feasible in principle: on the browser level, instead of blocking the trackers, add a certain level of noise to the submitted data. This might form a truce between the end users and the trackers. Through statistics, the trackers might still be able to learn something about the end user group as a population; at the same time, each individual user's privacy isn't breached much more than they are completely offline. Admittedly this might be ridiculous and is just me under Dunning–Kruger effect as a beginner in this field.

Re: Sirubo: Packet filtering to block Google and Facebook tracking

#30

Post by epitactic »

Radim wrote: post #14

I applaud the effort (Boston FTW!). But what can we do to treat the cause, instead of just the symptoms? Stopping big-tech's tracking is cool, but strictly inferior to removing their incentive to track you . How to do that? The ads are valuable for a reason – they work. If they stop working (or rather work less – it's a spectrum), then the collected data becomes just impotent bits filling up some HDD somewhere. I fee…

> But what can we do to treat the cause, instead of just the symptoms?

By affecting the bottom line, increasing expenses and/or decreasing profits.

> If they stop working (or rather work less – it's a spectrum)

AdNauseam is an interesting attempt in this space - a browser plugin to automatically "click every ad to fight surveillance" (their words). By clicking everything, clicks become less valuable, at least in theory, but it has not really caught on.

> I feel the fix will be more along the lines of improving individual psychology and mental wellbeing, rather than entering the arms race of adversarial technology to block packet traffic (or whatever).

I agree with this. Ad blocking, ad clicking, packet blocking, is all thinking too small, always trying to catchup. It will always be behind and while useful for a niche subset of users, these kinds of technologies are more bandaids than a real solution to trigger fundamental changes to the advertising tracking industry.

What is a real, impactful solution? I don't know, but an area I have not seen explored much, considering by analogy:

Internet : Web :: Big Tech : ???

That is, the web layered on top of the Internet, as a disruptively transforming application, extracting and providing value.

Can another technology be created to build on the foundations provided by Big Tech, delivering value they provide, while avoiding their tracking/advertising downsides? I have little idea what this would look like in practice (how do you disrupt a billion dollar industry?), but if someone can crack this nut, it may change the world. Startup idea elevator pitch: disrupt Big Tech.

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