Sirubo: Packet filtering to block Google and Facebook tracking • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by taftster » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 4:15 PM UTC

I wish the ad industry (especially web) would just break and just completely fall over.

Sure, we'd have this period of time where the world would feel like it's on fire. All your "news sources" (air-quotes) would disappear and everyone would be lost for a bit.

But then, innovation would happen. And the original web would re-emerge. And all the good things that we pine about for the old days of tech would return. People would pay for good news again or maybe Jethro would create the website he's been dreaming about.

Sure the stock market would probably collapse. And we'd probably have another great depression. But I sure think the world would be a better place after all the dust settled.

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

#62

Post by justapassenger » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 4:16 PM UTC

deeblering4 wrote: post #59

DrBazza wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since I've been "reassured" that we're not being listened to by smart speakers, I can only assume that familial links i.e. the 'facebook graph', are also exploited by ad companies now as well. Anec-data: visiting the in-laws in a different part of the country, so my device and location is 'known' to have geographically moved by tracking, they searched for garages and glazing. We return home, and every advert is for g…

What reassurances have you had about not being listened to? I keep cam/mic access switched off a lot for this reason, and I've only seen generic denials/refusals that it is or could happen but nothing concrete, much like the pre-snowden outlook towards internet surveillance.

> What reassurances have you had about not being listened to?

I know enough about tech to know that it's very very very hard technical problem, and hiding it is basically impossible. And no one showed anything even reassembling any form of breadcrumb pointing towards it, not even a proof.

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

#63

Post by justapassenger » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 4:21 PM UTC

alpha_squared wrote: post #48

jklinger410 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who works in ads, this is a spot-on summation of the current state of tracking. And that's without getting into how machine learning can use seemingly unrelated data points to learn more about you than you could imagine. At this point if you have even the most basic connections (US bank account, home owner, gps, insurance, a car) the more sophisticated tracking methods can still learn about you and reach y…

> It's just that most companies are using crap ad tech. Including Facebook, apparently. About 90% of Instagram ads were irrelevant to me for about two years. Then I mentioned an interest in photography in a private conversation, now 75% of ads are photography-related.

Let's apply occam's razor.

What's more likely?

1. You mentioned thousands of other things in your private conversations. They suddenly start to narrow down on one specific one. 2. You're interested in photography, and are using service made to share photos. You follow photography accounts/search on the internet for photography related content, this signal got picked up, you clicked on some ad (by mistake most likely), and signal got amplified.

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

#64

Post by oakfr » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 4:23 PM UTC

mhandley wrote: post #33

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…

"websites and applications actively transmitting customer data to Google and Facebook." Any website doing this for EU users without their consent is going to run into GDPR issues very quickly indeed.

As mentioned above by @marketingtech, the websites assume the responsibility of managing user consent and therefore are GDPR compliant.

This is why browsing the internet feels like filing for a mortgage now. But it's compliant.

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

#65

Post by fouric » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 4:27 PM UTC

justapassenger wrote: post #62

deeblering4 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What reassurances have you had about not being listened to? I keep cam/mic access switched off a lot for this reason, and I've only seen generic denials/refusals that it is or could happen but nothing concrete, much like the pre-snowden outlook towards internet surveillance.

> What reassurances have you had about not being listened to? I know enough about tech to know that it's very very very hard technical problem, and hiding it is basically impossible. And no one showed anything even reassembling any form of breadcrumb pointing towards it, not even a proof.

> I know enough about tech to know that it's very very very hard technical problem, and hiding it is basically impossible.

This gets repeatedly asserted, and it's false. Low-accuracy voice transcription is a solved problem, and is relatively easy to hide, as long as you have API access[1]. (so, Facebook is probably in the clear, as neither Apple nor Google are crazy enough to let them have invisible microphone access, but it would be relatively easy for Google (Play Services hook anyone?))

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27142812

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

#66

Post by fouric » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 4:33 PM UTC

_jal wrote: post #60

deeblering4 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What reassurances have you had about not being listened to? I keep cam/mic access switched off a lot for this reason, and I've only seen generic denials/refusals that it is or could happen but nothing concrete, much like the pre-snowden outlook towards internet surveillance.

If someone wants to convince me FB, et al are doing this, they can show me packet traces of audio being uploaded for analysis, or in the alternative (if the theory is on-phone analysis) resource consumption data from the phone doing it. There's been so much discussion of this theory that we'd have seen one of those by now. I have zero love for the surveillance shops, but there's just no real evidence this happens.

Resource consumption for low-accuracy voice transcription is trivial - think in the single-digit milliwatt range[1] for custom hardware. It would also be really easy to hide the resulting small amount of textual data in routine communications with the service's server.

You can't rule out audio transcription on the technical basis that "it's too hard" alone, because it's not too hard.

(for Google, that is - Facebook is constrained by the Android sandbox, but Google has their opaque Google Play services blob on almost every Android phone)

That's obviously not a reason to believe that it does exist - we'd only know that if a Google whistleblower stepped forward, or if someone reverse-engineered Play Services - but we can't rule it out on a technical basis alone.

[1] https://groups.csail.mit.edu/sls/publications/2018/Price_IEE...

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

#67

Post by jahewson » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 4:34 PM UTC

DrBazza wrote: post #56

jklinger410 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who works in ads, this is a spot-on summation of the current state of tracking. And that's without getting into how machine learning can use seemingly unrelated data points to learn more about you than you could imagine. At this point if you have even the most basic connections (US bank account, home owner, gps, insurance, a car) the more sophisticated tracking methods can still learn about you and reach y…

Since I've been "reassured" that we're not being listened to by smart speakers, I can only assume that familial links i.e. the 'facebook graph', are also exploited by ad companies now as well. Anec-data: visiting the in-laws in a different part of the country, so my device and location is 'known' to have geographically moved by tracking, they searched for garages and glazing. We return home, and every advert is for g…

That’s most likely because your device used their wifi and ended up behind their nat using the same ip as them. The anonymous tracking cookie ids on your device get associated with searches from that ip. (i.e. “cookie 1234 is in-market for glazing”) and you take those cookies back home with you. This is actually a massive failure because you’re not likely to purchase glazing at all.

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

#68

Post by samhw » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 4:40 PM UTC

samstave wrote: post #50

samhw wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people like this see it as a 'win' – as if they, John Smith, have beaten the dastardly BigCorp. Whereas, in fact, the most that happens is a Junior Marketing Executive at BigCorp says "Right, that guy falls within the 0.5% of techy customers who make things difficult for us. Ah well, it's only been 80,000 of them, well within our margin for this month."

True - however, IMO, the value is in the awareness of tracking and the knowledge of how to block things as such. Its better to know how your network operates that you rely on for your daily life than to know nothing about its internals. My biggest issue as I age is that I FORGET how to do some of the higher level networking that I used to know innately - and I also lose interest in doing such things and become lazy,…

The issue is that people like this fetishise avoiding tracking. It doesn't seem like they have a clear reason why they want to avoid tracking. Do they have sensitive data to hide? Do they ideologically disagree with large companies gathering data? Is it anything else? It honestly doesn't seem like it. It seems more like "stopping them from getting my data" is treated as an end unto itself.

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

#69

Post by justapassenger » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 4:40 PM UTC

fouric wrote: post #65

justapassenger wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What reassurances have you had about not being listened to? I know enough about tech to know that it's very very very hard technical problem, and hiding it is basically impossible. And no one showed anything even reassembling any form of breadcrumb pointing towards it, not even a proof.

> I know enough about tech to know that it's very very very hard technical problem, and hiding it is basically impossible. This gets repeatedly asserted, and it's false. Low-accuracy voice transcription is a solved problem, and is relatively easy to hide, as long as you have API access[1]. (so, Facebook is probably in the clear, as neither Apple nor Google are crazy enough to let them have invisible microphone access…

I'm very well aware that low accuracy voice transcription is possible.

But it's naive thinking that having an algorithm equals solving a technical problem. That's not even the problem. Problem is how to deploy it, at scale, without anyone leaking it (both employees and vendors). And hiding it so well, that none of the security researchers will be able to find it. And doing all of that in a way, that they can use it and get value out of it.

And then compare risks of doing with risks and ROI of, for example, improving search accuracy, so people will just come and tell you more about stuff they want.

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

#70

Post by literallyaduck » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 4:47 PM UTC

Work with your state government to outlaw even consensual tracking, include fines, and make fines also apply to the development staff.

The first a step is a "know your developer" act to prevent software creation being anonymous. We have regulation around who can practice medicine, practice law, provide the same regulations to software. Remove the license for developers, business analysts, tech writers and project managers who write code to support tracking. It is easy to write evil code when your are protected by behemoth corporations and their lawyers.