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Online privacy: to what extent should you try to go dark?

cyb3rsecurity.tips

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Re: Online privacy: to what extent should you try to go dark?

#41

Post by AlexanderTheGr8 »

woojoo666 wrote: post #38
AlexanderTheGr8 wrote: post #33

I have a different perspective and a question for HN. We always ask how to prevent corporations from surveilling us. How about letting them surveil BUT giving incorrect information? Intentionally do things (manually or automated) that gives them completely incorrect information about you. Avoiding surveillance is becoming very hard. But giving incorrect information is very easy.

The only tool I know of like this is Ad Nauseum [1] [1]: https://adnauseam.io/

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing. There was another tool called something like "noisify". It intentionally visited random websites or clicked on random links to trip up any algorithm tracking you. That idea was fascinating.

Re: Online privacy: to what extent should you try to go dark?

#42

Post by woojoo666 »

doubleunplussed wrote: post #31
defrost wrote: post #22

FWiW Greg Egan has had a good run - 40 years online, 10+ novels, many short stories, Hugo and Campbell awards (and others) . . . and yet: No verified images nor any evidence that is indeed his real name.

I always assumed it was his real name, but I suppose that was just an unexamined assumption. Gwern Branwen is a prolific [1] netizen who is also completely anonymous. I don't know how people like him [2] do it. Surely the people who know him IRL are aware of what he's working on day-to-day and someone would be able to connect the dots. Unless he lives alone or his housemates are completely offline - and he doesn't ta…

iirc lots of Japanese manga artists are also anonymous. Like the author of the recently popular Jujutsu Kaisen series [1], who appeared on TV wearing a mask of one of his characters [2]

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gege_Akutami

[2]: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2021-01-27/gege-ak...

Re: Online privacy: to what extent should you try to go dark?

#43

Post by usernomdeguerre »

AlexanderTheGr8 wrote: post #33

I have a different perspective and a question for HN. We always ask how to prevent corporations from surveilling us. How about letting them surveil BUT giving incorrect information? Intentionally do things (manually or automated) that gives them completely incorrect information about you. Avoiding surveillance is becoming very hard. But giving incorrect information is very easy.

A gotcha that I think's lurking here is that there's no opportunity to appeal the classifications you're bucketed into. Meaning that even if you give 'it' incorrect data, the way you get bucketed could still have a negative impact on your life.

Hypothetical, imagine your fake profile indicates you are a minority in some demographic dimension that is now out of favor politically. The dragnet would not really care if it happens to be true for you or not.

I'm recalling the Turkish cleansing of a local religious sect from all government jobs when its two leaders had a falling-out. This could happen in any country, imo.

Re: Online privacy: to what extent should you try to go dark?

#44

Post by spunker540 »

fragmede wrote: post #20
Barrin92 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>either individually or collectively anonymously or not, gives them power over us in many ways to predict, manipulate, dispossess The thing is, is that actually true? What always comes to mind for me is the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which involved their self-declared 'psychometric targeting', which it turned out, after scientists did some studies had a measurable effect of zero on people's behaviour[1]. People lov…

If you think you're not being manipulated, you're deluded. Advertising works . It worked before the Internet and there's even more of it now. We do still have individual agency but don't you want a cool refreshing Coca-Cola right about now?

Nobody is denying advertising works. But most of the time ads are trying to win you over vs competitors in the market. Most of it is predicated on the fact that you are in the market for something, and they want you to choose them over someone else. I doubt coca-cola is targeting non-soda drinkers in their advertisements. But they want you to pick coke over Pepsi.

Even if you create an open source drug that cures cancer and give it away for free, you’re gonna need a marketing campaign so that doctors know about it, or that patients know to ask their doctor about it. Not because you’re malicious and trying to manipulate people but because otherwise people who would benefit from your product won’t know it exists.

Re: Online privacy: to what extent should you try to go dark?

#45

Post by defrost »

doubleunplussed wrote: post #31
defrost wrote: post #22

FWiW Greg Egan has had a good run - 40 years online, 10+ novels, many short stories, Hugo and Campbell awards (and others) . . . and yet: No verified images nor any evidence that is indeed his real name.

I always assumed it was his real name, but I suppose that was just an unexamined assumption. Gwern Branwen is a prolific [1] netizen who is also completely anonymous. I don't know how people like him [2] do it. Surely the people who know him IRL are aware of what he's working on day-to-day and someone would be able to connect the dots. Unless he lives alone or his housemates are completely offline - and he doesn't ta…

Like Greg I'm also a circa 60 year old W.Australian STEM arena coder/weddings/parties/anything person.

It's a bit of a state wide trait to be general while leaving a semi challenging last mile problem.

Having a capital city described by early US personnal in orbit as "the most remote city in the world" leads to a mild village syndrome when outsiders come asking for .. who wants to know & how come you don't know already?

As for gender, roughly a third of the math | physics | comp sci staff were female in the early 1980s (Cheryl E Praeger and others) and a number spent the early Usenet days with nome de guerra to sidestep the complications.

Re: Online privacy: to what extent should you try to go dark?

#46

Post by AlexanderTheGr8 »

usernomdeguerre wrote: post #43
AlexanderTheGr8 wrote: post #33

I have a different perspective and a question for HN. We always ask how to prevent corporations from surveilling us. How about letting them surveil BUT giving incorrect information? Intentionally do things (manually or automated) that gives them completely incorrect information about you. Avoiding surveillance is becoming very hard. But giving incorrect information is very easy.

A gotcha that I think's lurking here is that there's no opportunity to appeal the classifications you're bucketed into. Meaning that even if you give 'it' incorrect data, the way you get bucketed could still have a negative impact on your life. Hypothetical, imagine your fake profile indicates you are a minority in some demographic dimension that is now out of favor politically. The dragnet would not really care if i…

Interesting point. I guess one way to avoid that could be making them believe that you are on their (govts) side? Intentionally click on pro-govt websites, etc.

If there is a conflict and you don't know who will come out on top, either support both of them (one actual support and one fake) or don't support either of them.

Either way, I believe that this topic of giving incorrect information is worth looking more into.

Re: Online privacy: to what extent should you try to go dark?

#47

Post by ambrose2 »

night-rider wrote: post #19

The extent can mean doing basic things like installing and AD blocker, using a password manager, surfing in isolated sessions (incognito mode) to stop cookie tracking and to leave no forensic artefact on your device, always posting with pseudonyms, using privacy-aware operating systems like Linux, etc Then you have the extreme options available like Tor, using Qubes, GrapheneOS on your phone, changing your legal name…

Is your middle ground the same as what you listed in basic things? You always surf in incognito mode?

Re: Online privacy: to what extent should you try to go dark?

#48

Post by defrost »

AlexanderTheGr8 wrote: post #33

I have a different perspective and a question for HN. We always ask how to prevent corporations from surveilling us. How about letting them surveil BUT giving incorrect information? Intentionally do things (manually or automated) that gives them completely incorrect information about you. Avoiding surveillance is becoming very hard. But giving incorrect information is very easy.

IIRC the Brave browser is fuzzing "unique id" browser properties (screen resolution, CPU, language, time zone) to spread the users browsing fingerprints wider.

Re: Online privacy: to what extent should you try to go dark?

#49

Post by usernomdeguerre »

spunker540 wrote: post #44
fragmede wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think you're not being manipulated, you're deluded. Advertising works . It worked before the Internet and there's even more of it now. We do still have individual agency but don't you want a cool refreshing Coca-Cola right about now?

Nobody is denying advertising works. But most of the time ads are trying to win you over vs competitors in the market. Most of it is predicated on the fact that you are in the market for something, and they want you to choose them over someone else. I doubt coca-cola is targeting non-soda drinkers in their advertisements. But they want you to pick coke over Pepsi. Even if you create an open source drug that cures can…

I think the mechanism of advertising is more fundamental than that, I think it's intimately hooked into the same path as spaced repetition.

I feel Marketing isn't so much crafted to compete with other signals on any merits but rather crafted to compete with recall.

Once a message hooks into an effective spaced repetition pattern it doesn't matter which is the 'better' product; because you'll search first for the one you recall the easiest. At which point it's an entirely different marketing team who tries to make the sale.

My opinion is that some companies craft messages to carry additional product metadata not because it's a necessary component of advertising but because they think it makes it simpler to recall.

I think this is evidenced by more than a handful of marketing campaigns that don't explain their product at all in any meaningful way and yet still enjoy immense popularity.

All that to say I think the worries alluded to by fragmede are justifiable, since the mechanism of impact could involve so little personal agency.

Re: Online privacy: to what extent should you try to go dark?

#50

Post by photochemsyn »

fragmede wrote: post #20
Barrin92 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>either individually or collectively anonymously or not, gives them power over us in many ways to predict, manipulate, dispossess The thing is, is that actually true? What always comes to mind for me is the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which involved their self-declared 'psychometric targeting', which it turned out, after scientists did some studies had a measurable effect of zero on people's behaviour[1]. People lov…

If you think you're not being manipulated, you're deluded. Advertising works . It worked before the Internet and there's even more of it now. We do still have individual agency but don't you want a cool refreshing Coca-Cola right about now?

IIRC a liter of Coca-Cola contains ~120g of sugar, and they need to add phosphoric acid to make it all go into solution. In fact, so much phosphoric acid that it makes a good de-rusting agent, i.e. any iron oxide (rust) will, after being soaked in Coca-Cola overnight, be converted to iron phosphate, which is easily removed with a light scrub. In addition, regularly consuming that much sugar puts you at high risk for type II diabetes, heart disease due to obesity, liver malfunction, and probably other things.

So no, absolutely do not want to drink what amounts to a toxic industrial solvent... though I did drink the stuff as a teenager before I learned all that, I must admit.

Point being, such advertising only works that effectively if you have a dumbed-down population ignorant of science, math, history and similar matters.

Here's a viable conspiracy theory, on that could very well be true: the attacks on American public education over the past 40 years are part of a deliberate effort to create a dumbed down population more susceptible to manipulation by corporate advertisers and state propagandists.

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