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Audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google

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Re: Audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google

#11
I consider myself very privacy conscious, bordering on the paranoid. I use FOSS as much as possible, avoid FAANG, and remove surveillance from my life wherever I can.

This tool shocked me. It exposes in a visceral way just how prevalent Google is, and does a better job getting that idea across than every video, article, post or comment I've consumed on the topic.

Re: Audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google

#12

Not to make excuses for Google, but is this an entirely accurate portrayal? Like, I've been working on a web project that doesn't contain any analytics, but which stores and retrieves JSON data in Google Firebase. I imagine if I opened my website with this tool, I would hear lots of noise. But, I just can't imagine how Google could do anything useful (to them) with my random JSON blobs.

> But I can't imagine Google would know how to do anything useful (to them) with my random JSON blobs.

They're not interested in the blobs, but in the people accessing them. Their whole suite of "free" developer tools (google analytics, google fonts, firebase, ...) are just a means to get information about what people do online.

Re: Audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google

#13

A common explanation I get from people with poor digital hygiene is that they do not see how it is affecting them. Making the imperceptible perceptible is a great concept for more innovations. I have sent the kids in my house logs for their devices from the DNS blocker I have running on our network, but it was too much for them to digest. Perhaps I should work on a visualization tool of all the data that shows impact…

Maybe you could make a game out of it. The one with the least amount of request each (or whatever metric works) gets rewarded in some way and give them a dashboard to check progress.

Not sure what negative side effects that could cause though, but i see some positives like using less social media, or learning how to cheat the system in clever ways.

Re: Audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google

#14
post #7

Did anyone get it working on MacOS? I couldn't find the audio library in homebrew and gave up.

You can reference it the same way espeak does https://github.com/danielbair/homebrew-tap/blob/0550bfcd3b11... (tap that repo, then install)

Re: Audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google

#15
post #12

Not to make excuses for Google, but is this an entirely accurate portrayal? Like, I've been working on a web project that doesn't contain any analytics, but which stores and retrieves JSON data in Google Firebase. I imagine if I opened my website with this tool, I would hear lots of noise. But, I just can't imagine how Google could do anything useful (to them) with my random JSON blobs.

> But I can't imagine Google would know how to do anything useful (to them) with my random JSON blobs. They're not interested in the blobs, but in the people accessing them. Their whole suite of "free" developer tools (google analytics, google fonts, firebase, ...) are just a means to get information about what people do online.

> They're not interested in the blobs, but in the people accessing them

But if they don't know what the blobs are, how does this help them? What can they tie it to?

The latitude and longitude coordinates of my current location have an sha1 hash of 0950e97d3a2e4839e39ad27deb2e852d498100ae. Is this useful information?

Re: Audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google

#16
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I can't imagine Google would know how to do anything useful (to them) with my random JSON blobs. They're not interested in the blobs, but in the people accessing them. Their whole suite of "free" developer tools (google analytics, google fonts, firebase, ...) are just a means to get information about what people do online.

> They're not interested in the blobs, but in the people accessing them But if they don't know what the blobs are, how does this help them? What can they tie it to? The latitude and longitude coordinates of my current location have an sha1 hash of 0950e97d3a2e4839e39ad27deb2e852d498100ae. Is this useful information?

In isolation, no. But given enough other actors that use the same firebase + can be tracked by adsense, they can infer connections useful for targeting you.

Re: Audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google

#17

A common explanation I get from people with poor digital hygiene is that they do not see how it is affecting them. Making the imperceptible perceptible is a great concept for more innovations. I have sent the kids in my house logs for their devices from the DNS blocker I have running on our network, but it was too much for them to digest. Perhaps I should work on a visualization tool of all the data that shows impact…

Most adults' eyes glaze over when looking at access logs, so I couldn't imagine kids being interested. (Maybe your kids are grown, but the visual from first read didn't come across that way).

Charts and graphs are the only way people not interested in data can even remotely become interested. If it's good enough for FPOTUS, then it should be a compelling enough reason to complete your idea.

Re: Audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google

#20
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I can't imagine Google would know how to do anything useful (to them) with my random JSON blobs. They're not interested in the blobs, but in the people accessing them. Their whole suite of "free" developer tools (google analytics, google fonts, firebase, ...) are just a means to get information about what people do online.

> They're not interested in the blobs, but in the people accessing them But if they don't know what the blobs are, how does this help them? What can they tie it to? The latitude and longitude coordinates of my current location have an sha1 hash of 0950e97d3a2e4839e39ad27deb2e852d498100ae. Is this useful information?

Don't you need a proprietary firebase SDK in your app to use it? Do you know what data are included in the requests? I would argue that anything as simple as IP + UA/OSidentifier can be of interest to Google
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