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I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

neilzone.co.uk

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Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#231

Post by this-is-why »

bArray wrote: post #6

I was sitting in a room the other day with a young adult, we were searching for additional algorithm learning materials. They searched in Google, and accept the cookies. They clicked on a website, and accepted those cookies too. They then started entering their email address to access another service. I was completely taken aback. I'm the sort of person that either rejects the cookies, or will use another site entire…

Have you noticed half the internet doesn’t work if you use a vpn? Even a good vpn? Even HN wont let you create an account with a vpn. The friction applied to preventing people from deploying privacy tactics is intense. I’m not sure how we can practically resist the privacy enshittification without abandoning the internet and its convenience entirely. I’m ready to go back to paper statements and visiting my bank and writing paper checks, but I don’t think GenZ is.

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#232

Post by xphos »

hedora wrote: post #211
jazzypants wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would an extension work if it didn't have access to the website you're browsing?

Pick one: - Read-only access to cross-tab web site content - Ability to modify web site content - Ability to access the network They can always "access the network" in that the extension developer can push static updates for things like ad block lists or security updates. It might be possible to have "read only" cross-tab access include automation APIs like keyboard + mouse, with user prompting to prevent data exfilt…

That just seems like a lazy capitalism models. We had both 10 years ago without crazy tracking and accept all cookies why do we have for the worst lowest common denominator ?

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#233

Post by ghewgill »

blackcatsec wrote: post #146
asr wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use lights every day, but I know way less about electricity than my grandparents, two of whom who could remember when their town was electrified as children and who therefore treated it as the marvel it truly is. And also because we've worked out a ton of bugs in electricity and it often just works. My kids will know way less about filesystems than I do, because I had to learn DOS commands to navigate around the op…

Or in your scenario, understand the concept of 8.3 file names and why they existed, and when they were removed, and how :P

Sheesh, trigger warning please! I remember the how.

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#234

Post by LPisGood »

devin wrote: post #216
xXSLAYERXx wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feel similarly. And to be honest, even when I do select decline all, I have little confidence that the function does what it says it does.

Yes, I do not have a lot of faith that "essential" cookies are always "essential" for example.

Certainly advertising is essential to the business model.

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#235

Post by autoexec »

cortesoft wrote: post #163
bArray wrote: post #6

I was sitting in a room the other day with a young adult, we were searching for additional algorithm learning materials. They searched in Google, and accept the cookies. They clicked on a website, and accepted those cookies too. They then started entering their email address to access another service. I was completely taken aback. I'm the sort of person that either rejects the cookies, or will use another site entire…

I am in my mid forties, been working as a professional software developer for over 20 years. I click “accept the cookies” almost every time. I just personally don’t feel it’s worth the effort and cost to try to avoid it. What “dark pattern cookie trick” are you worried about? I just can’t come up with a scenario where it will actually harm me in any way. All the examples I have heard are either completely implausible…

> I click “accept the cookies” almost every time. I just personally don’t feel it’s worth the effort and cost to try to avoid it.

the effort and cost to download an ad-blocker that automatically removes the prompt to accept/deny entirely is practically zero and the amount of clicks you'd save yourself would quickly exceed the clicks it took to install the blocker.

> I just don’t think it is something that is worth stressing out about and fighting against. Maybe I am actually naive

It seems like you are, but that's just how our brains work. We're very bad at judging long term and abstract risks, especially when the consequences and their connection to the cause are intentionally kept unclear. For example, when people's cars started collecting data on their driving habits and selling that data to insurance companies a lot of people saw their insurance rates go up, but none of the insurance companies said that it was because of the data collected from their cars. I'd be willing to bet the data being collected by tracking your browsing history has already been screwing you over in various aspects of your life, online and offline, but you won't be told when it happens or why.

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#236

Post by gib444 »

varispeed wrote: post #72
bArray wrote: post #6

I was sitting in a room the other day with a young adult, we were searching for additional algorithm learning materials. They searched in Google, and accept the cookies. They clicked on a website, and accepted those cookies too. They then started entering their email address to access another service. I was completely taken aback. I'm the sort of person that either rejects the cookies, or will use another site entire…

I've been saying this for years. GDPR and Cookie Law were created for big corporations to legitimise data trade where before it was grey area. Now they get consent as people blindly click accept and they can make money. It was never about privacy.

100 percent agreed

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#237

Post by integralid »

esseph wrote: post #144
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t upload a “file” in a “folder” to TikTok. You upload a “video” from your “library”. Consumers have been conditioned to stop thinking about files especially when it comes to media since iTunes and the iPod in 2001.

> files especially when it comes to media since iTunes and the iPod in 2001 As a non-Apple user, this is not something that happened to me. I literally have a "Files" app on my Android phone and my laptop/desktop.

As a technical person, who only ever used Android, I have no idea how files really work on my phone. I even used adb a few times but still. From my PoV there are no "files", just photos, videos, screenshots, downloads, application data, applications and system data - all completely different kinds of data.

In my files app i see "downloads" "images", "videos", "apps", "starred", "safe folder". In "images" i see pictures tagged "downloads", "camera", "DCIM", "screenshots" and one odd "2024-12-03_description_here" that I clearly names myself but don't remember doing that.

I have no clue how that maps to a physical phone filesystem, even though I know it's there. I'm sure teenagers don't know that too.

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#238

Post by sudoshred »

devin wrote: post #216
xXSLAYERXx wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feel similarly. And to be honest, even when I do select decline all, I have little confidence that the function does what it says it does.

Yes, I do not have a lot of faith that "essential" cookies are always "essential" for example.

Essential is contextually defined by whoever implemented the that part of the front-end basically.

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#239

Post by asdfman123 »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #203
thewebguyd wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is, we haven't really created a safer world. We created an illusion of safety by taking away agency. We might be safer in terms of vulnerabilities, root exploits, RCEs, etc. but the internet is still full of malware, scams are still just as rampant. Vigilance is still very much required, but is no longer taught. Look at all the malware available on the Play Store. The curation does nothing but create an i…

It’s absolutely safer browsing the internet now than it was when I was a kid. Getting a virus or equivalent on your phone is no small feat

The late 90s internet was filled with predators, skeeziness, and viruses that would break your computer and require a reformatting.

That stuff is still there if you look for it, but it's not on your social media feeds or in any of the apps provided through app stores.

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#240

Post by cm2012 »

1shooner wrote: post #212
cortesoft wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am in my mid forties, been working as a professional software developer for over 20 years. I click “accept the cookies” almost every time. I just personally don’t feel it’s worth the effort and cost to try to avoid it. What “dark pattern cookie trick” are you worried about? I just can’t come up with a scenario where it will actually harm me in any way. All the examples I have heard are either completely implausible…

First of all, if you don't practice any tracking limitation, you're almost certainly giving additional parties (directly or otherwise) access to your personal information. This is marketing data brokerage, this is the whole ballgame. To your point about the actual harm, I've come to see it as a kind of ecological problem. Wasting energy and sending more trash to a landfill doesn't harm me individually, at least not i…

The effect of that data is serving you better ads. Its not a big deal. Dystopian governments have way better sources of citizen data than anonymized ad exchanges. It basically just powers product discovery in a giant global marketplace.
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