Live data from Hacker News

Ruin My Search History

ruinmysearchhistory.com

121–130 of 211 posts

Re: Ruin My Search History

#121

This is super irresponsible to have on HN. Not funny. Especially for people who live in despot countries. Not sure if the USA counts quite yet.

Well the queries to google use https, so ISPs and government monitors shouldn't be able to see the queries. If you have malware on your computer, or if Google is giving your search history out to despot countries (I don't think they are), you might be worried.

Re: Ruin My Search History

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't people just visit in incognito mode in the first place?

Because that's annoying, history is useful sometimes, and logging in to multiple times to multiple sites is a chore. Edit: grammar

It depends. I have multiple windows (incognito and normal) containing many tabs. It takes copying the URL, Alt+Tab, Ctrl+V, Enter.

History is important, but the site is called "ruinmysearchhistory.com". I visit websites I know with my normal window, the rest is mostly in incognito and if it's something I want to remember, I'll make sure to include it (i.e: visit it in normal mode, Evernote, Bookmarks, email to myself, etc).

Re: Ruin My Search History

#123
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know this for a fact? If the roles were reversed would you delete? Or would you just like and say you did?

(Tedious disclaimer: my opinion only, not speaking for anybody else. I'm an SRE at Google.) I can happily endorse the company's public statements on this subject: personal data will be deleted within the timeframes specified (for obvious technical and that's-a-bad-idea reasons, it's not instant). Part of SRE's function is to arrange for SLAs to be met, including deletion SLAs.

does the data get sent anywhere else before it gets deleted?

Re: Ruin My Search History

#124
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I were in charge of a publicly traded company I most definitely wouldn't want a scandal like that lurking beneath the surface. It would absolutely leak.

The existence of classified programs that remain classified and unknown for years is evidence against this oft-used argument.

ie, datasets that are maintained and properly encrypted in a 'CEUE' (Create Encrypt, Update, Encrypt) app.

Re: Ruin My Search History

#125
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no security expert, but I was under the impression that HSTS pinning would make that hard to do, especially on sites like google.com. And I can't quite parse your sentence to know if you're implying that all companies do... (or just that I shouldn't be so naive as to assume none are), but I can see the cert chain for google.com in my browser at ${big_company} and it doesn't seem like I'm being MITM'd.

You have conflated two technologies - Strict Transport Security, which is a header that tells the browser to stick to TLS connections only. If your admin has deployed a CA that your browser trusts and uses a cert from that CA to MITM your traffic, they will have no problems doing so ;) Certificate pinning, on the other hand, allows a client to refuse to connect to a TLS service that fails to prevent the correct certi…

And not just enterprise use cases. I personally MITM my own https traffic sometimes to see what is going on.

Re: Ruin My Search History

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rule of thumb: if an adversary has physical access to your computer, treat it as compromised.

Okay? I'm very familiar with that principle, but I don't understand how to take that statement and apply it to the situation at hand. No one has ever operated this computer except me (though I did enroll the corp wifi certs). So again, how could I be MITM'd without being aware of it, given HSTS? Yes, someone could have snuck in a hacked copy of Chrome Canary that exposes phony cert chain information... but that's not…

You're fine. It's people using company computers that are being monitored.

Re: Ruin My Search History

#127
post #78
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a weird one yesterday. I went to the New York Times using private browsing and read a single article in the relationship section (something about wedding speeches) and then noticed that the next page I went to 90% of the recommended articles were engagement announcements. I guess things are hard when you only have a single data-point to base recommendations off.

I always find it amusing when you sign up for a service, and then for the next little while, half the ads you see are for that service. "Uh... but I've already signed up..."

So they got the retargeting part right, but forgot to add a second tracking code for those who signed up. "Woops"

Re: Ruin My Search History

#128
post #15
post #10

Use incognito window to see what this is going to do

That protects your saved history but doesn't help with anyone monitoring your searches, like corporate or political overlords.

Well the https should protect them from the government.

Re: Ruin My Search History

#129
post #78
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a weird one yesterday. I went to the New York Times using private browsing and read a single article in the relationship section (something about wedding speeches) and then noticed that the next page I went to 90% of the recommended articles were engagement announcements. I guess things are hard when you only have a single data-point to base recommendations off.

I always find it amusing when you sign up for a service, and then for the next little while, half the ads you see are for that service. "Uh... but I've already signed up..."

It's especially hilarious when you see ads for something while you're using it.

Re: Ruin My Search History

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You bet they do! In the past I have had to manually install my company's certificates as a root CA. The annoying thing was that the certs they use are expired and use SHA-1, so I also had to explicitly tell my browser to trust expired/unsafe certificates as well. All in the name of increased security!

I would quit a job like that, unless there were seriously profound reasons for such a grotesque invasion. 1. There are proper ways to restrict activity without resorting to eavesdropping. 2. If they don't trust you enough to be responsible and use good judgement, you're probably stuck in a dead-end situation anyway. 3. In the more rare scenarios, where you might be operating live-saving or life-threatening equipment,…

Some companies in highly regulated industries intercept, and inspect all traffic purely because it's easier. Though if this raised a flag, and you showed them what link you clicked, any sane IT department would laugh and start sending the link to their friends.
Post reply on HN