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CBP tapped into the online advertising ecosystem to track peoples’ movements
151–160 of 217 posts
Re: CBP tapped into the online advertising ecosystem to track peoples’ movements
#152I have never regretted my decision to aggressively block ads on every device I use, and to shun devices where I can't.
The Web is utterly unusable without uBlock Origin.
uBlock Origin does not protect you from this, this is a fingerprinting problem. You need to use a fingerprinting resistant browser. And even then, there are new fingerprinting methods emerging frequently and you can't prevent fingerprinting from inside apps on android/iOs..
Most slop mobile applications, that many people have on their phones are basically spyware pretending to be games/whatever.
Programatic advertising technology was created for intelligence purposes, these companies and their methods are very sophisticated.
Re: CBP tapped into the online advertising ecosystem to track peoples’ movements
#153Israeli malware companies also use targeted ads to use drive-by exploits to infect people's devices using ad networks based on IP addresses: https://securitylab.amnesty.org/latest/2025/12/intellexa-lea... The fact that we still just allow arbitrary 3rd party code to run through ad networks is bizarre.
> The fact that we still just allow arbitrary 3rd party code to run through ad networks is bizarre. It's interesting to imagine how things would change if those ad-networks were legally liable for their role in spreading scams and malware.
Ad networks yes. Also the website operators and application developers.
Re: CBP tapped into the online advertising ecosystem to track peoples’ movements
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
The root of all evil is that we don't have a functioning micro transaction network and we don't know how to build one. For the user there is no way to pay the 0.0000001c that it takes to load a web page, for the web master there is no way to get paid the $10,000 it takes to serve the users. So we settled on advertising which can somewhat cover those costs since each individual add is basically worthless but an add ca…
The lightning network supports transactions starting from 1 Satoshi. One Satoshi is currently worth $0.000713.
So what's the transaction fees to make 1e9 one satoshi payments and how long until they clear?
Re: CBP tapped into the online advertising ecosystem to track peoples’ movements
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am not sure that ad blocking is enough now or in the future as fingerprinting is extremely hard to fight while keeping a convenient web experience. Of course, continue blocking for convenience, but for privacy, more robust solutions are needed. Try to beat this: https://fingerprint.com
The EFF's fingerprint test is nice in that it breaks down a lot of the bits of data used, and lets you know how you compare etc: > https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/ You quickly discover how difficult it really is to avoid a unique fingerprint. Lots of folks in this thread are focusing on DNS and VPN to avoid detection, which of course can help, but a huge number of identifiable bits come from your browser's APIs: User…
In Tor got: "Our tests indicate that you have you have strong protection against Web tracking."
In normal Firefox: "uBlock Origin has prevented the following page from loading:
https://eviltracker.net/kcarter-reporting-nojs?a="
In normal Firefox with 'real tracking company' ON (default): "uBlock Origin has prevented the following page from loading:
https://trackersimulator.org/kcarter-reporting-nojs"
Sort of failed?
Re: CBP tapped into the online advertising ecosystem to track peoples’ movements
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Web is utterly unusable without uBlock Origin.
Honestly, ublock isn't even enough anymore. DNS sinkholes are the next layer, since they work device-wide. I use nextdns.io, and it's good enough that I just keep ublock around in case I need to disable nextdns for some reason.
How is DNS going to prevent javascript/css/tls fingerprinting? Its a good thing to do, but its not preventing you from being identified and tracked.
Re: CBP tapped into the online advertising ecosystem to track peoples’ movements
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
The EFF's fingerprint test is nice in that it breaks down a lot of the bits of data used, and lets you know how you compare etc: > https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/ You quickly discover how difficult it really is to avoid a unique fingerprint. Lots of folks in this thread are focusing on DNS and VPN to avoid detection, which of course can help, but a huge number of identifiable bits come from your browser's APIs: User…
In Tor got: "Our tests indicate that you have you have strong protection against Web tracking." In normal Firefox: "uBlock Origin has prevented the following page from loading: https://eviltracker.net/kcarter-reporting-nojs?a= " In normal Firefox with 'real tracking company' ON (default): "uBlock Origin has prevented the following page from loading: https://trackersimulator.org/kcarter-reporting-nojs " Sort of failed…
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Re: CBP tapped into the online advertising ecosystem to track peoples’ movements
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
The root of all evil is that we don't have a functioning micro transaction network and we don't know how to build one. For the user there is no way to pay the 0.0000001c that it takes to load a web page, for the web master there is no way to get paid the $10,000 it takes to serve the users. So we settled on advertising which can somewhat cover those costs since each individual add is basically worthless but an add ca…
The lightning network supports transactions starting from 1 Satoshi. One Satoshi is currently worth $0.000713.
And how do you actually identify who should pay that $0.000713? And who should receive it? How do you make the process effortless, so the user doesn't have to spend 5 minutes registering on a website, just to send $0.000713?
Now make it work 10,000 times per day, for every page you visit, posts, news, short form content you scroll, long form video you watch. And multiply this by billions of users.
And once you've done that, how do you deal with spam, bots? How do you prevent invalid traffic? Fraudulent chargebacks? And how do you take quality into consideration (NYT prob want to charge more than my crappy personal blog)?
Transferring money is one small element of large and complex equation.
Advertising is not perfect, but it's the best alternative for a free and open web I have seen in my 30+ years online. Subscription works for large ticket items (and for the affluent minority), but it doesn't solve the other 95% of cases.
Re: CBP tapped into the online advertising ecosystem to track peoples’ movements
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
And you do realize your cellphone is constantly sharing your location with your cell phone company which is more than willing to give it to the government without a warrant. Whatever you are doing is meaningless privacy theatre
This makes sense to me but then why is CBP here needing/wanting to pay for ad data if they can just ask the ISPs/cell phone companies?
Paying doesn’t have the legal justification requirements that asking does, and it’s faster.
Re: CBP tapped into the online advertising ecosystem to track peoples’ movements
#160I have never regretted my decision to aggressively block ads on every device I use, and to shun devices where I can't.
You will also want to turn off things like weather widgets, basically anything that hits an external service.