Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Fogging your Google search history with Python and Reddit

howlroundmusic.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 53 posts

Re: Fogging your Google search history with Python and Reddit

#41

Post by nerdponx »

zhan_eg wrote: post #13

Well in fact if you check a section of your Google profile (Ads Settings) [0] you can turn off Ads based on your interests which will result it: You will still see ads and they may be based on your general location (such as city or state) Ads will not be based on data Google has associated with your Google Account, and so may be less relevant You will no longer be able to edit your interests All the advertising inter…

Note that they never state they aren't still caching and selling your data. They just aren't showing you ads based on it.

Re: Fogging your Google search history with Python and Reddit

#42

Post by eth0up »

blakesterz wrote: post #8
eth0up wrote: post #2

Reminds me a bit of Marlinspike's Google Sharing: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/it-security/googlesharing-a... The concept of hurling garbage into the all-seeing-eye is a good one and I hope it gains sustained popularity.

>> The concept of hurling garbage into the all-seeing-eye is a good one and I hope it gains sustained popularity. So this is a genuine question, because I don't get it. How is that good? What does it accomplish exactly that makes someone safer or more private on any realistic level? I understand the point at a high level, but what does that actually do for a person on a practical level? Like... "I hurl all this garba…

I'll try to explain my own reasoning. While "good" may not be the epitome of eloquence on my part, it could in this case be viewed similarly to the subjective manner in which one might say "That music sounds good", or a proposal that "sounds good" because it achieves something I perceive as in my favor. As a privacy advocate, I resent the collection and exploitation of my personal activities and communications, regardless of TOS, etc. I also don't view people as units of profit or as something to exploit to my advantage through non-cooperative means. I find it very strange that so many are willing to accept from strangers, agencies and corporations what they would aggressively protest from an individual. For myself, the unauthorized collection and use of what I prefer to remain private is, regardless of legalese, intrusive and bothersome. The difficulties involved in avoiding this bother are formidable, and in some ways overwhelming. If I can passively convolute the acquisition of this data, it is "good" because it hinders something hostile to my sense of well being. I should clarify that I don't believe that such data is used exclusively for marketing.

Regarding the sentence you found difficult to complete, I'll try:

"I hurl all this garbage at Google and now I'm better off because...." I am impeding something that I protest. I have no reason to believe that such collected data will be used responsibly, nor am I convinced that if it was, it would be innocuous. Just as I don't want my every thought read aloud, neither do I want my every curiosity, concern or inquiry. To the best of my observations, we are not living in a utopia where altruism and goodwill take precedence over profit and personal interests. Our society scarcely has affordable healthcare. Our society is still a brutal one, where such brutality is often administered based not on one's character, but on their finances. America has a thriving private prison industry with a startling portion of inmates incarcerated for victimless crimes. America freely engages in highly dubious wars that cost many innocent lives. The world is still a work in progress. I believe we all have a lot of work to do on our selves as individuals and a species, and before making careers out of furtively siphoning personal data from our fellow citizens for purposes of exploitation, we ought look in the mirror a bit longer. I don't think that's Google's (nor their partners'/clients') plan, despite the ostensibly "good" things they do. I do not believe humanity has evolved through the virtue of smartphones and petroleum to suddenly within one generation have permanently excoriated the dictators and tyrants of the world from itself. Whether I am in error or not, this data is connected to that which is personal to me, therefore if I can confuse it, it is good.

Re: Fogging your Google search history with Python and Reddit

#43

Post by drvdevd »

tedunangst wrote: post #11
eth0up wrote: post #2

Reminds me a bit of Marlinspike's Google Sharing: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/it-security/googlesharing-a... The concept of hurling garbage into the all-seeing-eye is a good one and I hope it gains sustained popularity.

Posit that the government wants to round up all the pressure cooker searchers. Now, instead of one searcher, they have a conspiracy of a dozen pressure cooker searchers. Are they going to just shrug their shoulders and say oh well? The idea that it's possible to overflow the governments secret lists is founded on the idea that the government cares if a list gets too long. I'm not sure that's the case.

We also have to consider the (near future?) implications of machine learning on sifting through the "noise" that is generated with tools like this. In fact, by knowing that one is using such a tool, one could envision a scenario where this data adds more information about the user and not less - in particular about everything that one is not actually searching for or what OS the user is actually using. Consider that just clicking on a random search link with a browser automation engine probably doesn't look like a real user browsing without considerable effort on the developers part. Here we arrive at counter ML :)

Re: Fogging your Google search history with Python and Reddit

#44

Post by drvdevd »

nop80 wrote: post #37

Whilst I don't disagree with increasing privacy, as a general solution for everybody into the future this method seems a bit brute force and possibly disruptive. If you only use Google search, and don't use other Google services, aren't you simply an IP address to Google? If so, I don't see the harm in the knowing of search trends by geolocation. At the end of the day, we all have a price for convenience - I knowingl…

One issue is just that unless you work for Google (and maybe even if you do) -- you can't know exactly what kind of data structure(s) you are to Google (or any other service provider, large and small). You could be just an IP address, or an IP address and a User-agent or all of the above and then some other crazy stuff, like a browser canvas profile and operating system and age/race/income/sex... no one on the outside of a black box knows for sure exactly how it operates.

Re: Fogging your Google search history with Python and Reddit

#46

Post by anexprogrammer »

petulanta wrote: post #22

See the TrackMeNot Chrome extension which does the same thing (also supports multiple search engines). I don't know how it affects Google ads though. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/trackmenot/cgllkjm...

There's a similar extension for ads - https://adnauseam.io/

Works with uBlock Origin and sends a click to everything blocked.

Re: Fogging your Google search history with Python and Reddit

#47

Post by dx034 »

nerdponx wrote: post #41
zhan_eg wrote: post #13

Well in fact if you check a section of your Google profile (Ads Settings) [0] you can turn off Ads based on your interests which will result it: You will still see ads and they may be based on your general location (such as city or state) Ads will not be based on data Google has associated with your Google Account, and so may be less relevant You will no longer be able to edit your interests All the advertising inter…

Note that they never state they aren't still caching and selling your data. They just aren't showing you ads based on it.

Google isn't selling your data. They'd never do that. They make nearly all their money with advertising because they have so much good data to target ads. If they sold this data they'd lose their competitive advantage.

It doesn't matter if Google is good or evil, selling user data to other companies would be a very bad business decision in both cases.

Re: Fogging your Google search history with Python and Reddit

#48

Post by dx034 »

anexprogrammer wrote: post #46
petulanta wrote: post #22

See the TrackMeNot Chrome extension which does the same thing (also supports multiple search engines). I don't know how it affects Google ads though. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/trackmenot/cgllkjm...

There's a similar extension for ads - https://adnauseam.io/ Works with uBlock Origin and sends a click to everything blocked.

That sounds amazing. And great for website owners, they'll get paid! Any experience with it? Don't want to lose my google account because of that.

Re: Fogging your Google search history with Python and Reddit

#49

Post by WA »

I think it's pointless.

a) You'd have to keep this up and running forever.

b) You are essentially trying to game a machine learning algorithm, which weights and factors in so many signals, it's impossible to know. If you think you can game this system, SEO should be child's play for you.

c) Google probably has a profile of your personality already (such as the OCEAN model), because it can be derived from few signals such as a bunch of Facebook likes or whatever you type in the search slot. Because personality doesn't really change, your profile is set in stone for the future.

The only slight upside of this is: Google has to use this data about you, reach about to you or sell it to other people who reach out to you. To some extend, an ad blocker goes a long way, because then people can't target you specifically, despite having many information about you. But ultimately, you never know what kind of "content" is brought to you based on your personality and actions. Maybe it'd be even sane to assume that personal interaction with strangers could be motivated by means you don't understand.

Re: Fogging your Google search history with Python and Reddit

#50

Post by dvfjsdhgfv »

WA wrote: post #49

I think it's pointless. a) You'd have to keep this up and running forever. b) You are essentially trying to game a machine learning algorithm, which weights and factors in so many signals, it's impossible to know. If you think you can game this system, SEO should be child's play for you. c) Google probably has a profile of your personality already (such as the OCEAN model), because it can be derived from few signals…

a) The requirement of running it forever doesn't make it pointless. b) 1. Not knowing the outcome doesn't mean it's not worth trying. 2. It's not entirely true - SEO is about getting your phrase as close to the initial position as possible in an ecosystem with many contending players, whereas this is about introducing noise in your personal data. c) I beg to differ. When the signals change, why shouldn't the profile change?
Post reply on HN