If the takehome message is "run an ad-blocker with your Tor Browser, to be safe", hopefully bad people believe that, and good people don't.
NSA tracks Google ads to find Tor users
41–50 of 71 posts
Re: NSA tracks Google ads to find Tor users
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only way to anonymize it enough, also defeating any attempt at cookie/malware injection to me would be to create a VM with the strict necessary to run Tor browser and clone it for single use, that is, a script that clones the VM, opens it, let you use Tor browser, then as you close the browser the VM is also closed and deleted. The script could also create the next VM changing bits here and there for added anonym…
This is largely the motivation for TAILS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tails_(operating_system) And also Whonix: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whonix Using the DVD image in a VM would largely suffice for most users. For even more security, you would use the live image on a throwaway laptop at a coffee shop or something, but that's not exactly practical for everyday use.
I remember I used immutable VMs for a lot of testing - those reset to the last saved state when shut down and made a lot of tests more easily repeatable. This is a sensible thing to do for privacy as well - any cookies you gain during your session you shed on reboot.
Re: NSA tracks Google ads to find Tor users
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh, we're in that discussion. I have yet to see a valid argument for advertising of any sort that outweighs the negatives that the industry currently displays. We're well beyond the arguments for the recommendation graphs and the open market. Adtech, as it's currently practiced, is basically rage farming in disguise. Gotta maximise that emotional quotient.
> We're well beyond the arguments for the recommendation graphs and the open market. Why? If people prefer these options, I don't see how forcing them into an alternative is any better. People on X could enjoy a free experience with no ads if they used Mastodon instead, but they actively seek out X. They want an ads-included package because they feel that the value is stronger than the alternatives. I despise ads, bu…
We passively seek out community, and X is one such. The advertising ROI on X is probably dropping rapidly as we speak. I regard this as a good thing.
Re: NSA tracks Google ads to find Tor users
#44Imagine the world without internet ads. Journalism wouldn't be a click bait race to the bottom, news would still be relatively unbiased, and the nsa would have one less massive vector to track you with. I'm honestly just waiting for people to realise that online ads are the root cause of most of the things people complain about. Fake news? Check Surveillance state? Check Screen addiction? Check Lack of nuance in any…
Sure. But it's also an Internet without a lot of the web sites people enjoy.
If it ends the "brainwashing" it would be because people would not be on the Internet at all. And maybe that's a net good for the world. But here are you and me, on a web site that is itself basically an advertisement for a VC firm.
Re: NSA tracks Google ads to find Tor users
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
what is this program called? The fact that we tolerate this shit is unbelievable.
> The fact that we tolerate this shit is unbelievable. The fact that we tolerate it is relatively expected; the fact that Snowden leaked 90% of this stuff a decade ago and nobody cares is what's unbelievable. We kinda deserve to be surveilled if this kind of apathy is what dominates our behavior and executive function.
> nobody cares is what's unbelievable
Approximately zero Americans think this affects them, and the usual tropes "If you have nothing to hide, why do you use curtains?" result in "That's different, duh."
A few are split whether they care Ring video is available to law enforcement, most think it's a benefit.
Interestingly, all care quite a lot whether an AirBnB host has cameras inside the property. Privacy suddenly matters.
At the same time, most shrug if you assert the government has all their emails and social messaging, in a "What are you gonna do?" and "If they want to read all that more power to 'em…" way.
For people to care about most anything abstract, they must believe it affects them personally, and be able to both picture and believe a credible bad outcome.
While the AirBnB creep works, it seems everything else is filed under "That's about someone else, not me."
Re: NSA tracks Google ads to find Tor users
#46Key takeaways.
“The NSA buys ads from ad display companies like Google and seeds them around Tor's access points.”
"On the off chance that [the spam recipient] renders the HTML or clicks a link, [the NSA] can connect your e-mail address to your browser," he explained, which the NSA would have already connected to an IP address. "Using Tor or any proxy wouldn't prevent it."
Re: NSA tracks Google ads to find Tor users
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
But ads are an inevitable effect, no matter if they are online or "offline", except if you think that ads should be prohibited which would turn to a different discussion.
Oh, we're in that discussion. I have yet to see a valid argument for advertising of any sort that outweighs the negatives that the industry currently displays. We're well beyond the arguments for the recommendation graphs and the open market. Adtech, as it's currently practiced, is basically rage farming in disguise. Gotta maximise that emotional quotient.
My comment was neither against or in favor of ads, I have a bad feeling with ads like everyone else but that doesn't mean that I think I should prohibit them.
Re: NSA tracks Google ads to find Tor users
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
You only have to mess up once. Google has programs where they can identify budding extremists and correlate behavior to medical diagnoses without HIPAA exposure. If your secret weird shit that you’re doing with Tor is of interest, they’ll eventually get a profile. Using Tor is like setting off the bat signal.
what is this program called? The fact that we tolerate this shit is unbelievable.
Yes, literally unbelievable because it doesn't exist.
Re: NSA tracks Google ads to find Tor users
#49Imagine the world without internet ads. Journalism wouldn't be a click bait race to the bottom, news would still be relatively unbiased, and the nsa would have one less massive vector to track you with. I'm honestly just waiting for people to realise that online ads are the root cause of most of the things people complain about. Fake news? Check Surveillance state? Check Screen addiction? Check Lack of nuance in any…
There's an even deeper foundation to this problem: copyright.
Artists must get paid, or they will either starve or stop making art.
This is the fundamental threat we have structured our entire civilization around. Art must be labor. Labor must have monetary value. Without income, people must starve and die.
To support this system, we have the most untenable law of the digital age: copyright. The most trivial act, to copy data, shall be monopolized.
But copyright didn't stop there. It grew. We use it to censor. We use it to moderate. We use it to end fraud. We use it to prevent libel. We use it to guarantee collaboration of work. Copyright has become the swiss army knife of law.
When a dull knife slips, it cuts deep.
Re: NSA tracks Google ads to find Tor users
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Autodelete is old tech if you ask me. If you open the sites before the autodelete happens, then the tracking still happens. Temporary Containers is an addon that solves this elegantly.
This may be dumb: Wouldnt an "AI-Container-as-A-Browser" be nifty: Create a container that runs with an AI agent that does your browsing "for you" whereby it does the connection, cookie management, anonymously tor' wrapping as required/set/needed such that you have an abstraction between you and all your browsing, and the browser can dev/null the ads and never let them render and poison the reply with synthetic data…
That really is like how Stallman is described to use the internet, just with AI.
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