Verizon revives "zombie cookie" device tracking on AOL's ad network • Hacker News Board

Re: Verizon revives "zombie cookie" device tracking on AOL's ad network

#51

Post by dredmorbius » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 10:52 PM UTC

_-__--- wrote: post #5

jameshart wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Run everything from the phone through a VPN over iCloud servers, so all traffic from every iPhone in the world hits the internet as if it comes out of Cupertino? Install Tor as an OS-level feature?

Tor as an OS-level feature may not spark the best reaction. It's been given a bad name ("deep web," silk road, etc) in mass media and many people don't understand it enough to think of it as anything other than bad. I think that it'd be cool to have, but I don't think that Apple would ever implement it.

Installing it (and utilising it) as a default, pro-user, privacy-preserving tool would do a lot to improve its public perception.

Re: Verizon revives "zombie cookie" device tracking on AOL's ad network

#52

Post by teaneedz » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 10:52 PM UTC

lukev wrote: post #40

So I have a VPN I use already on my iPhone for sensitive things. Seems like I should use it all the time. Is it possible to make a VPN connection mandatory on a consumer iPhone? It's really a pain having to reconnect manually after I haven't used it for a few minutes.

F-Secure's FreedomeVPN is a great persistent VPN service that also runs anti-tracking and other security features. The iOS app runs great and always connects over VPN.

Re: Verizon revives "zombie cookie" device tracking on AOL's ad network

#53

Post by plaguuuuuu » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 10:55 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #12

_-__--- wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tor as an OS-level feature may not spark the best reaction. It's been given a bad name ("deep web," silk road, etc) in mass media and many people don't understand it enough to think of it as anything other than bad. I think that it'd be cool to have, but I don't think that Apple would ever implement it.

I never dreamed Apple would in any way officially support, or even acknowledge the existence of, ad blocking.

Google makes money from ads, and now Microsoft is shifting towards that strategy with Win 10 being free etc. Apple on the other hand makes money from hardware, app store, 30% or whatever it is on ebooks and inapp purchases. I'm not really THAT surprised - only so much as I thought Apple would want a slice out of both pies, but it stands to reason that they can bleed much more from Google by blocking ads than they could gain from partnering with (or creating) ad networks.

Re: Verizon revives "zombie cookie" device tracking on AOL's ad network

#54

Post by kbenson » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 10:57 PM UTC

drumdance wrote: post #46

devit wrote: post #6

They should be sued for that. There is no way most customers are informed and intentionally consenting to them tampering with the HTTP requests they send to include their customer ID. The obvious expectation of a customer of an ISP is that it sends the data through unchanged.

It's on page 73, section 4, subsection i) of the terms of service.

It's very sad that I don't know whether you are joking because it's entirely plausible that they both have this in their TOS, and that their TOS is over 70 pages long.

Re: Verizon revives "zombie cookie" device tracking on AOL's ad network

#55

Post by rcurry » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 11:17 PM UTC

I really think we are way past the point where we need a serious regulatory adjustment on all of these large data service providers - I don't think any of them should be allowed to facilitate targeted advertising based on our browsing habits, our phone calls, or the content of our emails.

Re: Verizon revives "zombie cookie" device tracking on AOL's ad network

#56

Post by nly » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 11:45 PM UTC

If your ISP really wants to provide customer/household level tracking to advertisers/partners, they could easily provide an API to them like getCustomerId(IPAddress, Timestamp).

It's not entirely clear from the article whether it's "Set-Cookie" being injected in to replies, or the "Cookie" header in to requests, or both.

Interesting times nonetheless.

Re: Verizon revives "zombie cookie" device tracking on AOL's ad network

#57

Post by rgbrenner » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 11:53 PM UTC

devit wrote: post #6

They should be sued for that. There is no way most customers are informed and intentionally consenting to them tampering with the HTTP requests they send to include their customer ID. The obvious expectation of a customer of an ISP is that it sends the data through unchanged.

When I switched to verizon last year (shortly before articles about this last time).. I received a privacy notice in the mail. 1 page, front and back that covered this (and only this). It also had opt out instructions.

I remember it, because I had it sitting on my desk for a week before I got around to following the instructions.

Re: Verizon revives "zombie cookie" device tracking on AOL's ad network

#58

Post by click170 » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 12:59 AM UTC

lukev wrote: post #40

So I have a VPN I use already on my iPhone for sensitive things. Seems like I should use it all the time. Is it possible to make a VPN connection mandatory on a consumer iPhone? It's really a pain having to reconnect manually after I haven't used it for a few minutes.

In android this is (was?) a built-in feature, no need to install profiles or apps. I say was because it seems like Google is removing all the things I liked about android.

Re: Verizon revives "zombie cookie" device tracking on AOL's ad network

#59

Post by yclept » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 1:00 AM UTC

beagle3 wrote: post #26

I've left Verizon when the story first broke. The coverage I get from T-Mobile is not quite as good as Verizon was - but it is a small price to pay ... ... if indeed I'm getting any privacy in return. Which I'm not at all sure about.

I also changed my provider after the initial story. Originally went to tmobile but the service was terrible. Att removed their tracking header so I have switched to them now.

Re: Verizon revives "zombie cookie" device tracking on AOL's ad network

#60

Post by yclept » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 1:02 AM UTC

nly wrote: post #56

If your ISP really wants to provide customer/household level tracking to advertisers/partners, they could easily provide an API to them like getCustomerId(IPAddress, Timestamp). It's not entirely clear from the article whether it's "Set-Cookie" being injected in to replies, or the "Cookie" header in to requests, or both. Interesting times nonetheless.

It is an http header: X-UIDH added to http requests