Are we being tracked?

[dragoneggs]

For anyone that takes their online security and anonymity seriously below is a link to the Tor project...the browser etc is available for most popular operating systems...there is no need for any addons or plug-ins etc...as the best ones (like NoScript) are incorporated...

Tor Project | Anonymity Online

Will have to check that out on my personal computer... my IT department is blocking that site on my company laptop.

 

[Tinhack]

I don't mind government issued IDs. I have two of them right now. :laughing:
Not to mention license plates, home address, etc.

I just don't like other people having free access to my IDs (or MY computer). I don't like getting junk mail--Electronic or paper. I don't like the constant advertising forced upon me. If I need something, I'm capable of finding what I want at a price I want to pay.

I just recently found a way around all the U-Got-Tubed ads. That was getting worse than broadcast TV.

And I think I found the cause of the "dancing block" that started this thread.

 

[/pine]

I don't mind government issued IDs. I have two of them right now. :laughing:
Not to mention license plates, home address, etc.

I just don't like other people having free access to my IDs (or MY computer). I don't like getting junk mail--Electronic or paper. I don't like the constant advertising forced upon me. If I need something, I'm capable of finding what I want at a price I want to pay.

I just recently found a way around all the U-Got-Tubed ads. That was getting worse than broadcast TV.

And I think I found the cause of the "dancing block" that started this thread.

I don't think you have a clue...!

 

[radios1]

maybe this.. Web beacon - Wikipedia

 

[MossRoad]

I think I'd go back farther than that ...but that's just me and I'm probably more paranoid than most, but I just live with it as a price to be paid (for the most part).

On the topic of practical jokes, for a while I had a coworker would go around taking a screen shot, set it as the background image and then drop the task bar so it wasn't visible (but the screen shot image of it was). Tried to do it once to me, but the different sizes of screens I was running caused him enough grief that he was still there trying when I walked up :laughing:

IMHO the only real way a person would avoid being tracked across the digital landscape in this day and age *might* be to avoid even trekking in it (i.e. no phone, no internet usage, nothing) ....but I suspect that even living like you would in the 1800's wouldn't be sufficient as any sort of commercial interaction creates data that will (likely) be sold between commercial enterprises. Given how many governments now issue some form of identification number at birth I'd say "true anonymity" mostly likely died with the creation of birth certificates and government issued ID's.

Everything since then has just made it's loss more apparent. So to my mind it's less about being tracked and more about the intentions of the trackers.

....but that may just be me..... so it may not even be worth :2cents: ....:confused3:

:laughing: We did that to a few folks as well. :thumbsup:

 

[MossRoad]

Or make their screen save a picture of the blue screen of death. :laughing:

 

[MossRoad]

I don't mind government issued IDs. I have two of them right now. :laughing:
Not to mention license plates, home address, etc.

I just don't like other people having free access to my IDs (or MY computer). I don't like getting junk mail--Electronic or paper. I don't like the constant advertising forced upon me. If I need something, I'm capable of finding what I want at a price I want to pay.

I just recently found a way around all the U-Got-Tubed ads. That was getting worse than broadcast TV.

And I think I found the cause of the "dancing block" that started this thread.

PEBKAC?

 

[/pine]

There used to be a lot of prank scripts that fit on floppy disks...one of the most popular was a "FORMAT C:" interface..it would change a Windows screen display into a command prompt screen and run what looked like the FORMAT C: command with progress etc...

I remember another one that let you desecrate someones desktop/wallpaper etc with bullet holes, raw splattered eggs or rotten tomatoes...

 

[/pine]

maybe this.. Web beacon - Wikipedia

One of the most common of these is/was a single pixel image file...nobody ever notices a single white pixel on a white background enclosed in an e-mail etc...if the image was loaded it meant the e-mail was opened...meaning a spammer had a valid e-mail address...

 

[oosik]

My tracker/ad blocking software indicates 18 ads and four trackers are being blocked on TBN.

 

[jjp8182]

It's all about the "in and out"...for any site or script (within a site) to extract any information it has to be allowed to leave a system...i.e., a site etc can't have what they can't get...and it all starts with a secure browser that does not allow scripts to run...along with a leak proof firewall that prevents a site/server from gaining access via ports beyond the typical http server ports...

Again...almost all data gleaned from common Internet users is had via scripts...by stopping said scripts from running you are stopping said data from being gathered and returned...if you don't know how to prevent scripts from being executed you are out of luck if you are seeking anonymity...it is not difficult to do this (prevent the execution of scripts) but you must be informed and realize they are running if not prevented...

LoL...try requesting a URI on what is commonly referred to (by novices) as "the dark web" etc...many of the "dark" destinations will not even open in most of the common browsers that novices use and the destinations are loaded with scripts that will eat a wannabe's OS for lunch...a majority of the destinations are commonly accessed via CLI's only and most users are lost before they ever get started...

No disagreement here ....thing is requesting information from a site requires a routing path(s) back to the requesting entity so even when/if all other undesirable leakage is stopped the site owner/information provider still knows that information was accessed/distributed - so depending on how much effort they put into it could be followed without touching anything you have any control over. Then there's also the fun of what all the the hardware pieces might be doing as part of their regular operation (which gets really interesting when dealing with safety-critical systems where even intercore interference on multicore processors could be an issue). From what I've seen very few people (to include the engineers & software developers) ever have full understanding of they systems they design/build. ... so I'll definitely not claim to do so even for systems I've had to get intimately familiar with - particularly since many of them are frequently changed/"upgraded"....

...but most of this gets rather academic as most users can block out most common tracking, but stopping absolutely everything? That'd seem rather unlikely.... particularly if the communication path remains entirely terrestrial-based (or using TCP). So yeah, most can be stopped as it's generally "cooperative tracking" (even if the user isn't aware or consenting) and for most people that's probably going to be good enough. I would expect anything more than that to start involving things that are outside the interest of most users (along with those doing the tracking) as the information gained wouldn't necessarily be worth the effort required to obtain it....

When even air-gapped systems can/have been tampered with it'd seem pretty unrealistic to expect that a continually connected device can't/won't be tracked to some degree ....if the information gained is worth the effort. ...but again that's getting into things that (currently) are unlikely to be an issue for >99.9999% of people.... (e.g. everyone who doesn't need to realistically worry about being targeted for capture/elimination by a world government due to past actions taken probably doesn't need to worry about being tracked via most of those methods)


...which is why IMHO it's generally not worth worrying about it too much (e.g. not beyond blocking the annoying advertising tracking from entities you don't have direct commercial/business ties, or regular scam artists/spammers/criminals) ... well, unless someone wants to make a living being a software/systems bug hunter, "white hat hacker" or IT specialist for entities with higher value information than most individuals have because if the rewards aren't worth the effort......

So yeah secure browsers and firewalls go a long way ... a person just needs to decide what's secure enough for them (which should realistically consider what sort of threats/problems they're actually going to need/want to prevent). :confused3:

 

[jjp8182]

:laughing: We did that to a few folks as well. :thumbsup:

There were also some entertaining results from messing with date/time settings..... setting the date to a few years past (or future) can have some interesting impacts that aren't always obvious.

Though it may also have unforeseen consequences too ....the one time it caused an issue that caused some interesting results with a time keeping program that wasn't well programmed - if the prankster hadn't been known and asked to undo the action IT would have likely spent a LOT more time and effort attempting to correct errors that were induced by simply messing with the date/time settings on the computer....

Clear tape placed over microchips on cards can also cause fits .... saw one coworker almost get to the point of wanting to smash the keyboard because someone had placed some clear tape over the microchip on his ID card that prevented the card from being read.
:laughing:

Had another friend take and cut a keyboard in half and glue half to make it look like the keyboard had been smashed through the desk ...which he did as a response to that individual's routinely putting a light coat of oil/grease on the handles of the tools. The grease/oil had apparently resulted in more than a couple hammers flying away when swung.... :laughing:

 

[/pine]

No disagreement here ....thing is requesting information from a site requires a routing path(s) back to the requesting entity so even when/if all other undesirable leakage is stopped the site owner/information provider still knows that information was accessed/distributed - so depending on how much effort they put into it could be followed without touching anything you have any control over. Then there's also the fun of what all the the hardware pieces might be doing as part of their regular operation (which gets really interesting when dealing with safety-critical systems where even intercore interference on multicore processors could be an issue). From what I've seen very few people (to include the engineers & software developers) ever have full understanding of they systems they design/build. ... so I'll definitely not claim to do so even for systems I've had to get intimately familiar with - particularly since many of them are frequently changed/"upgraded"....

...but most of this gets rather academic as most users can block out most common tracking, but stopping absolutely everything? That'd seem rather unlikely.... particularly if the communication path remains entirely terrestrial-based (or using TCP). So yeah, most can be stopped as it's generally "cooperative tracking" (even if the user isn't aware or consenting) and for most people that's probably going to be good enough. I would expect anything more than that to start involving things that are outside the interest of most users (along with those doing the tracking) as the information gained wouldn't necessarily be worth the effort required to obtain it....

When even air-gapped systems can/have been tampered with it'd seem pretty unrealistic to expect that a continually connected device can't/won't be tracked to some degree ....if the information gained is worth the effort. ...but again that's getting into things that (currently) are unlikely to be an issue for >99.9999% of people.... (e.g. everyone who doesn't need to realistically worry about being targeted for capture/elimination by a world government due to past actions taken probably doesn't need to worry about being tracked via most of those methods)


...which is why IMHO it's generally not worth worrying about it too much (e.g. not beyond blocking the annoying advertising tracking from entities you don't have direct commercial/business ties, or regular scam artists/spammers/criminals) ... well, unless someone wants to make a living being a software/systems bug hunter, "white hat hacker" or IT specialist for entities with higher value information than most individuals have because if the rewards aren't worth the effort......

So yeah secure browsers and firewalls go a long way ... a person just needs to decide what's secure enough for them (which should realistically consider what sort of threats/problems they're actually going to need/want to prevent). :confused3:

For the common every day web surfer etc...the most likely form of invasion other than embedded scripts is from cookies...a majority of naive uses allow them freely...many years ago when I was learning to program in PHP (mostly to interface with databases) I was appalled with what could be gleaned using cookies (had to learn how to write cookies first)...many people would be shocked...

Then there is the activity of scrips that interact with stored cookies...facebook and news sites are some of the worst for this type of activity...

 

[radios1]

My tracker/ad blocking software indicates 18 ads and four trackers are being blocked on TBN.

I can see ads to make money for the site, but trackers?. what for?..

 

[riptides]

Cockroachs and other bugs. They would hide behind windows. Started on x-windows-motif.

There used to be a lot of prank scripts that fit on floppy disks...one of the most popular was a "FORMAT C:" interface..it would change a Windows screen display into a command prompt screen and run what looked like the FORMAT C: command with progress etc...

I remember another one that let you desecrate someones desktop/wallpaper etc with bullet holes, raw splattered eggs or rotten tomatoes...

 

[oosik]

On this specific thread - Facebook, Google, Viglink & go.ezodn are being blocked as trackers.

TBN is child's play compared to Safari. In the last seven days this software has stopped 142 trackers from profiling my operations. TBN is just one site. From Safari I go to an unlimited number of sites.

 

[jjp8182]

Then there is the activity of scrips that interact with stored cookies...facebook and news sites are some of the worst for this type of activity...

That's no surprise anything "free" has to be making money in some fashion and selling - or aggregating and then selling information on consumers is big money (at least when sold to the corporations who think such information has value). ...and in my opinion facebook is worse than a computer virus (left the site & deleted my account years ago and yet I still get emails from them) as viruses can generally be removed (even it means reformatting the hard drive) ...whereas a facebook account I'm not so sure about....

I'm quite sure it's not just the software companies engaged in this sort of tracking/information selling as I'd wager the various service providers (and cell services providers) are also willing to sell information to extract as much money from the services they provide as well. ....and the same with "smart" devices that have voice-activated features (e.g. those using Alexa, Siri, Google).

More than once now I've gotten email/web advertisements on things I've only talked about with my fiancee (neither of us ever searched it). I think we managed to figure that one out as it seemed to stop once she disabled background data permissions for facebook and a few other applications on her phone (which was also done to cut down on the amount of cell data being used).

I suspect most people probably don't pay attention to their data usage, but it can be really interesting to see what upload usage is (and if able) what/where it's going.....

 

[MossRoad]

There used to be a lot of prank scripts that fit on floppy disks...one of the most popular was a "FORMAT C:" interface..it would change a Windows screen display into a command prompt screen and run what looked like the FORMAT C: command with progress etc...

I remember another one that let you desecrate someones desktop/wallpaper etc with bullet holes, raw splattered eggs or rotten tomatoes...

I had a 3.5" floppy that had a program on it that if you put it in the floppy drive, and tried to read it, it would destroy the C: drive instantly! I had it on a red floppy with a skull and crossbones on it. If someone sent you that floppy in the mail and told you it was something you'd be interested in, and you put it in the drive and tried to read it BOOM! The data on the C: drive was TOAST! Instantly.

It was today's equivalent of a poisoned email or text, and since there were no malware/virus type detectors back then, it was extremely effective at wreaking havoc. I kept it around as a museum piece for many years.

 

[BleedingOrange]

I love this. Ordering a Pizza in 2021* Does this change your mind about being tracked ? LOL
CALLER:
Is this Pizza Delight?
GOOGLE:
No sir, it's Google Pizza.
CALLER:
I must have dialed a wrong number. Sorry.
GOOGLE:
No sir, Google bought Pizza Delight last month.
CALLER:
OK. I would like to order a pizza.
GOOGLE:
Do you want your usual, sir?
CALLER:
My usual? You know me?
GOOGLE:
According to our caller ID data sheet, the last 12 times you called you ordered an extra-large pizza with three cheeses, sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms and meatballs on a thick crust.
CALLER:
OK! That’s what I want ...
GOOGLE:
May I suggest that this time you order a pizza with ricotta, arugula, sun-dried tomatoes and olives on a whole wheat gluten-free thin crust?
CALLER:
What? I detest vegetable!
GOOGLE:
Your cholesterol is not good, sir.
CALLER:
How the **** do you know!
GOOGLE:
Well, we cross-referenced your home phone number with your medical records. We have the result of your blood tests for the last 7 years.
CALLER:
Okay, but I do not want your rotten vegetable pizza! I already take medication for my cholesterol.
GOOGLE:
Excuse me sir, but you have not taken your medication regularly. According to our database, you purchased only a box of 30 cholesterol tablets once, at Drug RX Network, 4 months ago.
CALLER:
I bought more from another drugstore.
GOOGLE:
That doesn’t show on your credit card statement.
CALLER:
I paid in cash.
GOOGLE:
But you did not withdraw enough cash according to your bank statement.
CALLER:
I have other sources of cash.
GOOGLE:
That doesn’t show on your last tax return unless you bought them using an undeclared income source, which is against the law.
CALLER:
WHAT THE ****!
GOOGLE:
I'm sorry, sir, we use such information only with the sole intention of helping you.
CALLER:
Enough already! I'm sick to death of Google, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and all the others. I'm going to an island without internet, cable TV, where there is no cell phone service and no one to watch me or spy on me.
GOOGLE:
I understand sir, but you need to renew your passport first. It expired 6 weeks ago...

 

[oosik]

BleedingOrange - THAT is a true gem. Thank you - you have made me laugh this morning.