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Your ISP tracking your every move is scarier than all of them after the ISP privacy bill passed. At least Facebook and Google give you something for it and you

Your ISP tracking your every move is scarier than all of them after the ISP privacy bill passed. At least Facebook and Google give you something for it and you can route around them if you desire. No routing around ISPs unless you use a VPN but even then they are blocking those. Broadband/cable/telcos capture everything you do and can now sell that information and do[1]. That bill was the pre-cursor to removing net neutrality by taking privacy and policy from the FCC to the FTC. Part of Jeff Flakes argument for getting rid of the privacy protections were so that ISPs can compete with Facebook and Google and sell your data/offer ads to you. Yet Facebook and Google at least built products you wanted that you willingly gave up privacy to use and at least got something for it [2][3]. ISPs you have to pay to use and they still take your data as if you are the product. ISPs could have built products people wanted to get that data but they instead bribed 'representatives' to get it via legislation with their local monopolies. Noone wanted this bill but ISPs. [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/03/five-creepy-things-your-isp-could-do-if-congress-repeals-fccs-privacy-protections https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/03/five-creepy-things-you... [2] https://www.flake.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2017/3/op-ed-for-the-wall-street-journal https://www.flake.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2017/3/op-ed-f... [3] https://www.flake.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2017/3/flake-introduces-resolution-to-protect-consumers-from-overreaching-internet-regulation https://www.flake.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2017/3/flake-i...

JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> they are blocking those Do any American ISPs routinely Blick VPNs?
- drawkbox 9y ago
  Not outright but they definitely mess with VPNs. Before net neutrality Cox for instance blocked VPNs quite a bit [1], they are holding off for now, but with net neutrality gone expect it to return. Now that they have to inspect traffic for slow lanes, they'll just put VPNs throttled down at a minimum. > 2003—Cox and Comcast block VPNs: Back in the early internet, both Comcast and Cox Communications placed bans on Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). This was before VPNs became as ubiquitous as they are now. Back then, the only people who really used VPNs were doing so to access a work computer remotely. Which made Cox and Comcast’s choices to block them even weirder. [1] https://lifehacker.com/what-happens-when-broadband-companies-self-regulate-1794710098 https://lifehacker.com/what-happens-when-broadband-companies...
adam12 9y ago
Thanks for reminding me about this. I'm seriously thinking about getting a VPN subscription again.
- kylek 9y ago
  Be very weary- seems many (most? all?) are not the most trustworthy. Look into rolling your own setup.
  - giancarlostoro 9y ago
    Behind an untrustworthy ISP to boot? Might want to consider a hosting company that has servers around the world at that point... One in the USA for initial contact and one in the other side of the world for browsing maybe? Or what everyone else will see as your IP.
- jerheinze 9y ago
  Why use paid privacy-by-policy systems (VPN) when you can use free privacy-by-design systems like Tor and i2p? In fact, even if you use a VPN browser fingerprinting is still an issue unless you use something like the Tor Browser.
  - libdjml 9y ago
    two reasons: speed and security. Speed is self explanatory, security may not be obvious. I don’t believe Firefox to be on par with Chrome. It was years behind getting a sandbox, and doesn’t appear to have the engineering or QA focus on security that Edge/Chrome do.
    - jerheinze 9y ago
      > I don’t believe Firefox to be on par with Chrome. You need to know that the Tor Browser disables a lot of stuff that Firefox has to lower the attack surface, and you can lock it down further using the Security Settings in the Torbutton. Also you should look into a Whonix+Qubes OS setup, just because there's a sandbox doesn't mean you can't get hacked. For speed: It's not really that bad for general browsing.
ocdtrekkie 9y ago
Very few ISPs can track you no matter where you physically go, as your mobile, home, and work ISPs are likely all different. And ISPs are regional, none carry the level of threat of Facebook or Google. Of course, when states tried to reintroduce privacy protections... That covered ISPs and tech companies alike... Big tech stepped in and opposed. They weren't interested in protecting users, they just didn't want the competition.
- koolba 9y ago
  > Very few ISPs can track you no matter where you physically go, as your mobile, home, and work ISPs are likely all different. There's a lot of consolidation happening in that space. Verizon offers FiOS and phone service. Comcast is getting into the mobile game. That aside, any device by itself is enough to get a picture of the user using only tracing IP addresses (i.e. DNS lookups and outbound requests). They don't need to stitch together your mobile and home connections. It's enough to have two profiles on you when you're using each one.
  - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    Google also has Fiber and Fi, but in reality, I think the likelihood any given user has land and mobile access through the same company is relatively low, and you usually have the option to switch at least one of them. AT&T is probably the biggest player in succeeding at being the ISP for you everywhere though.
    - stordoff 9y ago
      I doubt it's _that_ uncommon in the UK -- most of the mobile providers offer home broadband services, often at a discount for mobile subscribers. Struggling to find specific/up-to-date numbers, but e.g. Vodafone have >300,000 home broadband customers (which is not an insignificant amount) and EE have around 900,000. I'd imagine a fair percentage of those are also mobile subscribers. https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/02/vodafone-uk-home-broadband-isp-grows-316000-subscribers.html https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/02/vodafone-uk-ho... https://www.choose.co.uk/guide/home-broadband-market-overview.html https://www.choose.co.uk/guide/home-broadband-market-overvie...
fantispug 9y ago
On https sites there's not a lot ISPs can track without breaking encryption. With shared IPs they may not even know the domain for certain (although as IPv6 takes off it will be easier to map IP to domain).
- AbacusAvenger 9y ago
  They can track DNS lookups though. I use DNSCrypt to proxy all that traffic through elsewhere. But that just means I'm trusting some other third party to not log my DNS queries.
  - ctime 9y ago
    DNSCrypt -> private cloud instance DNS Crypt -> root name servers
  - libdjml 9y ago
    I use dnscrypt also, figuring that even though that puts my browsing traffic in another persons hands, they can’t easily correlate it with my address, phone number, name, etc etc
- beagle3 9y ago
  But your DNS request went through the same ISP; It's very likely that they'd know the domain for certain because you've just looked it up.
- Twirrim 9y ago
  They can make a fair guess at which websites you're accessing. A lot of websites that are related to your particular interests aren't behind shared IP addresses these days. Consider this: * Build a list of domains you're interested in. There's fun community build blocking lists that can help you, if you need it. * Periodically resolve every domain. Odds are if you're an ISP your servers already have the records cached, but it isn't too hard to resolve them all. * Dynamically adjust your routing to specifically re-route those IP addresses to your special infrastructure (or maybe null route it if you want to block access) * Use your special infrastructure to build up whatever profile you want about the source IP address, which of course being an ISP you'll be able to link directly to a user. Your end user won't even know. You'll know when they access sites, be able to build up patterns of websites they access, in which order, and spot variations in that pattern. There's a lot you can infer from metadata without decrypting the traffic. Everything from which domains you access, ports used for the communication, what order, and what sort of size the payloads are. You could identify that someone has an email account they only access after visiting, say, the Ashley Madison website. By tracking the size of communication on that is being sent to figure out if someone is sending dick picks or some such, or if it's likely just plain text.
ultimoo 9y ago
Sorry to sidetrack here -- but any good recommendations for paid VPNs?
- drawkbox 9y ago
  Private Internet Access is a common one but there are many. Torrent Freak always has the latest and any encroachments as torrent users are usually the most adamant about privacy. https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-services-keep-anonymous-2018/ https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-services-keep-anonymous-2018/
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- q3k 9y ago
  Why would you trust a VPN provider more than your ISP?
  - domevent 9y ago
    Your ISP is a near-monopoly with vast wealth and political connections, and no trust to lose. A VPN is used by a much smaller group of people who will ditch them en masse if any hanky panky comes to light. There is a ton of competition in the VPN space, and they’re mostly selling the same product, so if they lose trust, they’re done. TL;DR Very different incentives
    - q3k 9y ago
      > Your ISP is a near-monopoly with vast wealth and political connections That's not true for many parts of the world, especially Central/Eastern Europe. $ whois AS204880
  - gambiting 9y ago
    I'm in UK where the law requires all ISPs to store everyone's browsing history for a year - I browse the web exclusively over VPN and yes, I trust my VPN provider 100x more than I trust the British Government.
some_account 9y ago
No. Which company is more powerful with your information? That little ISP who has no real use of it, or Google, the most powerful ad agency with ties to American agencies in the world? You may be able to bypass Google but almost everybody else won't. It's time to open your eyes for what they are.
- thomastjeffery 9y ago
  ISPs collecting data means ISPs selling data to corporations like Google, so the concern is still the same.
- robotresearcher 9y ago
  ISPs can sell it to Google, no?
- drawkbox 9y ago
  > That little ISP who has no real use of it Those little ISPs like Comcast, Verizon, Cox, AT&T etc. I can't imagine those small companies would want your data or want to use it after bribing politicians to get the right to do it. Everyone knows Google tracks you, same with Facebook. They offer a service and people understand that. You aren't paying you are the product. You are paying your ISP for access to the internet and privacy, or at least that used to be a selling point. You are paying AND you are the product and they have competitive services they want you to use so they'll mess with competitors. Your entry to the internet should be objective and independent, what you use on top of that is up to you. You can still route around Google and Facebook, you simply cannot route around your ISP.
  - hueving 9y ago
    >They offer a service and people understand that. No they don't. Maybe in a superficial sense, but the vast majority of the public doesn't have any clue how data can be combined and mined to reveal far more than they thought they were bargaining for. Otherwise there would be no sudden Facebook scandal.
    - 9y ago
peterwwillis 9y ago
Uh, Google and Mozilla and a handful of organizations are converting all web traffic to HTTPS through subtle manipulation of standards and user interface. They even proxy mobile traffic from their search engine. ISPs can't even see what IP you're visiting because it's all fronted by CloudFlare. Even your DNS is being hidden by an HTTPS tunnel in the browser. Your ISP soon won't be able to see anything you do online. But Google will see it all.
- lallysingh 9y ago
  There's still SNI in TLS. Hopefully that changes in 1.3, but I don't know how prevalent that is yet.
  - dancek 9y ago
    Well, you can use a browser that doesn't support SNI (IE8) or one that makes it configurable (I don't know if any do). But a large amount of sites won't work without it. It's very common to run multiple sites on same ip/port. Not sure if it's technically possible to make that work without SNI or a similar technology.
    - dancek 9y ago
      On re-reading the grandparent I have to admit I missed the point. Considering CloudFlare offers to do SSL on their end, it'd be technically viable to only tell CF which domain you want.
  - exikyut 9y ago
    Wait. Wait a minute. I was planning literally this month to figure out how to implement domain traffic analytics on my LAN by using SNI via libpcap or similar (something tiny). Will I have to configure a root cert and build a full DPI proxy to make this futureproof? >_<
    - lallysingh 9y ago
      It'll be coming, and yes you will. On the bright side, nobody else without a root cert on your box can do it.
spydum 9y ago
Has anybody actually seen an ISP tracking user behavior? I've worked for a few 1998-2005 and never witnessed it.. however I wouldn't be surprised if they had transformed in the years since. Just curious if anyone has ever leaked info about such a program.
- jpollock 9y ago
  No comment, just googling. https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2016/12/comcast-still-uses-mitm-javascript-injection-serve-unwanted-ads-messages/ https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2016/12/comcast-s... https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/04/how-a-banner-ad-for-hs-ok/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/04/how-a-banner-ad-...
  - spydum 9y ago
    Ads yes, but tracking?
    - drawkbox 9y ago
      Ad networks are tracking by design including ISP injected ones.
moreorless 9y ago
> Yet Facebook and Google at least built products you wanted that you willingly gave up privacy to use and at least got something for it I never agreed to FB collecting data on me. I have no account with them. I do not use their services. Yet here we are.
- drawkbox 9y ago
  You can easily block Facebook and Google via host loopback or blocking their scripts. I have never seen so many pro ISP tracking/privacy people on HN.
  - projektir 9y ago
    That post seems anti-Facebook and Google, not pro-ISP.
    - drawkbox 9y ago
      I mentioned how you can block Facebook and Google. The pro-ISP part was more about the thread and that ISPs are paid for internet access for privacy, without an expectation of tracking. Google and Facebook are free and have an expectation of tracking because they make their money from ads/tracking.
  - moreorless 9y ago
    I suppose I can ask all my contacts to remove my details from their address books on their phones. Do not email me from gmail, Tag me should they ever take pictures of me. But that is all besides the point. We _should_ not have to jump through hoops to keep them from spying on me. Besides, _most_ people do not even know how clear the browser cache, let alone running scripts or modify their host files with every changing DNS entries.
LeoPanthera 9y ago
I've been forwarding all outgoing connections on port 80 (and a selection of other commonly-unencrypted ports) through a VPN (in the router) for a while now - but leaving all other ports (including most importantly 443) connecting directly. It feels like a good compromise between privacy and speed.
- hueving 9y ago
  What router are you using? I would like to do this for my parents but I don't want a full blown pfsense box as a requirement.
  - LeoPanthera 9y ago
    ...I have bad news. :) It's a PC Engines APU2 running pfSense.
    - hueving 9y ago
      Dang, I suspected it from the description of what you were doing because pfsense is so awesome for that kind of stuff. Just thinking from the perspective of remote support, I can't really walk my folks through a pfsense setup over the phone if there is a hardware failure... :/
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - voidmain0001 9y ago
    Could you use PiHole and OpenVPN to accomplish what you want at your parents'place? https://www.reddit.com/r/pihole/comments/48zp16/pihole_and_vpn/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pihole/comments/48zp16/pihole_and_v...
    - tylersmith 9y ago
      I built this setup a little while back and am very happy with the results. It took only a few hours on a Saturday and most of it was playing with settings for fun.
megablast 9y ago
Sure, except your ISP probably doesn't have 1 to 2 billion users.
singularity2001 9y ago
In Germany a friend asked the ISP's "data protection commissioner" (Datenschutzbeauftragter;) if he could regularly get a new IP address for privacy reasons. He did received answer saying: "this will not help you"
ignoramous 9y ago
Thanks for bringing this up. ISPs are huge dick-heads, and they track the shit out of their users, including censoring some content themselves. What are some ways to prevent all the tracking? I get HTTPS makes things better in terms of confidentiality, but it does nothing to prevent the ISPs from scraping the URLs, which exposes scary amount of information, too.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago

> they are blocking those Do any American ISPs routinely Blick VPNs?

drawkbox 9y ago
Not outright but they definitely mess with VPNs. Before net neutrality Cox for instance blocked VPNs quite a bit [1], they are holding off for now, but with net neutrality gone expect it to return. Now that they have to inspect traffic for slow lanes, they'll just put VPNs throttled down at a minimum. > 2003—Cox and Comcast block VPNs: Back in the early internet, both Comcast and Cox Communications placed bans on Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). This was before VPNs became as ubiquitous as they are now. Back then, the only people who really used VPNs were doing so to access a work computer remotely. Which made Cox and Comcast’s choices to block them even weirder. [1] https://lifehacker.com/what-happens-when-broadband-companies-self-regulate-1794710098 https://lifehacker.com/what-happens-when-broadband-companies...

adam12 9y ago

Thanks for reminding me about this. I'm seriously thinking about getting a VPN subscription again.

kylek 9y ago
Be very weary- seems many (most? all?) are not the most trustworthy. Look into rolling your own setup.
- giancarlostoro 9y ago
  Behind an untrustworthy ISP to boot? Might want to consider a hosting company that has servers around the world at that point... One in the USA for initial contact and one in the other side of the world for browsing maybe? Or what everyone else will see as your IP.
jerheinze 9y ago
Why use paid privacy-by-policy systems (VPN) when you can use free privacy-by-design systems like Tor and i2p? In fact, even if you use a VPN browser fingerprinting is still an issue unless you use something like the Tor Browser.
- libdjml 9y ago
  two reasons: speed and security. Speed is self explanatory, security may not be obvious. I don’t believe Firefox to be on par with Chrome. It was years behind getting a sandbox, and doesn’t appear to have the engineering or QA focus on security that Edge/Chrome do.
  - jerheinze 9y ago
    > I don’t believe Firefox to be on par with Chrome. You need to know that the Tor Browser disables a lot of stuff that Firefox has to lower the attack surface, and you can lock it down further using the Security Settings in the Torbutton. Also you should look into a Whonix+Qubes OS setup, just because there's a sandbox doesn't mean you can't get hacked. For speed: It's not really that bad for general browsing.

ocdtrekkie 9y ago

Very few ISPs can track you no matter where you physically go, as your mobile, home, and work ISPs are likely all different. And ISPs are regional, none carry the level of threat of Facebook or Google. Of course, when states tried to reintroduce privacy protections... That covered ISPs and tech companies alike... Big tech stepped in and opposed. They weren't interested in protecting users, they just didn't want the competition.

koolba 9y ago
> Very few ISPs can track you no matter where you physically go, as your mobile, home, and work ISPs are likely all different. There's a lot of consolidation happening in that space. Verizon offers FiOS and phone service. Comcast is getting into the mobile game. That aside, any device by itself is enough to get a picture of the user using only tracing IP addresses (i.e. DNS lookups and outbound requests). They don't need to stitch together your mobile and home connections. It's enough to have two profiles on you when you're using each one.
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  Google also has Fiber and Fi, but in reality, I think the likelihood any given user has land and mobile access through the same company is relatively low, and you usually have the option to switch at least one of them. AT&T is probably the biggest player in succeeding at being the ISP for you everywhere though.
  - stordoff 9y ago
    I doubt it's _that_ uncommon in the UK -- most of the mobile providers offer home broadband services, often at a discount for mobile subscribers. Struggling to find specific/up-to-date numbers, but e.g. Vodafone have >300,000 home broadband customers (which is not an insignificant amount) and EE have around 900,000. I'd imagine a fair percentage of those are also mobile subscribers. https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/02/vodafone-uk-home-broadband-isp-grows-316000-subscribers.html https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/02/vodafone-uk-ho... https://www.choose.co.uk/guide/home-broadband-market-overview.html https://www.choose.co.uk/guide/home-broadband-market-overvie...

fantispug 9y ago

On https sites there's not a lot ISPs can track without breaking encryption. With shared IPs they may not even know the domain for certain (although as IPv6 takes off it will be easier to map IP to domain).

AbacusAvenger 9y ago
They can track DNS lookups though. I use DNSCrypt to proxy all that traffic through elsewhere. But that just means I'm trusting some other third party to not log my DNS queries.
- ctime 9y ago
  DNSCrypt -> private cloud instance DNS Crypt -> root name servers
- libdjml 9y ago
  I use dnscrypt also, figuring that even though that puts my browsing traffic in another persons hands, they can’t easily correlate it with my address, phone number, name, etc etc
beagle3 9y ago
But your DNS request went through the same ISP; It's very likely that they'd know the domain for certain because you've just looked it up.
Twirrim 9y ago
They can make a fair guess at which websites you're accessing. A lot of websites that are related to your particular interests aren't behind shared IP addresses these days. Consider this: * Build a list of domains you're interested in. There's fun community build blocking lists that can help you, if you need it. * Periodically resolve every domain. Odds are if you're an ISP your servers already have the records cached, but it isn't too hard to resolve them all. * Dynamically adjust your routing to specifically re-route those IP addresses to your special infrastructure (or maybe null route it if you want to block access) * Use your special infrastructure to build up whatever profile you want about the source IP address, which of course being an ISP you'll be able to link directly to a user. Your end user won't even know. You'll know when they access sites, be able to build up patterns of websites they access, in which order, and spot variations in that pattern. There's a lot you can infer from metadata without decrypting the traffic. Everything from which domains you access, ports used for the communication, what order, and what sort of size the payloads are. You could identify that someone has an email account they only access after visiting, say, the Ashley Madison website. By tracking the size of communication on that is being sent to figure out if someone is sending dick picks or some such, or if it's likely just plain text.

ultimoo 9y ago

Sorry to sidetrack here -- but any good recommendations for paid VPNs?

drawkbox 9y ago
Private Internet Access is a common one but there are many. Torrent Freak always has the latest and any encroachments as torrent users are usually the most adamant about privacy. https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-services-keep-anonymous-2018/ https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-services-keep-anonymous-2018/
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
q3k 9y ago
Why would you trust a VPN provider more than your ISP?
- domevent 9y ago
  Your ISP is a near-monopoly with vast wealth and political connections, and no trust to lose. A VPN is used by a much smaller group of people who will ditch them en masse if any hanky panky comes to light. There is a ton of competition in the VPN space, and they’re mostly selling the same product, so if they lose trust, they’re done. TL;DR Very different incentives
  - q3k 9y ago
    > Your ISP is a near-monopoly with vast wealth and political connections That's not true for many parts of the world, especially Central/Eastern Europe. $ whois AS204880
- gambiting 9y ago
  I'm in UK where the law requires all ISPs to store everyone's browsing history for a year - I browse the web exclusively over VPN and yes, I trust my VPN provider 100x more than I trust the British Government.

some_account 9y ago

No. Which company is more powerful with your information? That little ISP who has no real use of it, or Google, the most powerful ad agency with ties to American agencies in the world? You may be able to bypass Google but almost everybody else won't. It's time to open your eyes for what they are.

thomastjeffery 9y ago
ISPs collecting data means ISPs selling data to corporations like Google, so the concern is still the same.
robotresearcher 9y ago
ISPs can sell it to Google, no?
drawkbox 9y ago
> That little ISP who has no real use of it Those little ISPs like Comcast, Verizon, Cox, AT&T etc. I can't imagine those small companies would want your data or want to use it after bribing politicians to get the right to do it. Everyone knows Google tracks you, same with Facebook. They offer a service and people understand that. You aren't paying you are the product. You are paying your ISP for access to the internet and privacy, or at least that used to be a selling point. You are paying AND you are the product and they have competitive services they want you to use so they'll mess with competitors. Your entry to the internet should be objective and independent, what you use on top of that is up to you. You can still route around Google and Facebook, you simply cannot route around your ISP.
- hueving 9y ago
  >They offer a service and people understand that. No they don't. Maybe in a superficial sense, but the vast majority of the public doesn't have any clue how data can be combined and mined to reveal far more than they thought they were bargaining for. Otherwise there would be no sudden Facebook scandal.
  - 9y ago

peterwwillis 9y ago

Uh, Google and Mozilla and a handful of organizations are converting all web traffic to HTTPS through subtle manipulation of standards and user interface. They even proxy mobile traffic from their search engine. ISPs can't even see what IP you're visiting because it's all fronted by CloudFlare. Even your DNS is being hidden by an HTTPS tunnel in the browser. Your ISP soon won't be able to see anything you do online. But Google will see it all.

lallysingh 9y ago
There's still SNI in TLS. Hopefully that changes in 1.3, but I don't know how prevalent that is yet.
- dancek 9y ago
  Well, you can use a browser that doesn't support SNI (IE8) or one that makes it configurable (I don't know if any do). But a large amount of sites won't work without it. It's very common to run multiple sites on same ip/port. Not sure if it's technically possible to make that work without SNI or a similar technology.
  - dancek 9y ago
    On re-reading the grandparent I have to admit I missed the point. Considering CloudFlare offers to do SSL on their end, it'd be technically viable to only tell CF which domain you want.
- exikyut 9y ago
  Wait. Wait a minute. I was planning literally this month to figure out how to implement domain traffic analytics on my LAN by using SNI via libpcap or similar (something tiny). Will I have to configure a root cert and build a full DPI proxy to make this futureproof? >_<
  - lallysingh 9y ago
    It'll be coming, and yes you will. On the bright side, nobody else without a root cert on your box can do it.

spydum 9y ago

Has anybody actually seen an ISP tracking user behavior? I've worked for a few 1998-2005 and never witnessed it.. however I wouldn't be surprised if they had transformed in the years since. Just curious if anyone has ever leaked info about such a program.

jpollock 9y ago
No comment, just googling. https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2016/12/comcast-still-uses-mitm-javascript-injection-serve-unwanted-ads-messages/ https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2016/12/comcast-s... https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/04/how-a-banner-ad-for-hs-ok/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/04/how-a-banner-ad-...
- spydum 9y ago
  Ads yes, but tracking?
  - drawkbox 9y ago
    Ad networks are tracking by design including ISP injected ones.

moreorless 9y ago

> Yet Facebook and Google at least built products you wanted that you willingly gave up privacy to use and at least got something for it I never agreed to FB collecting data on me. I have no account with them. I do not use their services. Yet here we are.

drawkbox 9y ago
You can easily block Facebook and Google via host loopback or blocking their scripts. I have never seen so many pro ISP tracking/privacy people on HN.
- projektir 9y ago
  That post seems anti-Facebook and Google, not pro-ISP.
  - drawkbox 9y ago
    I mentioned how you can block Facebook and Google. The pro-ISP part was more about the thread and that ISPs are paid for internet access for privacy, without an expectation of tracking. Google and Facebook are free and have an expectation of tracking because they make their money from ads/tracking.
- moreorless 9y ago
  I suppose I can ask all my contacts to remove my details from their address books on their phones. Do not email me from gmail, Tag me should they ever take pictures of me. But that is all besides the point. We _should_ not have to jump through hoops to keep them from spying on me. Besides, _most_ people do not even know how clear the browser cache, let alone running scripts or modify their host files with every changing DNS entries.

LeoPanthera 9y ago

I've been forwarding all outgoing connections on port 80 (and a selection of other commonly-unencrypted ports) through a VPN (in the router) for a while now - but leaving all other ports (including most importantly 443) connecting directly. It feels like a good compromise between privacy and speed.

hueving 9y ago
What router are you using? I would like to do this for my parents but I don't want a full blown pfsense box as a requirement.
- LeoPanthera 9y ago
  ...I have bad news. :) It's a PC Engines APU2 running pfSense.
  - hueving 9y ago
    Dang, I suspected it from the description of what you were doing because pfsense is so awesome for that kind of stuff. Just thinking from the perspective of remote support, I can't really walk my folks through a pfsense setup over the phone if there is a hardware failure... :/
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- voidmain0001 9y ago
  Could you use PiHole and OpenVPN to accomplish what you want at your parents'place? https://www.reddit.com/r/pihole/comments/48zp16/pihole_and_vpn/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pihole/comments/48zp16/pihole_and_v...
  - tylersmith 9y ago
    I built this setup a little while back and am very happy with the results. It took only a few hours on a Saturday and most of it was playing with settings for fun.

megablast 9y ago

Sure, except your ISP probably doesn't have 1 to 2 billion users.

singularity2001 9y ago

In Germany a friend asked the ISP's "data protection commissioner" (Datenschutzbeauftragter;) if he could regularly get a new IP address for privacy reasons. He did received answer saying: "this will not help you"

ignoramous 9y ago

Thanks for bringing this up. ISPs are huge dick-heads, and they track the shit out of their users, including censoring some content themselves. What are some ways to prevent all the tracking? I get HTTPS makes things better in terms of confidentiality, but it does nothing to prevent the ISPs from scraping the URLs, which exposes scary amount of information, too.