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What I don’t understand is how they tie data to a specific human in meatspace. Like my car - I own it but if you drive it, you get the speeding ticket. But wi

What I don’t understand is how they tie data to a specific human in meatspace. Like my car - I own it but if you drive it, you get the speeding ticket. But with data - sure this post is from a meatspace device registered in my name / but does not indicate I am the actual meatspace person using it.

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hn_acker 3y ago
Consider public IP addresses. Geolocation can link an IP address to a region as imprecise to a country to a more precise region such as a city. Combining rough location to a few other data points can greatly narrow down meatspace candidates for a particular account [1]: > According to one landmark study, these three characteristics are enough to uniquely identify 87% of the U.S. population. A different study showed that 63% of the U.S. population can be uniquely identified from these three facts. If you have a significant online presence, your gender or age might be revealed by the way other users address you on some website. If a website happens to collect gender or birthday, then the website might share/sell the info to data brokers. If police manage to narrow down the location of a potentially incriminating online action to a household, then the police could physically show up with a warrant and ask about who was using which computer in the house at that time. [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/11/debunking-myth-anonymous-data https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/11/debunking-myth-anonymo...
- flandish 3y ago
  Oh for sure. I don’t disagree - it’s just so.. easily “faked” too. Nothing is anon but also nothing short of me showing a cop looking over my shoulder is proof positive.
dogman144 3y ago
Correlation across multiple signals, described here https://restoreprivacy[.]com/rtb-data-leveraged-for-user-surveillance-by-non-state-agencies/ https://restoreprivacy[.]com/rtb-data-leveraged-for-user-sur...

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hn_acker 3y ago

Consider public IP addresses. Geolocation can link an IP address to a region as imprecise to a country to a more precise region such as a city. Combining rough location to a few other data points can greatly narrow down meatspace candidates for a particular account [1]: > According to one landmark study, these three characteristics are enough to uniquely identify 87% of the U.S. population. A different study showed that 63% of the U.S. population can be uniquely identified from these three facts. If you have a significant online presence, your gender or age might be revealed by the way other users address you on some website. If a website happens to collect gender or birthday, then the website might share/sell the info to data brokers. If police manage to narrow down the location of a potentially incriminating online action to a household, then the police could physically show up with a warrant and ask about who was using which computer in the house at that time. [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/11/debunking-myth-anonymous-data https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/11/debunking-myth-anonymo...

flandish 3y ago
Oh for sure. I don’t disagree - it’s just so.. easily “faked” too. Nothing is anon but also nothing short of me showing a cop looking over my shoulder is proof positive.

dogman144 3y ago

Correlation across multiple signals, described here https://restoreprivacy[.]com/rtb-data-leveraged-for-user-surveillance-by-non-state-agencies/ https://restoreprivacy[.]com/rtb-data-leveraged-for-user-sur...