5 ms·

Is your intent privacy? I've thought through similar setups, but if the intent is to break cross-platform correlation to a user/device ID and related de-anonym

Is your intent privacy? I've thought through similar setups, but if the intent is to break cross-platform correlation to a user/device ID and related de-anonymization, I keep coming back to these questions: - How do I know fastmail doesn't sell data? If every one-time domain is tied to a static fastmail account, and the fastmail account has my real info and sells it, then the obfuscation per-service is moot. - Google certainly is selling data, and its hard to have an account with them that's totally clean and doesn't need an existing "anchored"/tracked piece of infra to set it up (existing phone number, etc). SO, the VOIP number from Google is once again linked up to my IRL data, and the obfuscation is again moot. The best I can think of is the theory that a LLC's privacy protections will be stronger than an individual. If I wrap everything in a LLC (phone provider, AWS acc with services like Chime, etc), then the correlation surface areas looks like a random LLC using all these retail services and its delinked from my IRL, assuming AWS/Google don't protect a LLC's data from selling into adtech (and I speculate it might protect it actually).

hnbear 3y ago
I owned and ran my own email domain for a long time. Initially on my own hardware for fun, then a VPS, then GSuite, then Fastmail. That's over around 20 years. So, it wasn't planned - it evolved. Somewhere in the Fastmail era I was reading their docs around wildcarding and thought I'd try it out. My primary domain is my name though, so for extra privacy (anality) I bought another that has no link to me in the name. There are still gaps in it. e.g. any merchant site still needs my physical address, and plenty need my cell number. But, generally, it's just an attempt to minimize a digital footprint and see what privacy I can get. That and just why not? I self-host enough stuff, that I see this as another aspect of the same mentality - having a little more control. It's not perfect security, it's not completely clean. Hopefully it's enough to get me out of the easy target bucket though.
- dogman144 3y ago
  Makes sense, seems like this setup still has the same issues I brought up, but good to know others are sorting through the same issue. I spent a good while reading about adtech from the practitioner side (i.e. adtech devs) vs. from the privacy side, and it was illuminating. Basically, the fears of privacy advocates get laid out in plain "this is a great feature for user correlation" speak, without any of the feature-masking used when adtech discusses it in privacy terms with privacy-conscious audiences. In short, my takeaway from that research was it only takes 1x merchant or infra provider which can correlate a "masked" domain/VOIP number/PO box with something IRL of yours to basically undo the whole privacy effort. Without ironclad knowledge the vendor doesn't sell data (which is hard to get), it's as good as safely assuming the data got sold (or the pixel in the webpage did it, and so on). Tough to think through! I think LLC'ing ones life, if in the US, is the only way to truly do it or get a reasonably high guarantee. You'd get corporate privacy guarantees which are unfortunately stronger than individual privacy guarantees in the states.

hnbear 3y ago

I owned and ran my own email domain for a long time. Initially on my own hardware for fun, then a VPS, then GSuite, then Fastmail. That's over around 20 years. So, it wasn't planned - it evolved. Somewhere in the Fastmail era I was reading their docs around wildcarding and thought I'd try it out. My primary domain is my name though, so for extra privacy (anality) I bought another that has no link to me in the name. There are still gaps in it. e.g. any merchant site still needs my physical address, and plenty need my cell number. But, generally, it's just an attempt to minimize a digital footprint and see what privacy I can get. That and just why not? I self-host enough stuff, that I see this as another aspect of the same mentality - having a little more control. It's not perfect security, it's not completely clean. Hopefully it's enough to get me out of the easy target bucket though.

dogman144 3y ago
Makes sense, seems like this setup still has the same issues I brought up, but good to know others are sorting through the same issue. I spent a good while reading about adtech from the practitioner side (i.e. adtech devs) vs. from the privacy side, and it was illuminating. Basically, the fears of privacy advocates get laid out in plain "this is a great feature for user correlation" speak, without any of the feature-masking used when adtech discusses it in privacy terms with privacy-conscious audiences. In short, my takeaway from that research was it only takes 1x merchant or infra provider which can correlate a "masked" domain/VOIP number/PO box with something IRL of yours to basically undo the whole privacy effort. Without ironclad knowledge the vendor doesn't sell data (which is hard to get), it's as good as safely assuming the data got sold (or the pixel in the webpage did it, and so on). Tough to think through! I think LLC'ing ones life, if in the US, is the only way to truly do it or get a reasonably high guarantee. You'd get corporate privacy guarantees which are unfortunately stronger than individual privacy guarantees in the states.