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So on a serious note, we were discussing this in another thread about: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39698546 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39698

So on a serious note, we were discussing this in another thread about: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39698546 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39698546 and using that to automate the unsub from trackers: --> This really needs to be used to make a tool to automate all the "delete my data" requests and have users map out deleting their data/PII etc from data brokers to a git something and people can submit the recipes to delete your personal data. I just did so on one of the more terrible ones yesterday - and the dark pattern was it would put you in captcha-loops... and youd have to reload/retry several times before stopped asking you firehydrant bus traffic motorcycle crosswalk over and over. but to save unsub/delete me scripts with this would be nifty. A recipe bounty would be neat - for example - Optery found me in more PII dbs than I expected - and it would be cool for people to see which brokers they are found in and there is a bounty list for all the brokers people are finding for someone to create a Delete-Me for each thing, so that one hopefully has the help of many to navigate the minefield of dark patterns in such.

akira2501 3y ago
Your data is sitting in an unencrypted excel spreadsheet somewhere as it moves between entities. Good luck. Your best bet is what the government minister mentioned elsewhere in this thread did. Generate noise. So much noise that none of your "PII" is even remotely accurate. You can't hide, but you can paint an incredibly inaccurate picture.
- imiric 3y ago
  > You can't hide, but you can paint an incredibly inaccurate picture. How do you reasonably do this? You would have to spend an incredible amount of effort creating fake data everywhere, without having any clue if what you're doing is even working. With new AI tools and technologies it's likely that someone with enough resources and motivation would be able to filter out the signal from the noise anyway. I currently lean towards just minimizing my digital footprint, and carefully choosing the hardware and software I use. It still takes a lot of effort and sacrifice, and I don't expect this method to be foolproof, but at least it's reasonably manageable. At some point you do have to accept that absolute privacy is impossible in the modern world, even if you shun all technology.
  - NSMutableSet 3y ago
    >How do you reasonably do this? You would have to spend an incredible amount of effort creating fake data everywhere, without having any clue if what you're doing is even working. With new AI tools and technologies You answered your own question.
    - imiric 3y ago
      Not really. AI wasn't an option until very recently. How was this managed before? And even with AI, it would take a considerable amount of effort to flood all public channels with fake data. Do you do this via APIs for every service? Do you generate image and video as well? You would still have no idea whether your efforts are actually working. Not to mention that using this approach contributes noise to an already noisy medium. Your fight with an imaginary enemy worsens the online experience for everyone else. We have enough junk on the internet as it is.
      - mrguyorama 3y ago
        >How was this managed before? By being rich enough to hire dedicated companies who provide this service. Reputation management it is sometimes called.
  - mdiesel 3y ago
    Use a different birthday for every service you sign up to, especially the ones like "restaurant wants you to enter details to use their wifi", same for other details that they don't need in order to offer you a service.

akira2501 3y ago

Your data is sitting in an unencrypted excel spreadsheet somewhere as it moves between entities. Good luck. Your best bet is what the government minister mentioned elsewhere in this thread did. Generate noise. So much noise that none of your "PII" is even remotely accurate. You can't hide, but you can paint an incredibly inaccurate picture.

imiric 3y ago
> You can't hide, but you can paint an incredibly inaccurate picture. How do you reasonably do this? You would have to spend an incredible amount of effort creating fake data everywhere, without having any clue if what you're doing is even working. With new AI tools and technologies it's likely that someone with enough resources and motivation would be able to filter out the signal from the noise anyway. I currently lean towards just minimizing my digital footprint, and carefully choosing the hardware and software I use. It still takes a lot of effort and sacrifice, and I don't expect this method to be foolproof, but at least it's reasonably manageable. At some point you do have to accept that absolute privacy is impossible in the modern world, even if you shun all technology.
- NSMutableSet 3y ago
  >How do you reasonably do this? You would have to spend an incredible amount of effort creating fake data everywhere, without having any clue if what you're doing is even working. With new AI tools and technologies You answered your own question.
  - imiric 3y ago
    Not really. AI wasn't an option until very recently. How was this managed before? And even with AI, it would take a considerable amount of effort to flood all public channels with fake data. Do you do this via APIs for every service? Do you generate image and video as well? You would still have no idea whether your efforts are actually working. Not to mention that using this approach contributes noise to an already noisy medium. Your fight with an imaginary enemy worsens the online experience for everyone else. We have enough junk on the internet as it is.
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      >How was this managed before? By being rich enough to hire dedicated companies who provide this service. Reputation management it is sometimes called.
- mdiesel 3y ago
  Use a different birthday for every service you sign up to, especially the ones like "restaurant wants you to enter details to use their wifi", same for other details that they don't need in order to offer you a service.