5 ms·

I've been experimenting with behavioral tracking on a bunch of platforms for a while now, but it's very difficult research - if you come across something intere

I've been experimenting with behavioral tracking on a bunch of platforms for a while now, but it's very difficult research - if you come across something interesting, replication is very difficult if not impossible, or sometimes the underlying paradigm will change entirely and force you to start from square 1. My motivation is that I would love, and personally pay a ridiculous amount of money for, a service that obfuscates the upstream data that ends up in stuff like bidstreams and other behavioral tracking data sources in a way that makes the data essentially worthless (or even better, extremely expensive) to them. Have had almost no success, at least from means that wouldn't get you in hot water- it feels a lot like pissing into a forest fire expecting to put it out.

brokenmachine 2y ago
Just mentioning AdNauseam, which clicks on all ads in the background to poison the data. https://github.com/dhowe/AdNauseam https://github.com/dhowe/AdNauseam
- JohnMakin 2y ago
  I like the spirit of stuff like this a lot and have entertained similar ideas, but the issue with specifically this is that depending on where you live, this may be illegal (which is effing ridiculous - I’ve had to build defense against click fraud, in my opinion if a website or company is vulnerable to this it’s their own lack of diligence, but whatever). So to me, stuff like this is a fun gray area middle finger but ultimately does not do anything to solve my problem, which is I want to completely opt out of behavioral tracking in any way shape or form, and if I cannot, I want the data truly anonymous as was promised/implied by these same people over the last two decades every time privacy conerns were raised. I know it’s a much wider problem than stuff like this is meant to solve, just wanted to throw it out there that (hilariously) stuff like this is illegal depending on local statutes.
  - brokenmachine 2y ago
    It's illegal to auto-click on ads that are automatically delivered? That's good example of a law I don't care about.
Halfwhit 2y ago
If enough of us piss into the fire would it make a difference?
- JohnMakin 2y ago
  That’s the idea, and I’ve seen speak of it in comments in places like these, but I’m not aware of there being a specific term for it. I call it privacy by obfuscation but that’s kind of boring. It’s easy to start experimenting with to see how invasive it is. Try changing your birthday to under 18 or over 35 if you’re under 35 and see how drastic your ad experience changes across anything you interact with on the web, and how fast it can happen. It’s creepy, but doing an experiment like this has essentially cost someone money, as I am not the person they are targeting. A problem though with this approach is creating any realistic technology that could employ tactics like this without changing the user experience in a way people immediately reject it, and the answer to me is, it’s probably not feasible. But, I keep trying to think about the problem because there probably is some happy middleground. I still believe privacy is possible today.
  - adiabatichottub 2y ago
    I've thought about this, and I'm almost certain I've seen some basic tools to do similar. Call it "semantic chaffing". Maybe one example could be for every search query you make three random queries are generated. Random results are followed through their tracking links. Now it's much less clear to a dumb algorithm what your interests might be. Maybe a human or well-trained LLM could pick up the thread, but now it takes considerably more resources. It's a form of asymmetric warfare.
    - MrVandemar 2y ago
      Probably need something that periodically adds and removes fonts as well, at least once per day, probably more often. That's one element of fingerprinting.
      - adiabatichottub 2y ago

brokenmachine 2y ago

Just mentioning AdNauseam, which clicks on all ads in the background to poison the data. https://github.com/dhowe/AdNauseam https://github.com/dhowe/AdNauseam

JohnMakin 2y ago
I like the spirit of stuff like this a lot and have entertained similar ideas, but the issue with specifically this is that depending on where you live, this may be illegal (which is effing ridiculous - I’ve had to build defense against click fraud, in my opinion if a website or company is vulnerable to this it’s their own lack of diligence, but whatever). So to me, stuff like this is a fun gray area middle finger but ultimately does not do anything to solve my problem, which is I want to completely opt out of behavioral tracking in any way shape or form, and if I cannot, I want the data truly anonymous as was promised/implied by these same people over the last two decades every time privacy conerns were raised. I know it’s a much wider problem than stuff like this is meant to solve, just wanted to throw it out there that (hilariously) stuff like this is illegal depending on local statutes.
- brokenmachine 2y ago
  It's illegal to auto-click on ads that are automatically delivered? That's good example of a law I don't care about.

Halfwhit 2y ago

If enough of us piss into the fire would it make a difference?

JohnMakin 2y ago
That’s the idea, and I’ve seen speak of it in comments in places like these, but I’m not aware of there being a specific term for it. I call it privacy by obfuscation but that’s kind of boring. It’s easy to start experimenting with to see how invasive it is. Try changing your birthday to under 18 or over 35 if you’re under 35 and see how drastic your ad experience changes across anything you interact with on the web, and how fast it can happen. It’s creepy, but doing an experiment like this has essentially cost someone money, as I am not the person they are targeting. A problem though with this approach is creating any realistic technology that could employ tactics like this without changing the user experience in a way people immediately reject it, and the answer to me is, it’s probably not feasible. But, I keep trying to think about the problem because there probably is some happy middleground. I still believe privacy is possible today.
- adiabatichottub 2y ago
  I've thought about this, and I'm almost certain I've seen some basic tools to do similar. Call it "semantic chaffing". Maybe one example could be for every search query you make three random queries are generated. Random results are followed through their tracking links. Now it's much less clear to a dumb algorithm what your interests might be. Maybe a human or well-trained LLM could pick up the thread, but now it takes considerably more resources. It's a form of asymmetric warfare.
  - MrVandemar 2y ago
    Probably need something that periodically adds and removes fonts as well, at least once per day, probably more often. That's one element of fingerprinting.
    - adiabatichottub 2y ago