"Your porn is watching you" article

[feldspar]

I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on this article:

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/your-p ... tching-you

I can't tell if this is simply fear/alarmist journalism or if there's actually something to be worried about here.

[servufon]

i don't think the journalism here is alarmist; Thomas is, though he's technically correct as to possibilities, but as some of the countering voices in that same article (which is why I say the journalism is not alarmist) indicate it's a matter of scale and incentive to actually do this kind of vast tracking

that said, sure, if someone has it in for you, they will find you and everything you touch, that's just (more or less) the way it is

a comment on browser "fingerprints": yes, it's technically also correct, however what that concern, as stated by Thomas and some, fails to address is, even aside from the scale of tracking required if one were to do it consistently and universally, that the browser "fingerprint" changes with each new plug-in and many other changes. so while it's easy in a short period to track a specific browser, over time that's significantly more challenging

to the degree Thomas is alarmist, it's a fair alarmism as to potential issues, and one that has nothing to do with porn specifically but all browser-based activity

[aldorax]

Most, if not all sites are watching you. Porn and other 'illicit' or 'illegal' sites are notorious for overloading their pages with ad networks, trackers, revenue-generators, etc ... ANYTHING that can lead to revenue, no matter how minimal per page view.

Good browser techniques (adblocking, selective script enabling, blocking/selectively allowing cookies, etc.) will help minimise this exposure.

One extreme option is to use a different browser just for "dirty" sites and NOTHING else -- ie, sites that are notorous for trackers, potential malware, etc. To wit: I only log into Google via Safari. On Firefox, my main browser, Google-anything's cookies, trackers, and/or scripts are blocked and all I do with the site is search ... but even then, it's not a 'vanilla' Google experience as I've set things up, both for privacy and usability purposes. Maybe you use a different browser JUST for porn surfing. Just a thought!

[Flogger]

The real response is to learn to deal with porn as the Germans/Dutch/Scandinavians/sensible people do. It's a thing. Use it. Sensibly. Don't get hung up on it because you personally have a problem and let it be.

Then who gives a shit if people watch porn?

Someone obviously does or it'd go tits up asap.

God, I'm getting sensible in my old age.

[book_guy]

I'm more alarmed that Amazon, Delta airlines, LL Bean, and the Saturday Review websites are all watching me. Anyway, I wipe cookies and delete ALL available traces all the time. So, if the FBI or the NSA wants to track my surfing, the only way they can do so is by means of my IP address, if it's important to them. Can't guess why it would be, but well, golly to them, they can just find out that LL Bean blue jeans are MUCH too skinny in the hips and thighs for me, and this piece of totally embarrassing personal information might ruin any chance I ever have of running for public office.

[SexualChoc]

"They" are watching me???? ..OH noooo.....
so in addition to : google, the USA goverment, china.. and a host of others
as well as several other tracking sites ..

...put's on the tinfoil hat...

Try and read my thought';s NOW

[servufon]

I'm more alarmed that Amazon, Delta airlines, LL Bean, and the Saturday Review websites are all watching me. Anyway, I wipe cookies and delete ALL available traces all the time. So, if the FBI or the NSA wants to track my surfing, the only way they can do so is by means of my IP address, if it's important to them. Can't guess why it would be, but well, golly to them, they can just find out that LL Bean blue jeans are MUCH too skinny in the hips and thighs for me, and this piece of totally embarrassing personal information might ruin any chance I ever have of running for public office.

technically speaking wipping cookies and "traces" doesn't get past so-called "browser fingerprinting," which is a real thing; but as said, merely making browser extension changes and such can confuse that process

anyway somebody has to be pretty damned determined and skilled to go after an individual doing such as you and anybody adequately resourced can do it, anyway

it just isn't worth "regular" people actively worrying about (i mean as a personal "oh my god what if.." thing - please DO worry about societal privacy laws and regulations and corporate and government practices, etc.)

[tommyfilth]

Quite honestly - and I know this is an unpopular opinion - the entire notion of privacy as we currently understand it is a relatively new concept, and privacy as a whole has evolved over time. We are in an age of unprecedented access to information, as well as the ability to maintain a public presence in an environment to which the the only barriers are language and internet access. Privacy is changing daily. We know the CIA is monitoring all of us in the US, and probably elsewhere, as well. We know that hacking groups are becoming more prevalent. But we like to tell ourselves that it's business as usual. It's just not so. The reality is, in twenty years, we might not even be able to recognize privacy in relation to how it exists now.

I view this as both positive and negative.

The way I see it, we all have kinks. We all have skeletons in our closets. But if we'd all just own up to it, we might find that the people we'd least expect actually are into freakier stuff than anybody currently on this forum (well, ALMOST anybody). And maybe clearing the air like that would be a good thing; we'd learn to cherish our differences and stop being so damn uptight about sexuality as a culture.

[book_guy]

technically speaking wipping cookies and "traces" doesn't get past so-called "browser fingerprinting" ...

No worries, I'm already on that too. :)

[servufon]

Quite honestly - and I know this is an unpopular opinion - the entire notion of privacy as we currently understand it is a relatively new concept, and privacy as a whole has evolved over time. We are in an age of unprecedented access to information, as well as the ability to maintain a public presence in an environment to which the the only barriers are language and internet access. Privacy is changing daily. We know the CIA is monitoring all of us in the US, and probably elsewhere, as well. We know that hacking groups are becoming more prevalent. But we like to tell ourselves that it's business as usual. It's just not so. The reality is, in twenty years, we might not even be able to recognize privacy in relation to how it exists now.

I view this as both positive and negative.

The way I see it, we all have kinks. We all have skeletons in our closets. But if we'd all just own up to it, we might find that the people we'd least expect actually are into freakier stuff than anybody currently on this forum (well, ALMOST anybody). And maybe clearing the air like that would be a good thing; we'd learn to cherish our differences and stop being so damn uptight about sexuality as a culture.

re your first paragraph, i don't think you're even stating an opinion, that's simply correct; latter 20th century Western notions of privacy were already critically different than a 100 years prior (at least below the upper class, and even there practices were very different) and radically different than a few hundred years. And it's evolving greatly now - and that's not even new, as much of what is going on now was set in motion culturally, legally, politically, AND technologically by the mid-20th century, roughly. A relatively small point, the US' legal third party doctrine and business practices by the mid or so 1970s already established precedents for the digital era ever since, the spread of consumer data among private agencies, its reuse by governments, and the lack of privacy standing already have been firmly established in legal and business practices.

Anyway, the point is that your first paragraph is just plain fact. the rest i probably agree with you more than i disagree, but that's neither here nor there

[basturd]

Help Test Private Browsing with Tracking Protection in Firefox Beta

[arthurb]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bQwin3Vv0k

[servufon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bQwin3Vv0k

:D oh i remember that one!

and a visual version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YvAYIJSSZY

[tommyfilth]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bQwin3Vv0k

Well played. :)

[book_guy]

As far as legal history goes, "private" matters have generally, officially speaking, been much better protected in the past than they are now that there's an invasive techno-state which has the monitoring and surveillance capacity to sneak past borderlines. However, in the history of the protection of privacy, what was, officially speaking, SUPPOSED to be better protected was often simply invaded anyway. So, if Mr. Fawkes and a few co-conspirators wanted to discuss blowing up (say, just for example) the Houses of Parliament in the privacy of his own home, it was generally the rule of law that no surveillance could be done because it would be inappropriate to invade his home (or anywhere within the confines of his curtilage) without some sort of authority that was well-warranted (meaning, very reasonably explained; the verb "to warrant" simply means "to justify" or "to explain, give reasons for"). However, that rule of law was really beside the point when the King could declare that his warrant was "Because I want to, for the benefit of the Realm." Yeesh. Thanks for the explanation.

With the advent of electronic communications and wire-tapping, whole new vistas opened up. The term "right to privacy" is already a bit iffy -- I think we ought to be talking about several different categories of human rights in this discussion. Having the right to keep your information "private" is rather different from having the right to keep your PERSON or your BODY (think: GONADS) "private." What of your own private THINGS the government looks at, or the police, or the next-door neighbor, kinda gets on your nerves in a different manner depending on which thing is the object of the gaze. I don't really mind the whole dang world knowing that I prefer heterosexual porn images of nubile young-ish females engaged in lesbian sex or hetero sex with coitus. I kind of don't mind that the whole dang world will probably presume that, if I admit to watching that stuff, then I am likely to be watching it while naked and whacking off to that stuff. Sure, no big whoop, we're all grown ups here. But, I don't want ANYBODY to put a film of me whacking off up on the internet. And I bet a lot of people can identify with that type of "natural" choice that I "feel" my way into: in theory, TALK about what I do feels like one thing, but an ACTUAL PERMANENT RECORD of private acts is really entirely another, and MUCH more invasive, feeling thing. Funny conundrum there, just to make the point -- different lines that don't make much sense, rationally speaking, but when you cross some of them the red flags go up FAST.

We only vaguely have "privacy" enshrined as a protected right in parts of the American legal system. (It's presently what has been used as the foundation for continuing the right to abortion, in Supreme Court opinions, actually. Believe it or not. Different issue.) But we DO have protection against warrantless searches. This a hold-over from the English civil wars, mostly. It's so damned easy for a cop to get a warrant (really, I've seen judges sign the things without even looking up from their dinner) that I don't exactly understand how searches and seizures in the USA turn out to be un-warranted. I can't imagine a cop being so goddamned stupid he didn't have the sense to retroactively pretend a judge's consent and beg his superiors to go beg the judge and eat a little crow ... but evidently even that modicum of paper-work eludes some of our Brightest Boys In Blue. I just don't get it.

Furthermore, in the United States it's already the case that fingerprints, facial photographs, blood samples (including blood type and DNA characteristics), and even voice characteristics, are all unprotected -- the cops can demand any one of them and get it immediately, as long as you're already under arrest, and the only thing that most legal objections do is delay the invasive procedure a bit and give the cops yet one more excuse to beat the shit out of you when nobody's looking. Breathalyzer too, for purposes of alcohol content in blood, probably ... litigation pending.

European Union, interestingly, includes the right to be FORGOTTEN in their constitution. Somehow. Not sure of the specifics. So, what happens in the USA if you don't like how Google misleadingly portrays the only misguided rather vindictive review of your dry-cleaners as the main only and highly representative review? What if it pops first up only because there's a lot of interest in the idiot who wrote it, because he later got arrested for Unabomber-type psychoses including membership in al Qaeda and trying to buy plane tickets to major airports in lands controlled by ISIL. Which has NOTHING to do with your dry-cleaners business. But you're getting screwed by Google, which responds, "Oh, we don't tweak search results, if you want better reviews you'll have to stop cleaning the Unabomber's clothes." In the USA, nothing. You get screwed. In Europe the misleading search results come down. Generally speaking. Is that "privacy"?

So, there's the "privacy" interest in bodily security and no invasion of your orifices and veins without your consent. Then there's the "privacy" interest of having factually honest information about you distributed generally, and the removal or at least editing of misleading information. Then there's the "privacy" interest of having sex with whomever whenever you want as long as you can get the hot chick to consent. Without being filmed. Unless you want it that way. And there's the "privacy" interest of keeping various pieces of data on your computer, or on someone else's computer on a server in New Zealand that you have set up with a password. And what about all that business in your DNA about which diseases you're going to die of? I have a family history of rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes; but not much of a family history of heart disease, heart attacks, hypertension or high blood pressure, or obesity. Can the insurance company demand to know these facts? Would they find them out by demanding that I answer a questionnaire, by taking a blood sample, by hacking into and then mining the big data in my MegaPronz account?