I wish to convince my friends and family to avoid using privacy-invading ad-based services and apps. Seeing people discuss how much data these companies collect off of us, I want to know if there is a way you could get a sample of that data by yourself and show it to them for them to realize the gravity of the situation themselves.
The closest thing is Google’s ad personalization panel in the Google Account Dashboard. It literally lists out the information of the account holder by the things they’ve browsed, including their gender, age, occupation, interests etc. I could’ve used it to show to my family but I turned off ad personalization for all their accounts a few years back so they aren’t even aware of it.
The next closest thing to this could be browser fingerprinting tests but they wouldn’t be able to understand the tech jargon from the results anyway. Also I am not planning to go to the ‘deep web’ for this. Is there any other way I could get this done, like a website/app specifically designated for this purpose, for opening some sort of userlog in the accounts page?
Show them exactly what the company says the collect in plane language not legalese.
Haha plane language. Like whats up my Airbus?
Not much my Cessna.
Comac C919 here, what is this “Privacy” you speak of ?
I guess not everyone can be an SR-71. I’ll give you a transcript of everything they’ve been saying for the past 9 hours, hopefully it should bring you up to speed.
SR-71
speedSorry, but it’s obligatory:
There were a lot of things we couldn’t do in an SR-71, but we were the fastest guys on the block and loved reminding our fellow aviators of this fact. People often asked us if, because of this fact, it was fun to fly the jet. Fun would not be the first word I would use to describe flying this plane. Intense, maybe. Even cerebral. But there was one day in our Sled experience when we would have to say that it was pure fun to be the fastest guys out there, at least for a moment.
It occurred when Walt and I were flying our final training sortie. We needed 100 hours in the jet to complete our training and attain Mission Ready status. Somewhere over Colorado we had passed the century mark. We had made the turn in Arizona and the jet was performing flawlessly. My gauges were wired in the front seat and we were starting to feel pretty good about ourselves, not only because we would soon be flying real missions but because we had gained a great deal of confidence in the plane in the past ten months. Ripping across the barren deserts 80,000 feet below us, I could already see the coast of California from the Arizona border. I was, finally, after many humbling months of simulators and study, ahead of the jet. I was beginning to feel a bit sorry for Walter in the back seat. There he was, with no really good view of the incredible sights before us, tasked with monitoring four different radios. This was good practice for him for when we began flying real missions, when a priority transmission from headquarters could be vital. It had been difficult, too, for me to relinquish control of the radios, as during my entire flying career I had controlled my own transmissions. But it was part of the division of duties in this plane and I had adjusted to it. I still insisted on talking on the radio while we were on the ground, however. Walt was so good at many things, but he couldn’t match my expertise at sounding smooth on the radios, a skill that had been honed sharply with years in fighter squadrons where the slightest radio miscue was grounds for beheading. He understood that and allowed me that luxury.
Just to get a sense of what Walt had to contend with, I pulled the radio toggle switches and monitored the frequencies along with him. The predominant radio chatter was from Los Angeles Center, far below us, controlling daily traffic in their sector. While they had us on their scope (albeit briefly), we were in uncontrolled airspace and normally would not talk to them unless we needed to descend into their airspace. We listened as the shaky voice of a lone Cessna pilot asked Center for a readout of his ground speed. Center replied: “November Charlie 175, I’m showing you at ninety knots on the ground.”
Now the thing to understand about Center controllers, was that whether they were talking to a rookie pilot in a Cessna, or to Air Force One, they always spoke in the exact same, calm, deep, professional, tone that made one feel important. I referred to it as the " Houston Center voice." I have always felt that after years of seeing documentaries on this country’s space program and listening to the calm and distinct voice of the Houston controllers, that all other controllers since then wanted to sound like that, and that they basically did. And it didn’t matter what sector of the country we would be flying in, it always seemed like the same guy was talking. Over the years that tone of voice had become somewhat of a comforting sound to pilots everywhere. Conversely, over the years, pilots always wanted to ensure that, when transmitting, they sounded like Chuck Yeager, or at least like John Wayne. Better to die than sound bad on the radios.
Just moments after the Cessna’s inquiry, a Twin Beech piped up on frequency, in a rather superior tone, asking for his ground speed. “I have you at one hundred and twenty-five knots of ground speed.” Boy, I thought, the Beechcraft really must think he is dazzling his Cessna brethren. Then out of the blue, a navy F-18 pilot out of NAS Lemoore came up on frequency. You knew right away it was a Navy jock because he sounded very cool on the radios. “Center, Dusty 52 ground speed check”. Before Center could reply, I’m thinking to myself, hey, Dusty 52 has a ground speed indicator in that million-dollar cockpit, so why is he asking Center for a readout? Then I got it, ol’ Dusty here is making sure that every bug smasher from Mount Whitney to the Mojave knows what true speed is. He’s the fastest dude in the valley today, and he just wants everyone to know how much fun he is having in his new Hornet. And the reply, always with that same, calm, voice, with more distinct alliteration than emotion: “Dusty 52, Center, we have you at 620 on the ground.”
And I thought to myself, is this a ripe situation, or what? As my hand instinctively reached for the mic button, I had to remind myself that Walt was in control of the radios. Still, I thought, it must be done - in mere seconds we’ll be out of the sector and the opportunity will be lost. That Hornet must die, and die now. I thought about all of our Sim training and how important it was that we developed well as a crew and knew that to jump in on the radios now would destroy the integrity of all that we had worked toward becoming. I was torn.
Somewhere, 13 miles above Arizona, there was a pilot screaming inside his space helmet. Then, I heard it. The click of the mic button from the back seat. That was the very moment that I knew Walter and I had become a crew. Very professionally, and with no emotion, Walter spoke: “Los Angeles Center, Aspen 20, can you give us a ground speed check?” There was no hesitation, and the replay came as if was an everyday request. “Aspen 20, I show you at one thousand eight hundred and forty-two knots, across the ground.”
I think it was the forty-two knots that I liked the best, so accurate and proud was Center to deliver that information without hesitation, and you just knew he was smiling. But the precise point at which I knew that Walt and I were going to be really good friends for a long time was when he keyed the mic once again to say, in his most fighter-pilot-like voice: “Ah, Center, much thanks, we’re showing closer to nineteen hundred on the money.”
For a moment Walter was a god. And we finally heard a little crack in the armor of the Houston Center voice, when L.A.came back with, “Roger that Aspen, Your equipment is probably more accurate than ours. You boys have a good one.” It all had lasted for just moments, but in that short, memorable sprint across the southwest, the Navy had been flamed, all mortal airplanes on freq were forced to bow before the King of Speed, and more importantly, Walter and I had crossed the threshold of being a crew. A fine day’s work. We never heard another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast. For just one day, it truly was fun being the fastest guys out there.
But at least with plane language it’s not Boeing anymore.
That’s a nice web to check. Thanks
I personally like to show how easy it can be to cyberstalk someone.
I pulled up a friend’s LinkedIn and pasted their bio text into Google line-by-line until I got a trail to a very old LiveJournal which had links to a NSFW Tumblr (before the purge). What led me there was a phrase that they used frequently in conversation and on the bio. It was their “bone apple tea” moment that made it VERY easy to pin down. I also followed the username trail to some fanart on DeviantArt, and a snapshot of an old website on archive.org.
I present that, then tell them if I can build a profile like this with less than an hour’s work, imagine what data processors can do with the amount of data harvested from voluntarily accepting an “invasion” policy, especially if they (the data processors) are able to automatically match speech patterns to users!
Just send them the new report on Nissan of the Mozilla foundation 😂
Not just Nissan so many of the car companies do this.
Here is the Mozilla listing https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/categories/cars/Fuck me…
Not in a Nissan at least.
How bout in a Datsun? ;)
IMO the problem is rather “What they gonna do with my data? Show me better ads? Nice.”
I’ve met a ton of people that just don’t care. The problem often isn’t that they don’t know companies are collecting a shit-ton of data. That’s really not new or isolated to tech companies.
“If I get better ads and it saves me time, what do I care?”
“I’m getting something for free. What does it matter if they know?”“It’s too much work to avoid”
Have them open Google maps if they use it and show them the timeline. That usually freaks people out a bit. Then you can say sites are doing this same tracking with their digital information or something.
I know that long time ago this was one of the things that freaked me out. I went into google account privacy settings and there is a lot of info about you. It really creeps you out when you see info from years ago.
If you’re willing to spend 40$, various data brokers will sell you all the information people in this thread have mentioned
Buy Congress data weekly and make it public. Watch some privacy laws happen damn fast.
If it were that easy, someone would have done it already.
Can dou you name some? I highly doubt that you can buy data from a specific person.
You would need a lot of data and the know how to trace that data back to a specific account/user
Maybe with good targeting it can be done with buying less data
Disgusting that we need to pay for it
Facebook Offline Activity page. It displays the activity you have performed on external websites. This was the trigger for me to disable my FB account
but now you can’t see what they collect about you 😐
If it’s worth $3 to you, I recommend “Take This Lollipop”.
It used to be free, but I guess they gotta eat too.
It’s basically a creepy interactive movie that uses a person’s own personal data to scare them about privacy and what they put on the net.
Seems cool. Are there many jumpscares?
Nah, the horror comes from how much data people leak online.
Show them the consequeces. You might scare a few people who are already anxious by showing data collected, but most people will be apathetic. Illustrate why its bad. Be systemic about it.
The stunt outlined elsewhere of texting someone with their info is good, but “we all know google isn’t going to threaten us” is the prevailing attitude. Demonstrate what google is going to do and how it hurts people individualy and directly. Until there are personal consequences, peopae won’t really care.
Coming from an outsider, could you give an example of a way Google attacks people individually and directly?
Preferably something more common than traffic accidents, since people drive cars regardless
Google scans all the photos you upload or send to other users, multiple times they have accused people of uploading CSAM and completely nuked their accounts simply because they were sending something to their pediatrician or their doctor.
In one case they have reported them to the police who then obtained a search warrant for all the (obscene amount of) data that google has collected on them.
They then disabled and deleted all his google related accounts including his phone number (he used google fi)
In December 2021, Mark received a manila envelope in the mail from the San Francisco Police Department. It contained a letter informing him that he had been investigated as well as copies of the search warrants served on Google and his internet service provider. An investigator, whose contact information was provided, had asked for everything in Mark’s Google account: his internet searches, his location history, his messages and any document, photo and video he’d stored with the company
Louis rossman has a video on those incidents on youtube.
Google could have potentially and very easily destroyed this persons life. With them you are guilty until proven innocent, actually your always guilty. This mark guy sent the police report that exonerated him to google, yet they still think he’s a pedo…
Imagine that you buy a phone from Google’s Google Fi MVNO cellular service. You order a phone and it’s to be delivered. The phone was part of a promotion for signing up. You paid a reduced rate for it because you are a new customer. Then the phone is stolen out of the package while in the custody of the shipping company. You make a complaint to Google because the phone never arrived and you can’t activate service and fullfill your end of the bargain without it. They say that it’s the responsibility of the shipper. You then make a complaint with the shipper who claims that although they may be at fault (not likely that they admit that), they are not on the hook for reimbursement. That you must contact Google. You go back to Google. They “escalate” your case to the next tier of customer support. You wait months. They charge you the full cost of the phone even though you never received it. They do this because per the terms of your agreement with them you did not activate service with the phone and maintain that service for the specified period of time and within a specified time limit. You contact your credit card company. They offer you the option of doing a charge back.
Google doesn’t like that you charged back. Now your entire personal and professional google accounts and anything linked to them are gone. They nuked them. There is no customer service to contact to review what’s happened. You can’t get into company email. You can’t get into private email. You can’t get 2fa codes sent to you via email for any of your bank or other web based accounts linked to that email. Anything and everything in Google drive? Gone. Your family photos? Gone. If you use an android phone you are no longer logged into a Google account rendering your phone only partially functional. They can’t serve you with personalised ads anymore. But on the other hand you also have no recourse other than hiring a lawyer (which may be exceptionally cost prohibitive) to get revenge porn of you removed from Google search results in compliance with right to be forgotten laws and anti-revenge porn laws. Meanwhile your data still allows them to target other people you interact with. They get ads for things like the same toothpaste that was on your shopping list in Google Keep. Movies you like. Shows you’ve purchased. That data you gave them free and clear can still be used by other people and agencies to track you. Your employment history. Your rental history. Whether you’ve ever been evicted.
They won’t sell it. But they’ll still use it. And you will have less avenues to delete it or otherwise change it.
What an imagination you have there. Wow.
Google actually has been caught nuking accounts that have done charge backs. Could you make a new account? Yeah. Maybe. But would you?
This is a “simple” question, but unfortunately the answer isn’t as simple. Much of this isn’t necessarily Google “individually and directly attacking people”, but instead Google providing others with the (otherwise unavailable) means to do so.
Regardless, is this an example that you were looking for? https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/google-tracked-his-bike-ride-past-burglarized-home-made-him-n1151761
I mean, to be open, I don’t actually see many consequences, so I don’t really do any particular things to protect privacy from like, google. I was sort of hoping someone here would give me one.
This site covers the social cooling effect of these services and how the data you give out may be used against you by banks, insurance companies etc. It’s worth reading through (4 minutes). https://www.socialcooling.com/
Oh thanks. This is exactly what I was looking for.
Removed by mod
John Oliver’s Edward Snowden interview where they talk about the fact that the government collects people’s dick pics. If that doesn’t make them care, nothing will.
Honesty I’ve kinda given up trying to show normies that privacy is important. And have started to focus on making my own digital life as private as I can. Some will wake up and come ask you, and then you can share what you know with them and help them switch to privacy respecting tech and practises.
For example I recently converted a friend to Linux and they even bought a System76 laptop and has been very happy with it( I’m an old Thinkpad lover).
Or they will simply suffer the eventually inevitable consequences due to how little people care, and how much big companies and governments are willing to take advantage of that.
It’s not that I don’t think it’s a worthy fight and won’t continue to at least get called crazy for mentioning that it matters. But don’t be surprised how little most people care.
Way back in the early days of Justin/Twitch, if people wouldn’t listen about their data security being important, what I did was simply look up their home addresses and phone numbers and texted them the information.
Had them get on fixing their digital footprint quite fast.
Yeah OP, just dox them, what could go wrong?
I take it reading isn’t your strongsuit?
I rather clearly stated I sent their own info to themselves on their own private phones, I didn’t dox them, you dumbass.
I misread, but at least I’m not a dick to strangers online for no reason.
Like, say, accusing someone of doxxing people?
It was a comment made it jest. Would adding “/s” have made a difference to you?
You can use it to search for information from data breaches.
Wdym? You can’t directly access the data from the data breaches from the site
The site doesn’t exist as a portal to stolen data. It exists purely as a way to see if your data has been stolen in a data breach.
If you want to find said data. The site tells you in what breach it occurred and you can find it from there.
I used to have a plugin that mapped how many companies were getting data from the website I was on. I’m not sure if it still exists.
One eye opener that’s easily accessible is going into their Facebook third party data agreements. If it’s not turned off they’ll probably be shocked about how permissive the data is. Just visiting a website can result in a Facebook agreement to share data with that company. It’s one of the reasons apps suddenly know random things you were just talking to somebody about. It gets keyed up instantly and they start that whole analysis of shadow profiles stuff industry experts talk about.