OT: If You Think You're Anonymous Online....

[William]

...think again:

Investigative reporter Julia Angwin was curious what Google knew about her, so she asked the company for her search data. "It turns out I had been doing about 26,000 Google searches a month ... and I was amazed at how revealing they were," she tells Fresh Air's Dave Davies.

From NSA sweeps to commercial services scraping our Web browsing habits, to all kinds of people tracking us through our smartphones, Angwin says we've become a society where indiscriminate data-gathering has become the norm. Angwin has covered online privacy issues for years, and in her new book she describes what she did to try to escape the clutches of data scrapers.....

http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/02/24/282061990/if-you-think-youre-anonymous-online-think-again



I listened to this interview while running errands yesterday. Very revealing the lengths people and entities go to collect and store information about us (sometimes not accurate either) and target us...Google especially. It's actually very difficult and expensive now to not be tracked. I think I have a new book to read.

As an aside, it got me thinking about how I search and surf the web. The author mentioned one search engine that does not collect or sell your information: DuckDuckGo https://duckduckgo.com

I went to change my default search engine setting in Safari and discovered that it only gives me three choices.... B-ing, Ya-hoo, and Googler. Huh? What if I WANT to use something else? Anyone know how to get around that?








William

[christian]

Who thinks they're anonymous on-line? I suspect any one of you jokers could figure out my name and address with 5 google searches or fewer. (You don't need to post your results. Let's keep the mystery alive!)





And no offense, y'all ain't exactly the NSA.

[MattTuck]

Well, first of all, I think this is a failure of legislators, the people we elect to represent our interests, and I don't even want to get into that part of it.

Perhaps some of you will remember this excerpt:
Corporations and government agencies, when they find it useful, do not hesitate to collect information about individuals without regard to their privacy. Law enforcement agencies are frequently inconvenienced by the constitutional rights of suspects and often of completely innocent persons, and they do whatever they can do legally (or sometimes illegally) to restrict or circumvent those rights. Most of these educators, government officials and law officers believe in freedom, privacy and constitutional rights, but when these conflict with their work, they usually feel that their work is more important.

[gavingould]

i call BS... who does almost 1000 Google searches a day? i practically live on a computer and probably top out at 50 on a really busy day.

indeed if you think you're anonymous, you're most likely dreaming or an internet wizard.

[William]

Who thinks they're anonymous on-line? I suspect any one of you jokers could figure out my name and address with 5 google searches or fewer. (You don't need to post your results. Let's keep the mystery alive!)





And no offense, y'all ain't exactly the NSA.

I won't post your name but here's a picture of you driving.

http://jianchengzhu.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/16.jpg






:p

William

[William]

i call BS... who does almost 1000 Google searches a day? i practically live on a computer and probably top out at 50 on a really busy day.

indeed if you think you're anonymous, you're most likely dreaming or an internet wizard.


Being a reporter I'm sure she searches more than your average bear.

"If you think your anon..." is the name of the book.





William

[cash05458]

"Let's keep the mystery alive!"...lol!

[texbike]

Who thinks they're anonymous on-line? I suspect any one of you jokers could figure out my name and address with 5 google searches or fewer. (You don't need to post your results. Let's keep the mystery alive!)

And no offense, y'all ain't exactly the NSA.

Well, c'mon now. Yours is pretty easy to figure out. Your username and references in posts to past endeavors (including YouTube links), etc.

Not that there's anything wrong with that...

texbike

[gavingould]

oh yeah, i get that a journalist is likely to search quite a bit.

but if you break it down - 26000 searches a month - assuming 30 days/month = 867 per day. let's say she's working 12hr days - now you're at 72 searches an hour. 30 days straight (no days off) at 12hrs a day searching more than once a minute.

i can't imagine as a journo you'd be able to find what you needed, take your notes/citation and search again that quickly, seems really infeasible to me. and if that's meant to be an average, then sometimes she'd be doing more than that!?

[MattTuck]

oh yeah, i get that a journalist is likely to search quite a bit.

but if you break it down - 26000 searches a month - assuming 30 days/month = 867 per day. let's say she's working 12hr days - now you're at 72 searches an hour. 30 days straight (no days off) at 12hrs a day searching more than once a minute.

i can't imagine as a journo you'd be able to find what you needed, take your notes/citation and search again that quickly, seems really infeasible to me. and if that's meant to be an average, then sometimes she'd be doing more than that!?

I agree with you that she probably means per year. But another alternative exists, and that is the term 'google search' may be a misnomer. It may be any time you load a site that makes a record at Google, whether you are doing an actual search, surfing a different site, checking your email on your android phone, etc. If that is the case, it may be believable.

[PQJ]

Tor browser is your friend.

TAILS is your friend.

PGP is your friend.

[ceolwulf]

I went to change my default search engine setting in Safari and discovered that it only gives me three choices.... B-ing, Ya-hoo, and Googler. Huh? What if I WANT to use something else? Anyone know how to get around that?


You can do it in Safari but you need to install an extension. Think you can get it from DuckDuckGo site directly or via the Safari extension gallery. Firefox also has a DuckDuckGo add-on available and I would assume Chrome as well.

[William]

I agree with you that she probably means per year. But another alternative exists, and that is the term 'google search' may be a misnomer. It may be any time you load a site that makes a record at Google, whether you are doing an actual search, surfing a different site, checking your email on your android phone, etc. If that is the case, it may be believable.

Also may be in the definition of "search". When you do a search many times you have to drill down to refine it and find what you are looking for. Or you may go to a site that ends up being not what you were looking for and you click some more. Is each click considered a "search"? Without reading the book and seeing how she defines it I don't know.

You can do it in Safari but you need to install an extension. Think you can get it from DuckDuckGo site directly or via the Safari extension gallery. Firefox also has a DuckDuckGo add-on available and I would assume Chrome as well.

Thanks.:cool:
See it.



William

[Saint Vitus]

blah blah blah

[Don49]

I went to change my default search engine setting in Safari and discovered that it only gives me three choices.... B-ing, Ya-hoo, and Googler. Huh? What if I WANT to use something else? Anyone know how to get around that?
Install Glims and use any search engine you want. http://www.machangout.com

She was claiming that Google is maintaining a record of all her searches going back years. But that's only possible if she had a Google account and was logged in while searching. No privacy issue that I can see with using Google search without being logged into Google. That's what I do.

[Louis]

I won't post your name but here's a picture of you driving.

Actually, this is Christian driving to his lakeside villa in Italy:

http://www.celebitchy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/bradpitt2.jpg

[daker13]

Tor browser is your friend.

TAILS is your friend.

PGP is your friend.

Dude. May I add:

https://startpage.com/eng/

[dustyrider]

you're probably ______________! Someone more clever than I please fill in the blank; my gut tells me to bring up rubber bands?


On a serious note don't torrent gluttons use ip relocation software, cause Comcast knows even more than google! Except google can tell you how to fool comcast..hmm might have to re-think this. :cool:

[bikinchris]

If you care about your "profile" online, I hope you are not on Facebook, twitter etc.
Companies used to pay a whole lot of money to do market research and paid a lot for demographic information. Facebook gets people to volunteer that information. Like this, my ass.

[Mikej]

Yeah, I'm really gonna be screwed once the gubmint finds out how much I like bikes...

[daker13]

She was claiming that Google is maintaining a record of all her searches going back years. But that's only possible if she had a Google account and was logged in while searching. No privacy issue that I can see with using Google search without being logged into Google. That's what I do.

I don't think that's true (but I'm not an expert). Google definitely wants you to stay logged in as much as possible. But even if you're not logged in to Google, Youtube, etc., I believe Google is still tracking your Google searches based on your ip and cookies on your browser. You hear about murder investigations where the killers Google stuff having to do with body disposal, etc., and Google provides that info to law enforcement. I think Google has that info whether you are actually logged into an account or not. Hopefully someone here knows better than me. But then I avoid Google anyway.

[SlackMan]

To add to this story, I had a disconcerting experience in learning that Google was showing searches in my Google search history time stamped even at times when I verified that all of my computers (and no smartphone) were turned off. Searching (Google) online about this issue, it turns out that if I logged into Gmail at an Internet cafe or friend's or family's house at some point, and perhaps did not properly log off, the tracking cookie is still active and logging all searches from the computer as mine. Needless to say, everyone who searches on those other computers is not searching the same sites I would. The solution is to log into Google, delete your history, and turn tracking off. Supposedly, this truly deletes your history from Google, but not sure I believe that.

[Seramount]

can't think of anything that the govt doesn't already know or could easily obtain about me...

the IRS annually gets my name, DOB, address, employer, income, investment, banking info.

credit card companies know ALL of my spending habits.

cell phone company knows my communications history.

my web habits show I like bikes, cave diving, and use online dating services.

not much left to hide.

[William]

can't think of anything that the govt doesn't already know or could easily obtain about me...

the IRS annually gets my name, DOB, address, employer, income, investment, banking info.

credit card companies know ALL of my spending habits.

cell phone company knows my communications history.

my web habits show I like bikes, cave diving, and use online dating services.

not much left to hide.


But that brings up a point: When did it become okay to give up personal privacy? If someone followed you around all day recording what you do in public, is that okay? If someone sits outside your window watching what you do in your house and records it, is that okay? Tracking everything you do on your computer, phone, shopping and travel habits and then archiving and selling it to the highest bidder to target you is okay?

Again, just asking the question, how much privacy are people okay with giving up? Did anyone ask us?








William

[PQJ]

But that brings up a point: When did it become okay to give up personal privacy? If someone followed you around all day recording what you do in public, is that okay? If someone sits outside your window watching what you do in your house and records it, is that okay? Tracking everything you do on your computer, phone, shopping and travel habits and then archiving and selling it to the highest bidder to target you is okay?

Again, just asking the question, how much privacy are people okay with giving up? Did anyone ask us?








William

No, nobody asked us. What 'they' did do was give us shiny toys and pretty web interfaces where we could 'connect' with our 'friends' and let the whole world know when a fart is particularly smelly or snot particularly green. 'We' willingly gave our privacy up to all these wonderful, private, kapitalist enterprises. Now the genie is out of the proverbial bottle and there's no putting it back. And given 'our' distrust of government, we are increasingly neutering the only real check we have against private, corporate nefariousness.

PS: Lots of generalizations, oversimplifications, etc., in the foregoing, I know; that's why I'm writing a book on the subject but release date is still tbd.

PPS: I'm not a communist, I promise!

[Ralph]

I don't much care. I'm not doing anything interesting really, nor illegal, nor of any secret nature. And can block most ads. Just don't see the problem or any gov't conspiracy. Appreciate the defense against potential terrorism, tax evasion, other crimes, etc. People out to hurt me use everything at their deposal, gov't has to also. Don't use Google much, and never sign in to them or Bing. Neverless, still have no secrets. Would prefer these gov't powers be used on a "need to know" basis, and the Internet works both ways.....look at data available to me.

[CunegoFan]

I agree with you that she probably means per year. But another alternative exists, and that is the term 'google search' may be a misnomer. It may be any time you load a site that makes a record at Google, whether you are doing an actual search, surfing a different site, checking your email on your android phone, etc. If that is the case, it may be believable.

This is exaactly what happens. If a site has Google Analytics then every page of the site "phones home" to Google when loaded by a browser. If a site is using ads from Google then loading a page will pull information from Google. If someone browses a few hundred pages a day then Google will have a few hundred records for that person for that day.

A lot can be surmised from the information available to Google. For example, if someone was searching with Google and the sites that were clicked have Google adwords then a timeline can be constructed. It would be something like XX searched for keywords YY. Five seconds later clicked on the second search result. Spent thirty seconds on the site's page. Clicked a link there and spent three minutes reading the content. Clicked another link on the site but bounced to another page after not much more time than was required to glance at the amount of content there.

Bounce rate is an important statistic. If someone searches for something, clicks a search result, then comes right back to the results page to click another link then it indicates that the clicked result might not be relevant for the key words. Taking that into account can improve future searches for the same key words.

[Don49]

She was claiming that Google is maintaining a record of all her searches going back years. But that's only possible if she had a Google account and was logged in while searching. No privacy issue that I can see with using Google search without being logged into Google. That's what I do.

I don't think that's true (but I'm not an expert). Google definitely wants you to stay logged in as much as possible. But even if you're not logged in to Google, Youtube, etc., I believe Google is still tracking your Google searches based on your ip and cookies on your browser. You hear about murder investigations where the killers Google stuff having to do with body disposal, etc., and Google provides that info to law enforcement. I think Google has that info whether you are actually logged into an account or not. Hopefully someone here knows better than me. But then I avoid Google anyway.Google probably could track us using cookies or ip address but certainly not as easily as someone logged in.

I block Google cookies and I force a change to my ip address every few days by changing the MAC address that my router reports to the ISP.
Oh, and as daker13 reported, there's https://startpage.com.