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Fairfax Underground
Welcome to Fairfax Underground, a project site designed to improve communication among residents of Fairfax County, VA. Feel free to post anything Northern Virginia residents would find interesting.
Welcome to Fairfax Underground, a project site designed to improve communication among residents of Fairfax County, VA. Feel free to post anything Northern Virginia residents would find interesting.
You are being watched - deeply
Posted by:
Olde Farte
()
Date: March 01, 2012 07:04AM
Today, you are being totally watched online. Yesterday and days before, you were being watched, too, of course but nothing paid attention to it, really.
But today, and henceforward, you are being watched AND remembered AND analyzed.
And there really is nothing you can do about it.
You visit CNN.com and "google-analytics" takes a datapoint.
You hop over to 4chan.org and google sees and remembers.
You play a youtube video - of COURSE google has that stashed away.
You google search something right after reading THIS post and google notes that you visit fairfaxundergound and keeps the search terms, too.
You go to Yahoo Finance and...yup...google has it recorded forever.
You remove all cookies from your computer, all temporary files, power down, power up, visit Weather Underground and google says "Oh, that's the same IP that visited WU before and the same one that visited 4chan.org and the same one that used that same set of other URLs and so is probably the same person - let me save that away".
And none of this is craziness or "Gawd, I dread when THAT happens!" stuff.
It's here.
Today.
But today, and henceforward, you are being watched AND remembered AND analyzed.
And there really is nothing you can do about it.
You visit CNN.com and "google-analytics" takes a datapoint.
You hop over to 4chan.org and google sees and remembers.
You play a youtube video - of COURSE google has that stashed away.
You google search something right after reading THIS post and google notes that you visit fairfaxundergound and keeps the search terms, too.
You go to Yahoo Finance and...yup...google has it recorded forever.
You remove all cookies from your computer, all temporary files, power down, power up, visit Weather Underground and google says "Oh, that's the same IP that visited WU before and the same one that visited 4chan.org and the same one that used that same set of other URLs and so is probably the same person - let me save that away".
And none of this is craziness or "Gawd, I dread when THAT happens!" stuff.
It's here.
Today.
Re: You are being watched - deeply
Posted by:
the grammar police
()
Date: March 01, 2012 01:10PM
I deleted system 32 so I'm good.
Re: You are being watched - deeply
Posted by:
graymoose1
()
Date: March 01, 2012 01:29PM
The people watching me must be bored to tears
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W.W.S.D. what would Scooby Doo
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W.W.S.D. what would Scooby Doo
Re: You are being watched - deeply
Posted by:
Olde Farte
()
Date: March 01, 2012 02:21PM
graymoose1 Wrote:
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> The people watching me must be bored to tears
Not at all! In fact, they're salivating at selling your info to advertisers for huge bucks.
What info?
Why - everything!
When I visited a few sites I asked the (background surf watcher) NoScript what =scripts= (NOT cookies) were being invoked - oh, lookee there! Sites all OVER the web are invoking =google= scripts! And each one can take a datapoint without even going anywhere near a cookie.
Gather enough of those - and it really doesn't take many - and you've got a fantastic profile of the person doing the surfing. If that person is logged into any Google service, that data is directly correlated to that user.
And if that user is NOT logged into a Google service, the data can be correlated with the IP address and, if that IP address has been used by a logged-in Google user in the recent past, the data from THAT user can be compared to the current data and, if similar "enough", INdirectly correlated with the new data!
Advertisers would kill for that info.
-------------------------------------------------------
> The people watching me must be bored to tears
Not at all! In fact, they're salivating at selling your info to advertisers for huge bucks.
What info?
Why - everything!
When I visited a few sites I asked the (background surf watcher) NoScript what =scripts= (NOT cookies) were being invoked - oh, lookee there! Sites all OVER the web are invoking =google= scripts! And each one can take a datapoint without even going anywhere near a cookie.
Gather enough of those - and it really doesn't take many - and you've got a fantastic profile of the person doing the surfing. If that person is logged into any Google service, that data is directly correlated to that user.
And if that user is NOT logged into a Google service, the data can be correlated with the IP address and, if that IP address has been used by a logged-in Google user in the recent past, the data from THAT user can be compared to the current data and, if similar "enough", INdirectly correlated with the new data!
Advertisers would kill for that info.
Re: You are being watched - deeply
Posted by:
lizzie
()
Date: March 01, 2012 02:33PM
I'm on the FBI's watch list. No joke. But I laugh @ "same IP address" yeah, NEVER THAT. They have my MACID though.
I have everything you said I wouldn't, HA!
#stillwinning
I have everything you said I wouldn't, HA!
#stillwinning