Are we fighting a losing battle for privacy?

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Helluva good question from Brian, in a comment on the Avast post: In your professional opinion- are we, the public of the world, fighting a loosing ba
[See the full post at: Are we fighting a losing battle for privacy?]

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If this data gathering is to make more ads possible, then the question has to be, “How effective are the ads?” If I am right, the answer is, “Not much and decreasing (and not at all in my case).”

What hapens when potential advertisers decide the same?

Comments, anyone?

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I think one’s personal information will increasingly become monetized, and as it does the question will be whose property it is. We all know how Google and M$ would answer that question.

Individual consumers, realizing that others are making money off them, will gradually seek ways to control the flow of information and capture some of that wealth for themselves. They will do this by insisting that the companies they transact business with give them real benefits in exchange for providing personal information.

This suggests less a rigid attachment to abstract “privacy” than an approach to sparingly dole out information, the same way that we as consumers pay only what money we must pay to obtain something.

Personally, I already resist whenever some store clerk, presented with my purchase at the cash register, wants to know my phone number or some other information before cashing me out. When this kind of gratuitous invasion of privacy is widely resisted, companies will start to realize that they need to offer something valuable in exchange.

We’re a long ways away from that with Windows 10, aren’t we? The whole issue is shrouded in hocus-pocus, misdirection, and outright trickery, and the supposed benefits of what M$ is trying to pull off are hazy at best. Not until users’ rights are better defined will we make much progress with it, I’m afraid.

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I was checking out of Lowe’s this weekend and the clerk asked if it was OK to email me the receipt. It didn’t dawn on me immediately that, in fact, he was asking for my email address and, presumably, permission to send me email for anything and everything.

It’s a slippery slope.

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I’m afraid that those who care for their privacy to the point of not selling it are a minority. Whether privacy is a cultural concept or a true dimension of life (some animals hide for reproduction, but that may or not be for security rather than for privacy) what counts is the way we perceive it, and I’m afraid that perception is mainly cultural, like vice and virtue, like nudity, even when it comes to sexual practices (practices, not orientation). From there on most of us copy on our neighbors, widening our scope further on and, once we have the feeling that our behavior and values are those of a minority we may jump over what was once our red line.

The red line, that of privacy in this digital era, is bound to be shifted first (as it is now) and maybe one day totally evacuated. The privacy bubble within physical relationship exists (an undefined radius in proportion of our intimacy with the other) and as well to limit what we say/show psychologically/intellectually to others. This may as well mute but I don’t think so.

I believe what is specific to privacy in this digital/cyber world is that decency and restraint develop in what is perceived as virtual, which may lead us to wonder if those who trespass their own privacy are not lead by the idea that values are more a relational reference than a principle fixed at the level of consciousness.

Is it cynical to believe that principles get defeated by the gift, n zeros and the principle is active, n+1 and it gets buried? Cynical or not it will never be true for everyone, and that participates to my optimism.

I’m thinking in another language then English so please forgive approximation in the words, simplicity in the rhetoric and vacuity in the style 🙂

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I think that many people don’t understand what is actually going on with data collection and loss of privacy.

Even if they do understand, and further, if what they see is concerning to them, it is very difficult for people at the individual level to fight against this data collection, storage, and sharing. There are some groups taking it on, like the EFF, and a few brave govt. officials, etc., but it seems to be such a struggle even to win a few safeguards.

People may not realize until it’s too late what has been happening and how it can negatively affect individual lives, even – to be dramatic (but I am sincere) – causing irreparable harm to our civilization. Once it’s done, something like this, it is impossible to unwind. I think it may already be too late to stop a number of things (but not all).

—
It’s the same with health issues — the levels of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, etc. are shocking, and broadly people do know the steps they can take to reduce their risks and live healthier lives, but the way our society works now* is entirely stacked against that, making it hard, inconvenient, sometimes-expensive, etc. to swim against the tide.

*(The way driving a car is necessary to get around and fulfill basic tasks in most parts of our country, the overwhelming emphasis on junk food and, worse, the liberal use of hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, artificial flavorings, artificial sweeteners, artificial colorings, lab-altered ingredients, etc., in our food supply, even in so-called “healthy” or “natural” food, the physical dangers in many places of being outside to exercise/walk/play, screen-watching for hours every day, etc.)

Even some people who know the dangers well and see the bad effects every day are struggling — such as last week when a member of my family needed emergency surgery on the cardiovascular system and the surgeon was very overweight, had trouble breathing, lumbered down the corridor, had to lean on things when standing in the hospital room. There seems to be a disconnect for this medical expert between what he knows and how he lives.

It’s been declared a health emergency for our society, but it’s still getting worse. This isn’t because people don’t want to be well, because they don’t have access to information, or because it is impossible to change — it’s because in our modern life it’s honestly just a bit too difficult for many well-intentioned people to resist and guard against, so they go with the flow instead. And the default lifestyle and the default food/beverage ‘quality’ here are harmful.
—

So expecting the general public to wake up to the dangers of loss of privacy and do something about it before it’s “too late”, I think it’s pie in the sky.

Just like the overuse of antibiotics has caused a global crisis in treating infections that is going to get worse pretty fast and start causing the deaths of people who would have lived 20 years ago, or climate change, or wars and disastrous levels of human migration, or what have you.

Large-scale loss of privacy and data collection has such a chilling effect on human expression, liberty, creativity, freedom. Human nature can get really nasty and deranged really quickly, and the horror of combining huge amounts of private information about individuals – with unethical companies/organizations/governments – with modern techniques of warfare, torture, and mass control – with the sociopathic natures of some people who get to be in control of large areas of the earth and/or large populations and/or large amounts of vital natural resources and/or advanced weaponry — well, it’s horrifying to think about what could go wrong. Take World War Two in continental Europe and multiply it. Or even just the strain and despair of living in a place like mid-20th Century East Germany, constantly being watched, recorded, and reported on by people close to you, being able to trust no one, the most innocent things being too dangerous to say, write, or think.

Most people tend to relax and think that they’ll be okay for the most part even if bad stuff starts to befall other people. No, there is no guaranteed comfort or protection for anybody.

This is all so abstract and occurring in silence/secret/intanglible realms that it’s going to be ignored by most people.

There are people who know what is happening/what could happen, and some of them are furthering aspects of this for their own gain. It’s hard, because that is where our society is rewarding intelligence and talent with profit and power.

I might sound like such a nut, but the thing is that I’m not. I don’t go around trying to worry about this stuff, I am not crazy. I just care about human freedom, dignity, health, balance — they are precious.

The well-known British tv presenter David Attenborough was talking about environmental matters, but I think it’s applicable to other aspects of life too: “I don’t think whole populations are villainous, but Americans are just extraordinarily unaware of all kinds of things. If you live in the middle of that vast continent, with apparently everything your heart could wish for just because you were born there, then why worry? […] If people lose knowledge, sympathy and understanding of the natural world, they’re going to mistreat it and will not ask their politicians to care for it.”

—
P.S., I expect Microsoft can find a lot more “sticks”, if that is their intention!

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Talk about slippery slope, think for a second upon the entities trying to entice consumers to pay money to have a DNA sample analyzed to provide potentially interesting information on their genetic ethnic background. They give no thought to the fact that this genetic testing information does not just self-destruct upon the receipt of their personal DNA report. Databases are being constructed that will ultimately be monetized through licensed access to possibly medical researchers, life insurance actuaries and law enforcement. Since many folks pay little attention to details, few are provided. To paraphrase a saying; you get an education when you read the fine print whereas you get experience when you don’t.

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Recently I had to call the phone company/ISP to report a problem, and the customer service person asked me to give her an alternative phone number in case she couldn’t reach me on the landline (which was a possibility, given the problem we were experiencing). It was a reasonable request, so I gave her a cell phone number.
Immediately *after* that, she gave a robotic disclaimer like, “You have given me an alternative number, and this implies that our company has permission to use it to contact you today about service issues, and also in the future to use it to sell you services, conduct surveys, advertise, to do such and such….”
I said, “Whoa! I was not giving you permission for all that. I just wanted to give you that number to use as a secondary way to contact me during this particular service outage. If you can’t confine the use of that number to this particular problem, then I need you to delete it from your system.”
I don’t know if she really deleted it. Probably it will always be in my account on their system, and they’ll start using it one day.
One of the reps I talked to that day (I was on the phone for hours because there were several issues) told me as an aside (while we were waiting for a technical specialist to patch into the call) that they also had my entire SSN in a “note” attached to the account, even though they don’t need an SSN for the account, and if customers do want to give them their SSN as a form of ID, the policy is to only take the last four numbers. I have no idea how they got my entire number. I asked him to delete the note.

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I agree wholeheartedly. This mania to gather personal information strikes me as a bit of a bubble. We have companies like M$ transgressing old rules of decency and fair play, companies that are being bought for huge sums of money because, and all this effort being invested to spy on people for…what? So these companies can throw the same old schlock in front of us?

If M$ could actually come up with some new ideas that created real benefits for customers, it would all be so unnecessary.

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My favorite peeve is when you use a credit card at a stroe and then they ask for your ZIP Code. Combined with the info already on the card, this is your complete mailing address. Primed for more junk mail. How nice of them to offer this level of service! (/sarc)

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Interesting. I hadn’t even thought of that – and what could be more personal?

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Yesterday I was checking out my Peerblock program, watching the blocked and the allowed ip numbers that were careering through or bouncing off my system.
Peerblock doesn’t automatically tell you the url name of an ip number, so if you want to know what company it is coming from (such as Google, Amazon Web Services, Akamai, etc.), you have to look up the number elsewhere.
When I first set up Peerblock, I had allowed most of the Microsoft ips that were trying to connect to my computer, because they seemed to need to check constantly the authenticity of various programs and look for “updates” etc. In the years since, I’ve shut down a lot of the telemetry and CEIP, so my naive expectation was that, these days, MS was probably not in much contact with my computer (or asking it to “phone home”).
Whoa, I was wrong! In one 2-minute time period, amongst many other ip numbers, the following ip numbers associated with Microsoft (which I found out by plugging them into an ip identifying site such as “whatismyipaddress.com”) were connecting with my computer:
23.99.202.140 microsoft azure
40.100.160.18 microsoft azure
40.113.152.30 microsoft azure
40.122.44.96 microsoft azure
65.52.108.76 microsoft
70.37.96.155 microsoft
104.209.128.189 microsoft azure
104.208.28.54 microsoft azure
104.209.188.76 microsoft azure
131.253.14.213 microsoft
131.253.40.50 microsoft
131.253.61.82 microsoft
132.245.23.242 microsoft/xylogics
134.170.109.96 microsoft
137.135.132.140 microsoft
137.116.33.169 microsoft
138.91.243.193 microsoft
204.79.197.212 microsoft

While I do block most ips from Facebook, Google (which I don’t use for anything if I can help it), Amazon ad servers and such, I decided not to block these numbers associated with Microsoft because I don’t know how necessary they are to my computer’s operation (when connected to the internet), but I just don’t see why so many different ip numbers from the same company need to interact with my computer in a short space of time — what info is being sent to Microsoft? I wasn’t doing anything but the most basic stuff online, like looking at askwoody and at a major UK newspaper’s website.

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Superbly expressed.

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I think there have been class action suits in some jurisdictions against stores that have asked for all customers’ zip codes when they were checking out. (I don’t know if it’s allowed to ask when the person is paying by cc or not – maybe there is an exception for that, as a fraud-prevention measure.)

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I mentioned the privacy concerns of genetic testing services like 23andme on AskWoody yesterday.

23andme actually does ask the purchaser to decide whether the saliva sample can be stored or not, and whether certain information can be used, “anonymously”, in research studies or not.

That’s not to say that they may not use the information in ways the customer would be uncomfortable with, but they do make it seem like they would not.

Of course, 23andme has a complex relationship with Google (on a couple of levels!), so I figure that anything 23andme knows about a person, it might not take too long for Google, lawyers, health insurance companies, the government, etc., to somehow have access to as well.

But that could be the case with any medical samples that are taken by a GP, clinic, hospital, research study, and so forth.

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I am more concerned about the ease with which people are sending their DNA data and personal details to lesser-know, lesser-regulated third-party companies like Promeathease, Genetic Genie, LiveWello, etc., for further analysis after they get the raw data from 23andme and similar organizations.

I took a quick look to see if there are any articles describing this, and here’s one that seems to describe some of the concerns:

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/531461/how-a-wiki-is-keeping-direct-to-consumer-genetics-alive/
“To Barbara Evans, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center, the idea that people can gather DNA from one company and analyze it elsewhere is a significant legal development. Previously, the same lab that tested you would be the one to tell you what the results meant. But DNA information is essentially digital. That means it can plug and play anywhere. “It’s going to be quite difficult to regulate,” Evans predicts.”

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I’ve even had vendors ask me to produce a driver’s license so they could copy information from it.

Needless to say, I declined to provide the information or complete the purchase. If they objected, I told them they should call the card issuer and take it up with them since I’m not required to provide such information.

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Here are some others you can plug your 23andme data into. Many are “FREE”, but of course, they get to see your file and copy it if they want.
http://thegeneticgenealogist.com/2013/09/22/what-else-can-i-do-with-my-dna-test-results/
(And that article is from 2013, so there must be even more options these days.)

If you are going to submit your 23andme file to third party companies like this, I recommend that you make a copy of the file, open the copy with the “notepad” program, and remove your name, which I think 23andme puts in at the top.

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In a few years, if it isn’t already true, big data companies such as Google will have enough data to know everything about you. The famous case of Target knowing that a teenager was pregnant before her father did comes to mind. Companies will know whether you hold left-leaning or right-leaning points of view and make hiring decisions based on that. The people, like myself, who refuse to use the products of Google, Facebook, and other data brokers will be assumed to be deviants of some kind and not worth the effort. Don’t believe me? Then try getting a corporate job without a fluffy LinkedIn profile.

And anyone who reads Krebs on Security knows that health insurance companies have been hacked, with all that wonderful personal data being for sale on some Tor site. HIPAA is a farce, as anyone who has been a victim of a hack can tell you. Some people, including some in the medical data business, are pushing to have all medical data put online and shared. Just imagine a likely scenario, where your data is available for corporations to access. You become laid-off, but you never have another interview because companies can see that you have heart disease, cancer, or another delightful disease. Sorry Charlie, no more jobs for you.

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That’s a very real nightmare. There’s an additional wrinkle – data collected about you might be stored in Ireland. Or China. Protections in one jurisdiction may not apply in another, a point that Microsoft’s fighting at this moment.

We aren’t yet to the point where snooped data is widely available to job recruiters or insurance companies – although potential employers are certainly within their rights to look at public data on your Facebook or LinkedIn page. I hope that regulators in all countries get on the stick and give us better protection before your nightmare scenario comes true.

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IMHO the fundamental difference between Google and Microsoft WRT privacy is that Google only claims ownership of everything related to your use of their services. With Windows 10 Microsoft also wants to own everything on your computer.

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The answer to your question is YES. If you want privacy don’t use a computer or a cell phone. Especially don’t use a computer for paying your bills because now they know where you bank.
My advice if you want privacy go back to the pencil and paper and definitely stay off of social media. Even then you won’t have to much privacy with all the cameras everywhere you go from stores to seeing if you ran a red light or are speeding.
In other words. You don’t have any expectation of privacy anywhere you go or anything you do.
WELCOME TO 1984.

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I have been reading the things said about the idea of spying that Microsoft is said to be doing and I keep hearing a term called “Telemetry”. When I hear that term,I think back to when NASA is sending their various spacecrafts into orbit or where ever, and the signals sent back from various sensors aboard the craft that gave them such information as speed or altitude or temperature etc. these signals were called “Telemetry”. So when Microsoft says it is collecting “Telemetry” from Say a Win 10, or 7 or 8/8.1 box, those signals have to be the packets that every PC has to send out to communicate with the world.
So in essence, you can’t completely stop Microsoft or anyone for that matter from spying on you. So what I do is I have made it harder for Microsoft to put together those “Telemetry” signals by turning off Cortana, using a third party software like Spybot antiBeacon to give them as little information as possible. I say let them work hard to find their info on me if they really want to know about me.
Here’s a question. I have not done this because I’m afraid of the answer. Who has asked Cortana what their bank balance is? If Cortana reports back with the correct answer,
well…….

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The day will come when Microsoft’s vast trove of user data will be hacked.

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Your comment is most interesting and coherent, nothing foolish.

Of course no one can predict what tomorrows will be but whistle-blowers may have changed destinies and might as well be that sharp eye observing today”s realities in the perspective of their development, an eye nourished with observation and the faculty to understand the cause to consequence relationship.

I believe the world deploys within 3 categories of human beings : 2 minorities both qualified for intelligence and power, one for profit and domination, the other for humanism and help. The third category is that vast majority in between. And it is that majority composed of plain entities, neither bad neither good or both, neither intelligent nor dumb, which is the aim of the powerful and the children of the humanists.

From there on, help yourself and the heavens will help you but, wherever we are in the spectrum of life, we have to make choices and assuming this obligation or not is what makes the difference between liberty and slavery.

We are not “everybody”, each one of us is specific and, if brotherhood is a beautiful aim let us be aware nevertheless that a community made of absent-minded is no longer a brotherhood but a mass of consumers diligently brought to the level of sheep or robots, alike.

I remain confident that the in-between majority I was describing above will gather, with time, around the best. But it’s always a personal choice.

I remember one day having mentioned the idea of, not a prophet, even less a guru, of a free mind who would say but this to the masses, that means to you and I (and “you too” as in Prince’s “Purple Rain”), this : “I intend not to tell you the truth, nor what the truth is or where to search for it, I aim only to invite you all, us all, to make the effort of being free in our brains and in our hearts as others before us have struggled for the liberty of speech : aim lucidity and objectivity”. That’s when someone told me : “And so what if I prefer to be slave?” … and this happens in life, some of us just don’t care for freedom of lucidity when their only aspirations are those of pleasure in a lost mind battled by whatever winds.

It’s up to each and everyone of us to stop telling others what to do and start asking ourselves, “Am I thinking this world with objectivity, is my life coherent with my definition of happiness?”

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What is equally disturbing is not only what do they have on each of us, but also what if it is inaccurate to our detriment? For example, the no-fly list. There have been a number of people who found out the hard way they couldn’t fly because someone wrongfully (or intentionally) put them on the no-fly list when they don’t deserve to be and dealing with the behemoth bureaucracy to get your name removed can be an uphill battle.

I also note that data stored that is inaccurate can also be a pain in the behind when it deals with one’s cellphone. My elderly parents got a dumb flip phone cellphone, never use it for text (text turned off), and give the cellphone number only to family. Yet still they can be hassled either by incremental robo phone dialing or from collection agencies concerning the last person who had that cell phone number before AT&T issued it to my parents. You can tell the collectors that they have the wrong number and/or they have the right number but wrong people because we just got this number assigned by the phone company. Later they call again. We have to get a new cell phone number for my parents. In accurate data in these databases can be just as annoying and troubling as accurate data.

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How many times I’ve said the same thing!!!

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Smart TVs now have webcams built right into the screen and there is no idiot light to let you know if it is on. It can enable itself in some sets. Your viewing habits are shared with advertisers. And to top it all off, they implement little to no security on the wifi connection. My Smart TV manufacturer got caught out for doing this and having been publicly shamed for it issued a firmware upgrade 5 months after the fact to rectify it. Customers were not notified (no emails or phone messages even though you have to enter your email and phone number to register the product and to use the website services). They just put the upgrade on their website. I know how to apply a firmware upgrade to a TV, but I expect there a many who do not.

Coming soon to every store on the planet, smart appliances. The Internet of Things will be the privacy invasion of the century. It is more than likely that after they introduce them you will not be able to buy one that is not internet enabled. Most will come with network discovery on. The processors have limited capacity so disabling the connection or opting out is still not known.

The manufacturers claim it will give them insight into how you use their product so they can improve it. Where have you heard that before?

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By the way, I suggest that everyone read one article and watch one television program, both of which I’ve listed below. The article is of Sergey Brin where he whines that Facebook makes it difficult for Google to crawl their data. His comment — “If we could wave a magic wand and not be subject to US law, that would be great.” — speaks volumes.

Web freedom faces greatest threat ever, warns Google’s Sergey Brin
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/apr/15/web-freedom-threat-google-brin

The Data Brokers: Selling your personal information
http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/the-data-brokers-selling-your-personal-information/

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Here’s another one. Google is partnering with doctors to provide a service where users can search for their symptoms instead of using the CDC, WebMD, or related sites. The Millennial author is not concerned that all of those searches will be attached to that user’s history forever.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3086206/internet/watch-out-webmd-googles-teamed-with-leading-doctors-to-provide-vetted-online-medical-advice.html

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My CEIP has been off since July 2015 and GWX Control Panel runs 24/7 and has dine a very good job of keeping Microsoft at bay. I turned on my Internet Explorer 11 yesterday nd found that Microsoft had infiltrated it. I’ll have to fiqure out how to eliminate this intrusion without tearing IE11 apart for he sake of my Win 7. Thanks for you greatly appreciated advice over the months.

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Ya know, Woody, it’s articles like this that keep me coming back to your blog. I just can’t help myself 🙂

Beyond the technical advice and info, you seem to have a 6th sense for the “out-of-the-box” thinking and questioning of the technology trends and how they may ultimately affect us.

I think that you may need to write a new book on these issues. Your perspective could be of great benefit to folks beyond the technical how-to’s you have written so far.

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@Brian,
What is different about your IE, what infiltrating behaviors are you talking about?

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Let’s say you go out of your way to block comms – as I do – that could serve to compromise your privacy.

Let’s also say that we’re surrounded by software seeking to copy our data. It’s not presumption, it’s fact. One only needs to watch a firewall or DNS log, a packet tracer. Hell, just watch the Networking tab in Task Manager for a little while.

Now…

Let’s postulate that one day there’s a technical failure or some new un-anticipated process for gathering your data, or even just a stupid human slip-up (we’re NOT perfect) and all of a sudden the pipe opens up and all that software that’s been heretofore blocked notices.

Modern networking has GARGANTUAN bandwidth. The breach doesn’t have to be long.

BOOM, the cat’s out of the bag. You can’t unring the bell. Privacy is LOST, and it’s never coming back, no matter HOW much effort you’ve put into keeping your information private up to that point. It’s DIGITAL and can be copied perfectly once or a hundred trillion times.

I personally find this depressing.

Is there any hope? About the only bright spot in it all that I can see is that there could be some safety in numbers. Billions of peoples’ records on file means that there will be a LOT of data.

But computers are faster than anything anyone has ever imagined.

Sigh.

-Noel

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@Simpson,

Your statement of “I believe the world deploys within 3 categories of human beings : 2 minorities both qualified for intelligence and power, one for profit and domination, the other for humanism and help. The third category is that vast majority in between.”

sort of reminded me of something I wrote on AskWoody.com earlier this year —

“There have been psychology research studies on children, and how bendable they are to suggestion or pressure, how easily they will pretend/believe/say that something happening in reality is not true even if they can perceive directly that it IS true, in the situation when a person in authority (or a group of their peers) tells them it is not true or makes it seem like it is a cost of being liked or being included in the group for them to go along with it and say it isn’t true; or if they won’t take an attractive object (a food treat or a toy, etc.) when they are alone, after having been told ahead of time not to take it, even if there seems to be no way they would be found out as the one who did it; and apparently just 1 in 20 kids is pretty self-directed, self-denying, honest even in the presence of influential others who want them not to be and who might ostracize them if they don’t “go along to get along”. To me, this small % in the population explains a lot, and it’s often no fun and lonely to be an individualist goody-two-shoes, but if you are, you are, and you know it. You just have to watch it in the dog-eat-dog world where there are hidden currents, double agents, purposeful obfuscations, thuggery, whatever.”
https://www.askwoody.com/2016/more-about-the-interlocking-gwx-patches-kb-3035583-and-2952664/#comment-78049

[If you’ve looked at the url and are scratching your head as to how that waffle could have been relevant to the topic of the blog-post-of-that-day, “GWX Patches”, I wrote that after Woody had commented on a previous comment of mine in that thread that was on the topic of privacy —
https://www.askwoody.com/2016/more-about-the-interlocking-gwx-patches-kb-3035583-and-2952664/#comment-77802 ]

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(That was when I was going by the username “D.” here.)

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@Simpson,

You wrote
“I’m thinking in another language then English so please forgive approximation in the words, simplicity in the rhetoric and vacuity in the style”

but your writing in English is certainly not simple and vacuous. 🙂

If it’s not too personal a question —
and if it is, just ignore the question,
what language do you think in?

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For important, perennial topics like “privacy”, it’d be so great for this to be a forum instead of a blog,
where we could capture everyone’s contributions (which, as usual, have been interesting and insightful from everybody in today’s discussion) under a thread title, and find our way back to it more easily to add to the ideas and conversation in a “flow”, rather than in a stop-and-start way under disparate blog posts.

However, I respect and understand Woody’s reasons for not choosing a forum setup!

—
Is there any particular forum where a lot of AskWoody.com’s commenters are present? I had a quick look at the forum Woody recommended to us, Eileen’s Lounge, but I don’t think many of the folks from here are active there.

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Excellent! Insurance companies can then be sold that information by Google and use it to load your premiums or deny cover.

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Two thoughts that come to mind reading all the above which I found excellent!!

One is Plato’s allegory of the cave. Something that has inspired thought and substance
throughout the years……. pointing to the fact that all we are discussing – albeit in a different
scenario – has been with humanity since conception. Its a very powerful allegory which
hopefully leads some of us to new heights – thus becoming enlightened and showing the way
to others.

On brushing up on Plato I found some links one of them had this explanation which I think is
to the point…. about airing one’s views.
http://www.honolulu.hawaii.edu/instruct/natsci/science/brill/sci122/Programs/p7/p7.html

“Plato goes on to elaborate on the duty of the philosopher to enlighten even at the risk of one’s own safety.
In fact, Plato says, it is not just the philosopher, but each and every one of us who has an obligation to
share our own enlightenment with our peers.”

Secondly….. one of the things I’ve thought when musing over all the telemetry and data harvesting
that abounds…….. is well….. they’ve got the why and the where for of what we DO…….. but they
can never know what we THINK. You might say oh! yes they can…….. but really they CANNOT.
They might think they know……… but they don’t really. It’s like the spy/wartime stories when
the aggressor is trying to wear the ‘prisoner’ down……. that inevitable persona resists and will not
bow to pressure. Mandela when in prison…… refused to bow to authority…….. and his method
was to walk at his pace slowly when being escorted somewhere or the other.
Know that doesn’t detract from the obvious problems with data collection………. but at least
certainly in my mind…….makes me feel just that little bit better.

Carl Jung would say…… that it’s like the herd mentality….. where all this angst is soaked up by others
and magnified. Take the lynch mob mentality….. same thing…. Guess one could relate all this
to the M$, Google, Apple et al….. if one can do …….. well so can we……… is their motto. LT

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart.
Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.
C.G. Jung

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Thanks. I’m flattered. I’m finishing up the second edition of “Windows 10 All-In-One For Dummies” and swearing, as I have many times, that I’ll never write another book.

And my wife would kill me…

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@Noel,
Your comments are totally on point and I believe the typical user can only do so much to protect themselves when so many business models have migrated to anti-privacy methods which create the equivalent of economic free riders in the collection and exploitation of personal data. The elephant in the room I believe is “limited liability” as an enabler of these business models. Look at the W10 EULA as an example, where MS basically wants you to agree to an open-ended consent for them to do anything with your system and personal data. If anything goes bad, the EULA attempts to restrict your options for legal redress of damages to personal arbitration. That means you get to go to Redmond where you will be treated badly. We have made things too easy for these companies when we drank the Koolaid about them creating the future. Well the future is here and many people are not liking the results. The legal framework these companies operate within is long overdue for review and adjustment particularly as products such as autonomous cars are viewed as new growth markets. How would you like to make a $60k purchase that came with a W10 type EULA?

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“I think one of the great political debates of the coming decade will be about data gathering and retention.”

I hope you are right. But I’m not optimistic. Big Brother likes all of the power he has amassed from gathering all of our info. People don’t care, and so nothing will be done. It will get worse and worse.

Here are some of the ways that our privacy is invaded:
* Free email.
* Facebook.
* Anything with “cloud” in the name.
* Anything with “smart” in the name. (Smart phone, smart TV, smart house, smart car, etc.)
* Anything that is “online”. (Online banking, online shopping, etc.)

The less you have of these, the more privacy you will have.

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One way that our privacy is violated is with RFID technology. Think of Walmart – they use RFID extensively. They put an RFID chip on each product (not the tag, but the product itself). In this way, they can track specific products all the way down the line, till the customer buys it. So far, no problem. But they don’t deactivate the RFID chip when you purchase the product. That chip stays active forever, and is powered by radio waves, so the battery never runs out.

I’d like to see a law passed requiring an RFID detector at each exit of all stores who sell RFID-chipped products. It would beep as you leave, if anything you are carrying has an active RFID chip. The customer would then have the opportunity to destroy the RFID chip. Imagine the outcry, as the public becomes aware of how many active RFID chips they are carrying around with them everywhere they go. Those profiting from RFID don’t want that sort of public awareness, and so this law will never be passed.

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I went to windows “Programs and Features”; then clicked the “Turn Windows features on and off”. after the box for loading windows features came up I clicked the box for Internet Explorer and turned it on. After I did that I cleared and opened internet explorer 11 at which time a blue filled box can up featured and asking me to download windows 10. I immediately closed IE 11 and open windows features on and off again and turned IE 11 off.

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I think in French, my mother-tongue. I’ve spent my childhood in NY, NY, USA! 1959-1965 and, as Nietzsche pointed it out, the child is the man’s father 🙂 When I meat Americans I really feel them as brothers, I mean as compatriots, you see?
As for my English, perhaps do I include in my semi-automatic translation (sometimes I do need the dictionary) a trend in my native French which is to have too long sentences with many digressions, the quality of a novelist (Hemingway would have denied that assertion!) and the non arguable flaw of a journalist! — I’m neither one 🙂

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Ah, I see. What you hit was an advertisement on msn.com asking you to upgrade to Windows 10.

All you need to do is run GWX Control Panel. It’ll keep Win10 from installing on your machine.

And stop using IE, OK? Use any other browser. IE is infested with security holes, to the point that we’re getting big updates every month or two.

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Children indeed are suggestible and it is quite unfortunate this malleability does not diminish as much as it should and concern as many as it could. I’m not sure that this suggestibility is determined at birth, neither am I that it is a good thing for a kid to be too quickly alert, lucid, independent : dreams and confidence are necessary for children and, when abused, concern IMO more the responsibility of the adult than a whatever lack of the child. Because if we aim lucidity and awareness, be it not at the price of a cold vision of life. A happy childhood, youth are ingredients for the coming years where wisdom will quietly blend with brotherhood. I believe so.

But at whatever age, even more in the childhood, being apart because we are or believe we are may be tough sometimes, indeed. The risk is to close ourselves on our difference, the chance is to bring this difference within the group of others, without arrogance nor shame. Though a chance a challenge as well : “more you will have been gifted more you will be indebted of”. But whatever, IMO, brotherhood should always come before wisdom when incompatble… but this is really personal.

I read your comments with great interest, poohsticks. In fact askwoody.com is “a nice place” where I’ve read no hatred nor foolishness up to now (I’m a young participant!) and arguments are thought, no demagogy, so I come back 🙂

The idea of having a privacy dedicated blog is not my cup of tea, because dedicated, specialized blogs bother me a bit. I’m rather interested in changing topics where jumps are allowed (as long as they stay in a reasonable relationship with the main idea), as I appreciate the concepts — and facts — of letting minds move in a widened area of inter-disciplinary and even trans-disciplinary bridges.

That was quite a bridge! We speak of privacy and it is so important that many bridges are available.

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I have IE 11 cut off since April. I never use it. I found that if I permanently cut off popups in IE 11 the screen does not appear. I have GWX Control Panel running continuously on my computer, and my computer is never shut down unless by outside power failure. I have fought this Microsoft invasion since early last year learning as I go.

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You’re in good shape…

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Perhaps there is less and less personal data on a computer and more and more on the other worlds, those of web tracking, clouds and social websites. I’ve read several times that Google was wealthier than Microsoft in terms of the planet’s population data…

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Lots of great comments here!

I would like to express an opinion that we will never have complete privacy in a connected world. Choosing to go off-grid is an option.

But if we choose to go online we can and should make it as hard as possible for organizations to collect and aggregate data for every aspect of our personal lives.

I really think we need a data collection “Bill of Rights” that guarantees that we are the sole owners of our own “data”. As one right of ownership, we should be able to access all data collected about us, have it verified, modified, or deleted as we wish.

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My father used to work for the insurance industry and then the Federal government. He always told me even in the mid-1970’s to never ever give out personal medical information to any source other than the doctor. He also said that insurance companies retained all the application data and shared it on an exchange when you applied for life insurance.

It is why I never took advantage of these ‘free screenings’ for medical conditions unless I looked at their Privacy Statements. The real danger was and is that if a genetic test result is inadvertently released (or hacked), it could cause you to be possibly uninsurable due to the prior existing condition.

While this is supposed to be not an issue under the new US health care law, there are still reports of people being steered to limited low-end, but still compliant, or expensive plans with high deductibles based upon health histories. While many health issues can be alleviated, genetic data is set and permanent.

Ever notice how if you get a prescription for a chronic condition, I am sure merely by coincidence ;), you get mail solicitations for generic or other medications for that condition.

Additionally, many businesses conduct pre-employment offer screening of social media. It is naïve to think they are only looking for questionable behavior, as physical and ethnic characteristics are also available before offering an interview. In the latter it is illegal, but proving it happened is very, very hard.

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In the previous comment I suggested that we should make it difficult for others to collect our data.

I would add that I was referring to taking it without authorization. Things like phoning-home, telemetry, stealth tracking, web bugs, browser fingerprinting, tracking cookies, etc.

Ever since Windows became network enabled, each generation of the OS and the applications that run on it have become more “web facing”. It has become accepted that our OS contacts MS to check for updates. Up to now we have mostly been able to control this behavior, by setting options. I’m not even going to bring up Windows 10, LOL! 🙂

Many of our modern application developers expect us to let our programs connect to their company servers for authentication/activation, updates, cloud file storage, usage stats, etc. Some offer opt-outs, some don’t.

If I install an OS or a program, I have to decide that I am willing to trust it. Same with my Antivirus or any other security software. There has always been an implied trust that they will not screw us.

There have been many reported cases of large data breaches, that expose our data, but I have also noticed that in the case of a merger, your account info is usually sold/transferred to the acquiring business.

So, bottom line don’t give up more than you have to. Use the opt-outs available, then go one step further … use a personal firewall with outbound application control to decide what processes and/or applications you wish to grant network access to. I personally allow all Windows processes, and then browsers and email programs. Everything else gets close scrutiny and usually only gets the “allow all” if it breaks some functionality without it. The TCPView from Microsoft at http://www.sysinternals.com is a great way to see what is connecting. You can then cross reference the Process ID’s (PID) with Task Manager or System Monitor to find out more about what is connecting.

If I see a process connecting at boot time and staying connected all day, it gets banned 🙂

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I have been asked for a zip routinely even when paying cash, which is my practice unless I need the extra warrantee protection of a card. They said it to see where their shoppers are from. I have never been asked for more data at these stores.

A more recent thing is where some Visa card online merchants have partnered with Visa to create pin numbers. I was surprised with the new chip card US merchants have NOT generally implemented pins.

I had it happen with an online purchase from a state government agency. I was directed to a secure website to create the pin, but there was not information to check of the site’s veracity. Sure it had my financial institution’s logo and the visa logo, but I have found false websites that even at a more than casual glance looked just like a US government website, being served up by Google searches.

I cancelled the transaction and decided to pay with a check. I then did my research. After a bit of sleuthing I found this was a Visa program not a program with my card issuer. It took quite a bit more sleuthing to ascertain if this was to be a unique pin for each merchant since the contact reps had never gotten the question before. It was a pin for all transactions where the merchant had the program.

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Great post! Here is a quote that very succinctly echoes what you have said.

“As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air – however slight – lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.” ~~ U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas

Sadly, some people value convenience more than privacy.

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So let’s assume that we have no choice but to let our web browsers connect to the net. It’s what they do.

The web is not designed to protect your privacy, rather it is designed to deliver ads and track your movement between sites. But you can fight back!

I intend to keep it simple and not break too many webpages.

I have tried most of the freely available browser security and privacy extensions for Chrome and Firefox, including script blockers, ad blockers, anti-trackers, etc. The script blockers block javascript, so they mostly break website viewing.

The issue with most of these products are that they are based on whitelists, blacklists, or some combination. Only as effective as the lists …

But I have been testing something from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) called Privacy Badger, that looks very promising.

It doesn’t rely on lists, rather it uses algorithmic sorcery to detect potential trackers. So it learns as you surf.

You can click on the Privacy Badger icon to see all of the domains you are connected to when you visit a website. If you have never seen this kind of info before, it may come as a surprise just how many different web domains that you connect to from each web page. The new Web 2.0 is much more connected than it was at the dawn of e-commerce, when you just connected to a single web server. Just FYI, Woody’s site is clean 🙂

Privacy Badger lists connected server domains for the current browser tab, the first part lists any potential threats, and the second lists harmless domains. There are sliders with three position settings (Blocked domain; Blocked cookies; Allowed). These get set as the program monitors tracking behavior, but you can override any slider if you want more or less protection for any given domain.

One last note: If you use other script or ad blockers or tracking blockers, Privacy Badger will probably only see stuff that gets past all that. For the full experience, temporarily turn the other stuff off and watch the full show. It’s fascinating!

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Great quote! When I was a kid, I went to Boy Scout camp in Goose Prairie Washington – and Bill Douglas, who lived next door, frequently dropped by. An amazing, brilliant jurist.

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>Just FYI, Woody’s site is clean

Yes, in relative terms, but besides http://www.askwoody.com, this page reached out to:

http://0.gravatar.com
https://s.w.org

These are relatively benign retrievals of the shadowy round-headed figure icon that precedes each comment and the smiley emoticon used within your post. But understand that both of those sites likely now have a log entry that shows that your IP address contacted them, from what page, and when.

Your point is well-made that the average website reaches out to many different servers, and many (most) web pages, besides the relatively benign retrieval of static data, contact a number of tracking and ad delivery sites all on your behalf.

Besides the improvement in privacy, browsing becomes a lot more pleasant again – not to mention a good bit more responsive – if you block as much of that malware/ad garbage as you can.

-Noel

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Fascinating! I didn’t realize there were trackers. But, yes, this site uses Gravatar to show icons – that’s where my Dummy icon resides.

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Well, I think your French/English is charming.

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Just fyi, Privacy Badger indicates that those two domains don’t appear to be tracking. While it is probably true that any visitor’s IP address is picked up in every server’s logs, it doesn’t necessarily imply that information is retained and correlated with any marketing databases.

For the web to function properly today, most commercial web sites link every script, style sheet, image, video, etc. to 3rd party domains. That is why you need to be smart about what you block, and use tools that can discern the difference between content domains and those that are dedicated to tracking or worse.

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By the way, you are potentially leaking more than your IP address to every server you visit.

https://www.browserleaks.com/

This could be the worst, in my opinion…

http://www.ghacks.net/2014/07/21/companies-use-canvas-fingerprinting-track-online/

But then there is always this to worry about…

https://www.browserleaks.com/webrtc

There are browser extensions or settings to deal with most of these issues, and also VPN’s or proxies to hide your IP address.

But how much trouble is it worth to actually deal with all of this. Are you paranoid if they ARE actually out to get you? Is the battle for every scrap worth the time to fight back. I just wish to choose my battles wisely, and retain some sanity 🙂

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@Simpson,

I didn’t have the kind of happy childhood you mention; I was quite alone, but fortunately I had the library nearby and educational television programs and a good mind and heart as my soul’s companions.

At the end of your first paragraph, I thought I could hear you say the last two sentences. Isn’t that strange?

// At this point, Woody, who reads every comment before approving them to be posted on his site, is probably thinking, “Holy moly, this is a _Windows_ website, folks: computers, not ‘Jules et Jim’.” 🙂 //

======================
I wasn’t asking for a dedicated blog about privacy only,
I was saying that if AskWoody.com were set up like a “discussion forum” (addressing all the various technical topics that Woody talks about here on AskWoody.com),
instead of being set up like a blog (as it is now),
then it would be easier for the readers of this site to contribute and to keep track of what everyone has written on the individual topics.

I mean an internet forum such as the following technical discussion forum: http://www.wilderssecurity.com/categories/software-hardware-and-general-services.47/

Other commenters in the past on AskWoody.com have mentioned that they would prefer this site to be set up like a discussion forum,
but Woody explained that since he works on his own as an independent researcher/author/consultant/etc., it would be too time-consuming and complex for him to maintain his website in a discussion forum format, which of course is understandable.

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You can also install the free program Peerblock to see what is connecting to your computer.

You don’t even need to use it to block anything, you can just look at its continuous rolling list of the ips that are allowed to connect to your computer and that your computer is connecting to.

The ips are listed in the numerical format, so you need to look the numbers up on a different website to find out who owns them — it’s not difficult, but it can be time-consuming to do the research for more than a handful of ip numbers at a time.

Peerblock is not just for people who are trying to torrent or otherwise hide illegal activity, it is for anyone. I don’t do any kind of peer-to-peer stuff or torrenting or anything. I don’t even watch YouTube, ha ha!

Unfortunately, it’s now an old program and it hasn’t been updated in a long time. The programmers of it disbanded a couple of years ago, and then the guy who wrote a lot of the free blocklists sadly died last year.

In turn, a few months ago, they took the main Peerblock website down, all except the user forums, but there are threads in that forum (go to peerblock.com) that explain how to get a copy of the Peerblock exe to download and install.

You can also use the Wayback Machine website to view the entire, original Peerblock site including their software instructions, FAQ, and download links (which, the last time I checked about 2 months ago, still work, even though the site is now offline).

One thing that I use Peerblock to do is to block all connections to and from a large number of countries. You can pick blocklists (at IBlocklist.com) of an individual country and use that to block all connections to/from that country. I block countries that are reputed to host a lot of hackers (I don’t want to offend anyone by naming some of the specific places!) or that my computer doesn’t have any business hearing from/talking to anyway.
My computer is made in China. I block China and Hong Kong ips with PeerBlock, and it’s interesting to see when my computer tries to “phone home”, usually several times a day, even though I have all voluntary connections to the manufacturer and all automatic updating turned off, as far as I can, in the computer settings.

I also block entire company ip ranges — Google, Facebook, many others.
Of course they try to follow us all over the internet, with hidden recorders (I forget the technical term of those) on all kinds of other sites, following what we do and recording it, even when we aren’t even logged into our Google, Facebook, etc. accounts.

Therefore, the Peerblock screen showing the ips that are being blocked second-by-second zooms along like the Autobahn! There are often hundreds of blocked ips on my rolling log in the space of a few seconds. They try over and over again to get through.

If I do need something for a little while, like when I’m reading an online newspaper and can’t see the text and photos unless I allow an ip from Akamai or Fastly or whatever, Peerblock lets me right-click and quickly change a normally-blocked ip to be ‘allowed’ for 15 minutes, for one hour, or forever.

A benefit of blocking ips like this is that Peerblock can act like a great ad-blocker. They have block lists which are wholly advertising and data tracker ips. Also malicious and spyware ips, search engines, etc.

Up to 2 months ago, iblocklist.com used to offer a lot of the blocklists (for Peerblock and for other blocking software like PeerGuardian and whatnot) for free (and I think that some might still be free), but the owner of that site has started to charge $10 a year for access to most of the lists, many of which are kept updated. For me, I decided it was worth it to subscribe, because the way I have it built up and tailored to my needs now, Peerblock is like a wonderful fortress for me, keeping my computer safer and my internet experience more pleasant.

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There aren’t too many internet sites I’ve visited lately where someone has written, “While brushing up on Plato…”
and then they’ve added a quote by Jung, etc.
🙂 It’s nice!

—
Indeed, right before I skimmed down the comment section here and got to your comment, I was scrolling through my “quotations” Word document looking at the quotes that I’ve saved by Hemingway and Nietzsche — since I was inspired by Simpson’s mention of those 2 writers only a few comments above this one!

I was going to include a quote by one of them in my reply to Simpson (which is above), but then I decided that the quotes I found by Hemingway were kind of depressing. The quotations I found by Nietzsche were either way off topic or were sort of too personal for this context (oddly).

—
Here’s one that is related to how we treat these violations of our privacy and our data, especially when “they” (Microsoft, Google, etc.) increase them slowly and quietly and secretly:

“Individuals need not believe all these mystifications, but they must behave as though they did…
They need not accept the lie. It is enough for them to have accepted their life with it and in it.
For by this very fact, individuals confirm the system, fulfill the system, make the system, are the system.”
-Vaclav Havel
(I presume he was talking about life behind the Iron Curtain in Czechoslovakia.)

I’ve now come upon one that I copied in to my Word document last year — along with a note that I should make sure it’s correct, because I found it in someone’s random comment made on the Guardian newspaper’s website. It’s not very uplifting, but I guess it’s somewhat related to the subject at hand:

“The very word “secrecy” is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings… Our way of life is under attack. Those who make themselves our enemy are advancing around the globe… no war ever posed a greater threat to our security. If you are awaiting a finding of “clear and present danger,” then I can only say that the danger has never been more clear and its presence has never been more imminent… For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence–on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations. Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed.”
John F Kennedy, 35th President of the United States, from a speech delivered to the American Newspaper Publishers Association on April 27, 1961 and known as the “Secret Society” speech (I need to check to make sure it’s correct)

I am sorry to put it here if it’s actually not accurate.

Goodness, yikes, must move away from the tinfoilhattyness to something lighter…

“To know the world’s injustice requires only a small amount of experience. To accept it without bitterness or envy you need almost the sum total of human wisdom.”
From The Folded Leaf by William Maxwell (American novelist, 1908-2000)

“Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness.”
-George Sand (real name Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin)
(French novelist, 1804-1876)

“As to me I know nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk in the streets of Manhattan…
Or stand under trees in the woods…
To me every hour of light and dark is a miracle…”
-Walt Whitman
(American poet 1819-1892)

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Hi Woody,
I wrote a long comment about the ip addresses that come up on Peerblock when I am on your website, and I tried to post it 3 times, but it never went through — I just kept being kicked back to the normal web page, and my comment did not show up as “awaiting moderation”.
Strangely enough, I have made comments tonight before that one AND after that one that have gone through just fine and have shown up, with the note “awaiting moderation”, in their proper place in the comments stream.
I have been “logged in”, so to speak, under the same personal details the whole time I’ve been on your site tonight, so it’s not like the comment that disappeared was made without my filling in the boxes [name, mail (will not be published), website] or anything like that — they were already filled in.
I am not sure if the comment that didn’t get treated normally was too long?
It’s strange that I didn’t get an error message.
I have saved it in Word if I need to try to post it again tomorrow. I hate to lose it because it took me quite a while to type up and describe the ip numbers that your site was throwing up to my Peerblock!
🙂

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I, too, appreciate the comments on Plato and Jung. They’re important, in my humble estimation. But staying on topic is also important…

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Good points. AFAIK, this site only links to the icon-generating sites which, as you say, aren’t tracking anybody. I don’t like tracking. That’s a big part of the reason why I got rid of advertising quite some time ago. Admittedly, though, if I were to expand the site, I’d have to start bringing in feeeeelthy lucre, somehow. I see that Paul Thurrott and Brad Sams are bumping up against the same problem.

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This is a good place to focus. Health care policy already allows different insurance rates for smokers. The next one will be body/mass index exceeding 25 or some other target. It is easy to perceive in the commentary of many health writers a belief that fat people ought to be made to pay the price of their excess. And in their self-righteousness, reformers do not care about individual rights or privacy.

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I agree that blocking IP’s is one approach, but it seems to me that it adds complexity to the solution.

So I have broken my problem down into two parts.

1. Control over the automatic connections to the net from the PC (i.e. phoning home).

2. Control over connections from my web browser to the myriad of domains that provide content to the website that that I have navigated to.

I have found that for type #1, a PC software firewall can control connections with a minimum of broken functionality. No need to dig into any IP ranges, unless you are curious. You can limit connections to just the essential services and programs. I don’t expect too many of them to go rogue if allowed to connect. We have already given them “trust” to execute on our PC anyway.

For type #2, I think the answer lies in careful use of browser extensions to either block domains, or by using behavior analysis to block trackers. So far the best domain control I have seen is uMatrix (advanced), followed by uBlock Origin or Adblock Plus. The previously mentioned Privacy Badger does well with behavior analysis. I run both types.
https://www.eff.org/privacybadger

There are a couple of good, well maintained blocklists available called “EasyList” & “EasyPrivacy”. Adblock and uBlock Origin both have access to these lists, but uBlock Origin throws in many more, adware, malware, etc.
https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/

The most advanced of the blocking extensions that I have found is uMatrix. It allows fine control of each domain on a site by site basis. It includes block lists for malware and advertising domains.

But the coolest thing about uMatrix, is that it only allows connections (& scripts) to the first party web site by default, with the addition of all style sheets (CSS) and still images. This lets the web page generally render in a readable fashion. This also protects you if you click on a link in a web search and end up at an unfamiliar site.

With uMatrix, if you decide you trust the site, you can temporarily turn off all filtering with one click, or selectively allow one 3rd party domain at a time.
https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix

These extensions are available in both the Firefox and Chrome repositories.

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On privacy, the way I have been looking at it is: everyother entity is very being very suttle approach toward your privacy; but now Microsoft is using the GET IN YOUR FACE approach. And as you said, Woody, even some Lowes stores may be starting that approach.

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Thank you John W. for those recommendations.

Regarding your Type 1 connections, I don’t trust all of them on my computer —
I suppose part of the reason for that is that I have a Lenovo.
When I got it straight from the factory, it was doing some dodgy things, actually throwing up constant error warnings about not having enough storage space in the factory-created backup partition, that even I, just an ordinary customer, noticed and had to do something about (eventually I had to reinstall the whole ball of wax from the factory-supplied disk, and the resulting “factory settings” set-up looked different than it looked when it had come “straight from the factory”), and magically the backup partition had plenty of space and I got no more warnings that it was full. Also, the enclosed shipping note in the mailing box from the factory said that my made-to-order computer left the Chinese factory and was sent to the third floor of some university building in Australia before it was sent on to me. That sort of stuff gave me pause at the start.
And later with Lenovo there was that “something-fish” controversy where the manufacturer had deliberately put some kind of malware into the factory set-up that enabled the tracking of what users did or bought online.
Plus, I had a weird experience with a supposedly-highly-rated-and-trustworthy VPN which seemed to install a dodgy program on my computer which was allowing some unwanted communications with unknown things — I was getting warnings from Norton Security that something bad was dialling out.
Due to those issues, I decided that it is probably safest for me to keep an eye on what my computer wants to automatically connect to.

As far as using a software firewall to block, I am probably misunderstanding what you are saying, but my “Norton Internet Security” firewall requires me to enter ip numbers if I want to block specific things there. It’s more complicated to set up blocking rules on my Norton firewall than it is on Peerblock. Are other firewall programs much easier to use for blocking?

For your type 2 blocking, my main issue up to now is that I use Internet Explorer, which I do want to keep using at the present time, and the better browser extensions for blocking do not seem to be built to work with I.E. — they are made for Firefox and Chrome. So when I last looked into this, Peerblock seemed my best option of the meagre options that I had.

Also, I have read that some of the blocking programs like Adblock (it may not be that one; I don’t know their names) have now incorporated some required whitelists or something, and they are getting into accepting payment from some advertisers to not block them, or such. I don’t know the details, but my impression is that some of them seem to be moving towards diluting some of their effectiveness.

I don’t want to see ads, but I know that’s the funding model. It’s not like I want to get something of value “for free”, but I didn’t have a say in the system they’ve set up.
My concern isn’t the idea of just a few ads, which I happily co-exist with in a printed publication like a magazine or newspaper, but a) it’s how the online ads can be very distracting and start stealing screen space, flashing or playing videos, making noise, being very annoying and b) it’s how so many ads, even from reputable companies and appearing on reputable websites, can be infected with malware or momentarily controlled by “baddies” who can cause big problems for the unwitting computer owner (sometimes not even requiring a click on that ad to cause damage). I don’t want to take advantage, for free, of the value offered to me by a good website, but I don’t want to open myself up to the possibility of catching ad-served malware. There are some sites that I’d pay a subscription to, or donate to, in exchange for having no ads, if they had a good system in place for that. There are other (retail and membership) sites that I think get enough $ from me that they don’t also need to reap ad revenue from my visits. And I do try to give back some value by being helpful if I can on the sites that allow reader comments and suggestions.
Beyond mere advertising, the tracking of people’s behavior across the internet by companies like Facebook and Google by invisible trackers embedded in totally unrelated sites, I just think it’s too invasive.

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In case my rejected message was too long, I will try to post it in 3 parts.
——-

Part 1:

Right now, Woody’s site is the only one I’ve got open, so I’ll open up a new window of it, refresh that window, and see what ips are allowed and are blocked in my Peerblock regarding this instance of my accessing AskWoody.com:

They appear in the following order, with all multiple hits (duplicates) included:

Blocked ips
(because they were already in my block lists, I know what company owns the ip number):

1:07:17 72.21.91.121 (Edgecast)
1:07:17 72.21.91.121 (Edgecast)
1:07:17 72.21.91.121 (Edgecast)
1:07:17 72.21.91.121 (Edgecast)
1:07:17 72.21.91.121 (Edgecast)
1:07:17 72.21.91.121 (Edgecast)
1:07:17 72.21.91.121 (Edgecast)
1:07:17 72.21.91.121 (Edgecast)
1:07:17 93.184.216.127 (Edgecast)
1:07:17 93.184.216.127 (Edgecast)
1:07:17 93.184.216.127 (Edgecast)
1:07:17 65.52.108.163 (Microsoft)
1:07:18 65.52.108.163 (Microsoft)
1:07:23 65.52.108.163 (Microsoft)
1:07:23 65.52.108.163 (Microsoft)

—
Allowed ips
(because they were not in my block lists – I do not know what companies they are from, but it can be easily checked on an ip-search website):

1:07:17 107.6.131.250
1:07:17 107.6.131.250
1:07:17 143.127.102.125
1:07:23 107.6.131.250
1:07:23 107.6.131.250
1:07:23 107.6.131.250
1:07:23 107.6.131.250
1:07:23 107.6.131.250
1:07:23 107.6.131.250
1:12:14 143.127.93.105

—
I looked at the ips between 1:07 and 1:18 am. I opened AskWoody.com at 1:07 and didn’t click on anything up to 1:18, except for typing in this message box.

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Your commenting system doesn’t like my Part 2 or 2a, which keeps disappearing and not being accepted.

Part 2b:

Of the 3 ips that were blocked, presumably 1 or 2 of them are necessary for the emoticons and “shadowy round-headed figure icons”.

Which one is the Gravatar one?

The Microsoft one might have just been a random attempt by MS to connect to my computer which happened by chance while I was doing this observation of AskWoody.com — Microsoft does try to connect frequently to my computer. However, I allow most Microsoft ips, I don’t have them on a blocked list, so I’m not sure why that particular one was flagged to be blocked.

More detail:

First blocked one: 72.21.91.121
Organization: EdgeCast Networks
Location: Los Angeles, CA

Second blocked one: 93.184.216.127
Organization: EdgeCast Networks
Location: Roanoke, VA

Third blocked one: 65.52.108.163
Organization: Microsoft bingbot
Location: Chicago, IL
[It looks like it’s Bing related? I do block all the major search engines’ ip ranges.]

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Part 3:

Okay, now I’ll allow the Edgecast ones through and see if I can see the “shadowy round-headed figure icons”.

I allowed EdgeCast 72.21.91.121 for 15 minutes, and it IS letting me see the “shadowy round-headed figure icons”.
However, it is not letting me see an emoticon that I had typed earlier tonight in a different comment that I made on this discussion thread.

I then allowed EdgeCast 93.184.216.127 for 15 minutes (while the 72.21.91.121 one was also allowed, bear in mind) and…
yes, now I can see the emoticon that I put in an earlier comment tonight!

—
Now that the ips for those two elements are determined,
I don’t think I will allow the third blocked ip that is from Microsoft Bing, because I expect that Bing is just trying to track me?
That ip is coming up in the blocked list every time that I refresh the AskWoody page, so it is not a random ip that is checking in from Microsoft to my computer; it appears to be specifically connected to AskWoody.com.

Okay, I have just I refreshed AskWoody.com one more time before I hit the submit button for comment, to see if anything new is being blocked, and a fourth blocked ip appeared:

Fourth blocked one: 204.79.197.200
Organization: Microsoft
Location: Redmond, WA
[Note: This ip number is listed in my pre-existing blocklist under the name “ads.bing.com”]

AskWoody.com was the only site I had open, so it’s related to this site.

—-
Anyway, I hope the above was a smidgen interesting to somebody! 🙂

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Though out of order now, here is another attempt to load up Part 2b:

Now I’ll open up an ip-search site (which will bring a flood of new ones onto my Peerblock log, of course) and try to look up those 3 that the AskWoody site sends out and that my Peerblock program allowed through (which doesn’t mean they are “safe”, it just means they aren’t on any of my installed blocklists).

First allowed one: 107.6.131.250
Organization: SingleHop
Location: Chicago, IL

Second allowed one: 143.127.102.125
Nevermind about this one, it is Symantec, for my Norton Internet Security program

Third allowed one: 143.127.93.105
Again, this is from Symantec, I do allow all Symantec ip numbers and they are in contact with my computer all the time, so this has nothing to do with AskWoody.com

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I guess that ones that stood out for me that were trying to interact with my computer (and were being blocked) when I had only AskWoody.com open, and which would come up again when I would refresh this site, were:

Third blocked one: 65.52.108.163
Organization: Microsoft bingbot
Location: Chicago, IL

Fourth blocked one: 204.79.197.200
Organization: Microsoft
Location: Redmond, WA
[Note: This ip number is listed in one of my pre-existing Peerblock blocklists under the name “ads.bing.com”]

Both of them are still trying to connect to my computer right now, and I only have had AskWoody open during this internet session.

Sorry for having to divide that up into several parts.

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I agree. It is a balance for each user, privacy vs convenience.

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The thing being detected appears to be any sort of page redirect. Algorithims have a hard time distinguishing redirects from tracking activities sometimes.

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I should qualify this post with the fact that some POS systems use Zip Codes as a form of authentication, especially if the card appears to be out of state. Gas station pay at the pump systems do this all the time.

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Poohsticks…… I run IE11 (although have also
Iron/chrome) I have Norton Security and have found that NS stops me in my tracks if I clicked on a link to a dodgy site…… you’ve probably had that happen too. I have also been running Do Not Track Plus from Abine.com (its an older version and they now have one called Blur, which not only controls trackers, but other stuff like masking emails etc.
https://www.abine.com/index.html and this can be used with IE. I’m not sure about the passwords. but certainly the blocking would be good. I have v. minimal ads appearing on IE…. I also have a really old one called SelectView….. but can’t find any reference to it on line……. so maybe they’ve gone. It was written by 2 guys who were doing work I think for Firefox and decided also to write one for IE. It’s little icon just sits on the command bar. Also, I have another programme that sits quietly and minds it own business and hopefully is protecting my back called “Spyware Blaster ” https://www.brightfort.com/spywareblaster.html
it comes highly recommended and also protects you on IE. I have the free version and manually check for updates from time to time. Infact the Abine one is also the free version. One thing they mentioned is that with the help of blocking ads everything downloads a bit faster, which is another bonus!

Norton used to stop ads and I think still does but not as intensively as it used to……… but whatever programme I have that’s doing it……. something is working as I’ve noticed that when I used another browser (Maxthon) I saw ads I hadn’t on IE.

But of course Norton should also be watching your back in many other ways when you’re browsing… like keyloggers etc.
All this helps to make one’s browsing pleasurable!
Hope this ramble is of some help! LT

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@poohsticks

I hear your dilemma with the Lenovo!

Also heard about the spyware they were installing, and later offering an uninstaller for.

But seriously, if I had any doubt about the authenticity or source of my Windows OS, I would not hesitate to perform a disk wipe and clean install from a genuine Microsoft Windows OEM disk. There is nothing you can really do to guarantee your security or privacy if your system has been rooted, except disconnect from the net.

The clean Windows install method is usually recommended after any malware infestation as well. The only way to be sure. Back up your files and then wipe the system. Start clean and your peace of mind will thank you!

I used to use Norton firewall years ago, so I’m afraid I will be no help with that. There are many other options. In recent years I have been relying on the Windows built-in firewall, which is now two-way, but the rules are difficult to set up and manage. So now I use a simple free program to control the internal Windows firewall by program name, called “Windows 10 Firewall Control” (for Vista, Win7, 8.1, & 10). The connections tab even includes a direct link for “IP Lookup”.
http://www.sphinx-soft.com/Vista/order.html

As far as using Internet Explorer, I will just reiterate what Woody recommends here again and again.

“Don’t use IE”.

Please use anything else. It’s a lost cause. Even MS is abandoning IE for Edge. MS will push out security updates until IE’s end of life, but it will continue to fall further and further behind the others. It’s a risk to use internet facing software that is no longer being actively developed.

You will have many more options for extensions with Firefox or Chrome, with much more control over privacy and security.

If you do decide to at least try a new browser, I would recommend the ad blocking extension called uBlock Origin, over AdBlock Plus. ABP is the one which you referred to as having a “for pay” whitelist for some websites. You get the same blacklists, plus more with uBlock Origin. It is pretty much set and forget in normal mode, but you can select the 3rd party blocklists that it uses. You can also whitelist select websites with one-click if you wish.

I have found that uBlock Origin eliminates most ads and trackers, and combined with Privacy Badger, stops most of the crap 🙂

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@Lizzytish,

Thank you for your tips!

With having to use these old programs for our I.E., such as your SelectView and DoNotTrackPlus and my PeerBlock, it feels like we’re trying to use a wind-up gramophone to play 78s while the other kids have newfangled cassette-tape Walkmans, ha ha, but I don’t mind.

I used the free SpywareBlaster for years, although it never caught anything for me as I recall, and last year when I went through my optional user-installed programs to pare them down to a bare minimum, I uninstalled it (I did keep Malwarebytes). My recollection is that the free version of SpywareBlaster might only be protective when the user manually runs a scan with it (in other words, that it’s not real-time protection that is always on and monitoring), but I might be wrong about that.

Like you, I am pleased with the protection I get from Norton Internet Security. I usually get it around January when they offer rebates or discounts. When it was for 3 devices, I’d get a year’s coverage for $10 (after rebate), and now that it covers 5 devices, I think I paid $22 (after retailer discount) for the current year’s subscription, so it’s pretty reasonable.

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@John W,

Thank you for your recommendations!

I was glad to learn about the free program that makes the Windows Firewall more user-friendly and even has a direct IP lookup feature – how convenient! My Norton Internet Security program needs to use its own firewall so I can’t enable my Windows firewall, but if I ever go without the Norton, I will definitely give “Windows 10 Firewall Control” (for Vista, Win7, 8.1, & 10) a whirl.

The same goes for uBlock Origin, sounds like a great choice (when using a compatible browser).

I have tried a few other browsers.
I always try to avoid Google/Chrome due to privacy considerations. Additionally, I must be in a very small minority on this, but I just don’t like how Chrome feels and looks.
I have used Firefox when I tried Ubuntu (for a couple weeks when a computer died, I used Ubuntu to rescue the files and to have an internet connection until I could get a new computer). It was probably a basic version of Firefox on my Ubuntu rescue disk, but I didn’t like the feel of it, though it was serviceable and I’d probably get used to it. I don’t keep track of the market, but I’ve come across articles in the past year mentioning that Firefox is not as good as it once was, they are eliminating some options, and some users have been rolling back to previous versions or something. Also, I use a VPN sometimes, and there seems to be a problem using Firefox with a VPN (From Wikipedia: “In January 2015, TorrentFreak reported that using Firefox when connected to the internet using a VPN can be a serious security issue due to the browser’s support for WebRTC.”)
I also tried Pale Moon and Opera last year, but that was on my phone, so it’s not a valid comparison with the pc versions.
I know it’s on its way out, but I think that IE still has 1/3rd of the global market share so it’s not dead yet. Last week in a comment on this site, Noel Carboni stuck up for IE, saying that he thought its present level of security really wasn’t too bad compared to the others. I’ve also read a few similar opinions by some technical people (though I know that many other technical people think that it’s terrible!) I will probably stick with IE on my computer as long as I have this Win 7 computer, but I’ll keep an open mind, and continue to be as careful in my internet behaviors/setup that I can.

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Not quite sure where I put this, but wanted to add a quick note to your reply, Poohsticks….

With regard to SpywareBlaster it is always running…… the paid version merely automatically updates….. that’s the difference.
Also I’ve mentioned this before on Woody’s about Iron/chrome which comes out of Germany and has more security features for the user on it than Chrome. And I also quoted a site that gave instructions on how to harden your browser… but as you say its the feel of it that puts you off. It’s always a dilemma when one has got so used to a particular bit of software and looks to replace it….. and finds it so disorientating. Good luck with your searching! LT

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@Lizzytish,

Thank you for your follow-up comment and explanation that Iron/Chrome from Germany has more security options. I didn’t know that!

One good thing about European regulations is that they sometimes have the sense and guts to be tougher on such things than most of the rest of the world seems to have.

I will search for your comment about Iron/Chrome here, and also look the topic up in an external search engine.

It is true that I don’t like the feel/look of Chrome, and this would probably apply in my case no matter what,
but in the future I may be forced to use it, and occasionally there is a good reason to have access to a second browser, so I’m all for learning about how to increase the privacy of it.

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Part-A
Adguard 6 rocks…
Still knowledge or information is power and we all have a choice to use it or not. It’s a far more reaching effect than that, and the
ones in a position to observe our quest for information or what we link to (metadata), can do us harm as well as all the parasites that leech off of them.
Privacy is just a mere word without a best practice to insure it, and then in understanding the ways used of mining our data through leaks and collective instruments. I do thank you woody for this.

The thirst for power is information and if that information is about you, then you become less powerful than the ones collecting your information, they become empowered in a way we may not want them to be.
Then what about a change in their predecessors of policy and or govern
personnel, they still have your
data-metadata, so who’s control your life. Information is power, so people who possess this information about your life, private or not, will have an ability to wield substantial power to control and manipulate
you without your knowledge of these facts.

As information is power will it be collected and stored safely and then used for our own good? I think not as power is at the least a supremacy, an authority over an individual or group. Governments at the local, state, and federal level have increasingly collected troves of sensitive information about us, they make some of our information publicly available via the internet. In todays and tomorrow world is this safe?

What about our information of (data-metadata) that is collected directly or indirectly through a business commerce site or any other websites on the internet that we visited. We have no access to this data, to see it may contain fraud, falsehoods, half truths or an misinterpretation of us, without knowing and seeing this data, have we been represented fairly, justly and honestly.

{This is most important – to actually see this information of a families shared computer, shared connected devices of an ISP address. Especially given a families gathering where distant members come together. All this information would be not of one soul but, many different people. Then how will it be represented as in how it’s misrepsented. Not to mention if you have an unprotected Wi-Fi signal beaming to the neighbors and then their visitors (during party night) or that of street traffic outside your apartment.}

With the facts that this stored data can be shared, sold or traded without our knowledge, consent, permission, or approval. By just by visiting a website we’ve entered in an agreement, that compliance to be bound by it’s Terms of Service & Privacy Policy and without really understanding all of the written legalese contained therein of how our generated stored data will be used.

The fact of the time it takes to read all of it, in this case of two instances TOS and PP, and it only takes mere nanoseconds for a website to record your systems, browser, IP, and other data information related to your visit. Placing numerous cookies on your system and labeling you, tagging with tracking ID’s for later use in identifying you, be it on this same website or of a totally different one you should visit.

What if we don’t agree to and want to be in compliance after reading the Terms of Service & Privacy Policy and we leave the website to never use the same again, what about our collected data that’s been saved by it?
The IDing or tagging of our system configurations, what is the websites policy then with our saved data?
Sell it to Data brokers. I haven’t seen one website offer any options in an opt-out in this type of case where we refuse TOS/PP.

Then it’s only a few steps from here needed by some to link all these different pools of this our stored information (data-metadata) related to us and that of our system and IP address. The information we have entered in search engines, in an online form (some as simple as our email address, or a comment to a topic or an reply on a persons comment in a topic), with all of our other information relating to our life’s. Do I dare mention the street view Google Maps have of our address.
Then that of any social accounts we have and all joined together as Big Data and maybe used against us.
When all laced together under our Big Data profiles, this can lead to denials of many types of insurances, jobs, credit accounts, memberships, etc…
Global companies have a longer reach and impact as the Global eco-system of the Internet affords them.

Big data is an evolving term that describes any voluminous amount of structured, semi-structured and unstructured data that has the potential to be mined for information.
http://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/definition/big-data-Big-Data

As the internet took hold, though, our data productivity increased exponentially, because everything we did online left a trail of digital data that could easily be mined by the internet corporations with whose services we interacted. Thus, surveillance capitalism was born.
The extractive firms of cyberspace merely provide “free” services to their users in return for their personal data trails and user-generated content. Google discovered surveillance capitalism, Microsoft has been late to this game, but it has now waded in.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/02/google-microsoft-pact-antitrust-surveillance-capitalism
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/01/profits-perils-drilling-data-oil-surveillance-online-information

“The real danger is the gradual erosion of individual liberties through automation, integration, and interconnection of many small, separate record-keeping systems, each of which alone may seem innocuous, even benevolent, and wholly justifiable.” – Anonymous, U. S. Privacy Study Commission, 1977

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Part-B
Film – (Documentary) The Human Face of Big Data (2014)
[With the rapid emergence of digital devices, an unstoppable, invisible force is changing human lives in ways from the microscopic to the gargantuan. Big Data, a word that was barely used a few years ago but, now governs the day for almost all of us.

Together these devices are helping create a new kind of planetary nervous system. But as Edward Snowden and the release of the NSA documents have shown, the accessibility of all this data comes at a steep price.

At the moment it’s primarily governments and corporations who are focusing on Big Data. Decisions and algorithms and laws are being put in place that are going to affect every person on earth in the near future — but most of us are not paying attention.

Through interviews with dozens of the scientists and engineers and entrepreneurs pioneering this space, the film captures the promise and peril in the growing revolution around big data, which is likely to have a thousand times more impact on our lives than the Internet. Incorporating narrative elements, the documentary focuses on the human side of the Big Data story.]
http://www.pbs.org/program/human-face-big-data/
Good write up can be found here-
http://www.geekwire.com/2016/new-documentary-explores-the-human-face-of-big-data/
There are other ways to view online though.

Governmental control is nothing compared to what Google is up to. The company is creating a wholly new genus of capitalism, a systemic coherent new logic of accumulation we should call surveillance capitalism.
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/the-digital-debate/shoshana-zuboff-secrets-of-surveillance-capitalism-14103616.html

The UNICEF estimates that an average of 353,000 babies are born each DAY around the world.
http://www.theworldcounts.com/stories/How-Many-Babies-Are-Born-Each-Day

Throughout the world, there are 360,000 babies born DAILY, according to Ecology.com data compiled from 2011.

Earth Statistics
http://www.ecology.com/earth-widgets/

Human Population and the Future of Diversity
http://www.ecology.com/2011/10/29/human-population-future-diversity/

So the earths population grows and so does Big Data, what about in 500 years from now or the earth reaches 70 billion people, what will come to be then of Big Data? Instead of cloud storage will it grow to be keep in outer-space, stations or that of space rocks not big enough to be called planets.

Will Big Data mining lead to forms of segregation types, science, security, finance, changing of life styles, ruling authorities, worst than they are now.

What if it’s found out that Tens of your generational past lines have been of the criminal elements – proven. Will a new baby be allowed to be born of your family tree? If your a criminal don’t buy a smart bulb for your home when the IOT is a standard, as they’ll know when your most likely to be home to warrant and arrest you.

What if your generational past lines that Big Data can prove, you’ll live to surpass 100 years old, then what will you’ll face as benefits or restrictions.

Yes – the power of information is at the least a supremacy, an authority over others.

The knowledge of the last thousands of years
men and women have walked the earth, haven’t shown facts of sharing that knowledge for every single humans good. Where as knowledge could be a good thing many will exploit it.
A man capable of the most sane act is also capable of the most insane act as well.
That’s just human nature and we’re not advanced enough to handle the power knowledge in an always fair and just way.

Just my dishearting thoughts…

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… and instead of giving away information to a company which is under a lot of scrutiny like Microsoft, the same information or more (i.e everything getting in and out of your system over the Internet) is provided to a much smaller company providing VPN services and which nobody really knows what they do with your data, regardless of what they claim. Where are they located, who owns the VPN or proxy provider?
Where is the logic and how much does this enhance the privacy of the user?

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Good point – and many ISPs are now selling data, or thinking about it. DNS servers are another weak link.

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As so many VPN’s have sprung up since Snowden, some of this could be true. Also that most sites offering VPN reviews have some monetary interest at stake to make them sound better or omit some areas of a review. I prefer the paid for service VPN’s and user reviews or comments of them.

I’ve come to understand using a VPN, data traveling between your computer and the VPN server is encrypted. So you are basically shifting trust away from your ISP to that of a VPN service. VPN provides privacy (rather than anonymity). Privacy orientated VPN providers have built their business model on promising privacy, if they fail at it, they lose business and go under.
It’s best to understand VPN protocol offered, shared IPs, their detailed no logs policy – or what is logged if anything – many areas should be covered or facts stated. The information of IP leaks & kill switches, your info. required to signup and payment methods (crypto-currency – just an email is great).

Another area I look for is if they are located within the Global Mass Surveillance – The Fourteen Eyes.
https://www.privacytools.io/

A Detailed VPN Comparison Chart scrolls up and down & left and right, (use show all entries) wait for it to load, thorough details.
https://thatoneprivacysite.net/vpn-comparison-chart/

The ultimate Online Privacy Test Resource List
http://www.ghacks.net/2015/12/28/the-ultimate-online-privacy-test-resource-list/

The Ultimate Privacy Guide
https://www.bestvpn.com/the-ultimate-privacy-guide/

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@Don’tTellM$ Very useful information and above all it is very useful for the regular less technical user to understand what you mentioned in your post that “VPN provides privacy (rather than anonymity).”

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While my fingerprints have been on file for many years (prerequisite for joining the US armed forces and, more recently, as a prereq for an in-depth background check), now my retinal scans are part of (hopefully) my private medical record. I have Type II diabetes and yearly retinal scans are recommended for those of us with this disease.

I just hope they stay private, but who can say for certain that they will? /paranoiaoff

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I wouldn’t worry about it too much. I’ve been fingerprinted and have retinal scans as well (as a Type 2 diabetic). Can’t imagine any situation computer-related where that could be a problem.

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@Manaka
This you’ve mentioned was given freely by you as a requirement for joining an association, group or medical reasons.

Although, well intended and understood by you as some registration requirement. As a need to know type system, and would have an eye’s on policy implemented for just their agents to view, inspect and or amend-etc.

My posting (above A/B) was more to the pools of this information about us, where along with known (as in your case), along with the unknown data trails we’ve left online, then collected together in a Big Data profile of ourselves. Don’t be fooled this is happening,
is the technology there to hash out and understand it yet, keep it secure – who knows.

How safe is it stored? Who has eye’s on it? For what purpose? I can only guess – we’ll never be able to view our Big Data Profiles.
So why is it important then, it’s a true power over us – moreorless our generational lines of the future…

Not like of past wars, leaflets dropped from the air or radio broadcast to the frontlines… Technology used against technology.

I’d like to think I’m not a DARK thinker but, just a thinker of all things that I come across. I do thank you, Manaka for your service.

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@woody
“Can’t imagine any situation computer-related where that could be a problem.”

Not to argue your statement but, to highly question it with regards to large companies having access to the web. Say Insurance companies, future Job employers, online membership based groups and associations.

I can see some companies having resourceful employees, who can research any digital trails left online by us to our disadvantage. Many future Denials…

Maybe there are already Data Brokers setup, who for a one time fee or membership, fork up our Big Data Profile’s information. Saving these Companies time, money as well as resources. That’s how I see one path Data Brokers would make a living. Leeching.

Not forgetting that of our online profiles – Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, etc…

Here – my handle is Don’tTellM$ but, I had to use an email address and I do have an IP address, that for the resourceful can be enough to link any (many other) digital trails of mine together!!! Would you consider my ISP or VPN provider, as well as any other leeches against them, or websites ties I’ve visited.

It’s not a mental disorder of paranoia (on-off-warning) but, a lives lesson…
EX: There was a time when we didn’t have to lock our houses, cars. That a use of a lock was to keep an HONEST MAN “HONEST”, sadly those times have vanished – fading into the past.

So of a technology frontier – we all are presented with – should it not also be taken or grasped with some precautions, in that of the same light of dangerous pasted life’s lessons having learnt. Agreed?

As technology advances understanding how to prevent subcoming to it powers, all it’s sublime ventures, weighting all the Pro’s against the Con’s, and not to just blindly accept it. Is that paranoia or just being wise – of it’s far reaching strengths…

Think of a future day when an Insurance company offers a deep discount – IF – your home(s) and car(s) are hooked up to the IOT (Internet of Things).
Money makes the world go round, and you jump at the savings – BUT – as Money makes the world go round – WHAT’s – in it for the Insurance Company? Your information to do with as they wish – I’d say mostly for their personal monetary gain, not to offer you any % of it, less likely for it’s research in bring you more of a savings on your policy. Who knows?

I’m talking simple here, about where you drive your car and the stops you make (GPS). How many times you open your refrigerator door, turn on the bathrooms light, watch TV, open or close your entry doors.
All collected in a vast profile…

Not so simple here – is that of an 24 hour surveillance you’ve allowed that Insurance Company to conduct – not only about you but, all your immediate family members as well.
All being profiled just as easily.

So woody – thinking outside the box, we are not just living in our neighborhoods and communities when we go online. Are we!
All things we do online should be weighed in a different light of our attentions, attitudes and understandings there of.

When large companies and our government departments get hacked on an continuing effort.

Education and prevention – is it enough of a safeguard. When underlying avenues have yet to be discovered and understood within a technology frontier. Especially as ever evolving as it has become and all it’s different facets of deployment.

When the older types of storage (before Internet) do meet some destruction, or transferred to modern day storage mediums.
Online storage of information materials in storage mediums can be sized down for occupied space needed, yet be accessed and live on forever.

Though, through one’s education-lifestyle-aging many changes of feeling, views, attitude, demeanor can be witnessed. So is it good to have all this personal identifiable information to analyze for it’s only purpose of good. Yet be it subject to the evils who would exploit for gains or harm.

Differences Between Privacy And Security & Why You Should Care-
https://www.maketecheasier.com/differences-between-privacy-and-security/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=22082016

I do thank you woody for the space to voice my views and thinking.

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Good to hear what you have to say!

(And you don’t need to use an email address. You can post on this site completely anonymously.)

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I didn’t know about the email being optional.
Guess I cooked my goose for nothing. ha ha.
Might I suggest something to reflect this about an email, as many sites look as your area of Leave a Reply or Comment here, and do require an email to be given.

MAIL/OPTIONAL (will not be published if used)

Maybe you’ll take excerpts out and make a full featured review/recap someday of all the posted information given here 🙂

Thanks for your comments,
Don’tTellM$

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@all

maybe you and anyone looking for good privacy browser can try

http://chromium.woolyss.com/

they have it for ms mac linux the lot

and read lots of goodies there too 🙂

RANT: my paranoid ‘fear’ is…
its one thing to try to plug the (increasing multiplying) holes
but what if billy is an angel decides one fine day he want to flip the boat? just to see what show can be entertaining?

isnt it wiser for the passenger to jump boat or jump into the water and learn to swim while the boat is half sinking or plan to be self-destruct-sunken?

“kill switch” is what we the user dont have on our terms and our control
but then… well…
there goes everything else (food, water supply, money in the bank and investment, retirement, the “This is my right my stuff” lot)

You dont even control your pet, your children and your spouse, your emotions, your heartbeat, your digestion, your compulsive ever-generating thoughts, nature, destiny – CAN’T!

so much grief so little awareness dear me

Ha HA 🙂 Learn the way of the Tao friend
p/s good reading – The Tao of Pooh – could be fun for wkend 🙂

Im re-reading Bhagavad Gita with inner-heart
There is much to learn in beyond this world.

Be well

Peace,

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Alas, it’d require a degree of customization that’s beyond my ken….

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Hi woody,
I’m thinking then it’s some kind of preset template used as most of these WordPress and other sites probably offer as set and go. With very little adjustments of the templates standard features itself.
– – – – – – – – – – – –
Hey I found out something and it worked in my case – I just checked on it and it’s blurred out. Took about 72 hours start to finish / don’t hold me to this as this was the time it took on my request.
– – – – – – – – – – – – GOOGLE STREET VIEW = BLURRED

To remove your house from Google Street View go to http://www.google.com/maps then type in your home address.
Next click on the small picture of your house that says “Street View”.
If there is no photo then perhaps your house isn’t in Google Street View at all.
Next adjust the arrows on Google Street View until you see your house.

You can then click the “Report a Problem” link at the BOTTOM RIGHT of the image.
The next page you are sent to will give you the option to ask that your house is blurred along with photos of your house, or even an actual photo of you if you happened to be outside when Google’s vehicle drove by.

(On the REPORT PAGE align your house up in the FRAME BOX. Choosing “MY HOUSE” option and giving good details in the “addition information” section of the color, style-EX: Ranch-Two Story-Split Level, siding materials-EX: Wood-Vinyl-Bat&Board, front door and window placement-EX: Front door on left – next on right is large picture window – right of that two more windows.) The MY HOUSE will get best results as everything gets BLURRED. Corner Lot Houses, I guess you would need to ask that front and side views exposed to the street get BLURRED in the “additional information” section. As you can move around in google maps in street view to see both the front and side of a corner lot house.

Give your email doesn’t have to be a Google
mail and submit CAPTCHA. I did use a google mail email myself.

{-[my vehicle with license plate was clearly shown – your kids and pets could also be shown as well as a boat, garden tractor, cycle – anything there when Google’s car with the camera drove by.]-}

NOTE:::filing a report with Google – QUOTE “that once we apply blurring to an image it is permanent”.

UPDATE: Looks like I only took care of the year 2015. From 2007 to 2015 there are 5 timeline captures of my house, so it looks like some rinse and repeat needed here. You should see the timeline slider after clicking on street view of your address. Dang Google…

Thanks, Don’tTellM$

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That link when I got there I was kind of lost at understanding what was all about. Till I found this note that is offered.

Note-
Obviously, you know that this site is not the Chromium official website. As a regular user (not an expert), I created it because I did not find a simple way to download good releases. I try to keep it as safe and fast as possible! 😉 This is absolutely a non-profit site. Please, read the #privacy-policy (on the right side).

In short:
•The official website is development oriented. Users are invited to download Google Chrome.
•The official download page gives to users only “Nightly” builds (using the official Snapshots repository).
•This site gives to users a choice of builds: “Nightly” (also on the download page), LKGR, stable and portable builds.

All downloads are from reliable sources only:
•Google Storage → official “Nightly” builds (Check Chromium Buildbot ^^)
•SourceForge → most of other free and open-source builds
•well-known file hosting sites → few other free and open-source builds

I did find the Browser and Privacy Tabs helpful – which if you keep scrolling down the page you’d find same 3/4 down it. These two tabs are quicken to this info.
– – – – – – – – – – – –
Your Rant-
billy my not be the angel, if he finds sport in such things, and if billy is the only passenger oh well I guess he found his killswitch under his own control…

Discipline is control over one’s own life.
Which must be learnt and then exercised, some automations you wouldn’t want to control and it’s the body’s own disciplines at work as heart beating, digestion, breathing.
Learning discipline lets you control your choice of friends, dogs, spouse and guides you to your life’s destiny. With Discipline you choose all things good in and of your life, whether to spend or save money or make a donation to help others. Discipline is more than control as it’s a way of life to achieving a long happy one.

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I think Noel’s post does not imply that those “trackers” are dangerous in any way. It is just an example to prove the point that browsing to any page gets the user to connect elsewhere and many other sites keep logs and so on.
It is at the end of the day called World Wide “Web” and it does what was designed to do. The issue is that it was hijacked by commercial interests which on the other hand explains why it became so widespread and popular when funding has been made available beyond the realm of science.

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I can agree with that and add…

It’s as dangerous as living in the woods in a tent, and bears and rattlers venture in.
You just have to know the relevant dangers and prepare for the unforeseen with the known hazards as well.

Like logging into gmail 8 G cookies are added to my system, I guess just one is not good enough.

google.com/intl/en/mail/help
accouts.google.com
http://www.google.com/accounts
accounts.youtube.com/acc…
mail.google.com/mail/u/0
google.com
mail.google.com/mail
plus.google.com

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