Privacy
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
Some Rules
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don't promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
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much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
The first thing that pops up in my mind is your public IPv4. You see, in your home LAN every device uses the same public IPv4 to communicate in the internet. So if one device browses for something like an iPhone and you're being tracked then those ad brokers deliver iPhone ads to this public IPv4 and every device behind this public IPv4 will see those ads. Nobody on the internet knows whether behind this public IPv4 is a single device or a LAN with many devices.
Chances are its much simpler than that
Yup. Maybe even just pure coincidence. People are very susceptible to confirmation bias and, as an extra spicy hot take, people in communities like this one even more so.
Welcome to advertising tricks. My SO gets my ads because I block them too. "Blocks ads" is a data point that is tracking you around the web. They simply redirect your content to the next closest impressionable consumer. If they can't reach you, they'll market everywhere around you.
But this takes off doubly so this time of year. This trick really ramps up around gift giving events like The holidays, v-day, birthdays, or other life events.
Is there any way to prevent search information from being linked to me? Like some way so ad companies can't even gather than information That would be great
-Privacy friendly sites (no google, ddg/searxng and stuff) -VPN (Proton is private with a free tier, Mullvad for maximum privacy) -Fingerprint blocking in browser (Brave has it too standard, put it on aggressive)
As long as you are running closed source Operating Systems, they can listen to whatever they want, and scan whatever they want that's happening on your screen. Wake up people. Facepalm.
Very common. Advertisers already know everyone you come in contact with, or ar least those whom you spend time with. They will use that info to push ads to the group, or to the relevant people of that group.
It's Christmas time, you browse moccasins store for 10min, obviously you're interested in them. Why wouldn't advertisers show that item to your gf? That's like the perfect ad for her.
You have DNS ad blocking, but not IP encryption or DNS rerouting. DNS rerouting encrypts your plaintext DNS lookups, but your packets are still very much sniffable. If you aren't using a VPN + DNS filtering/rerouting, you're not anonymous. Also, if your girlfriend is away from home, she's probably completely unmasked on the internet. Same with you. Your phone keeps that metadata. Also, Facebook and Instagram all use tracking software that tracks your activity even if you close the apps. It would be wise to delete your facebook and instagram accounts as they aren't really necessary to live a happy life and they are actively spying on you.
If you really need to share photos, I'd recommend flickr or photobucket, and if you need to talk about yourself, get a blog. Your actual friends and family will find a way to stay in touch with you.
Same Wifi. If you want to not be identified to your home, use a VPN like Mullvad.
But yeah GFs with iphones, love it.
Do you have a Facebook/instagram account where you have marked your GF as your GF or tagged your GF in a lot of photos? More likely than not, Meta pays attention to those connections and shows ads to people it deems close to you based on your browsing history. And remember that Meta tracks user actions beyond what they do on Meta sites.
A similar experience is what got me into privacy. Time to get off of social media and get rid of apps that have access to your keyboard, mic, files, etc.
The worst device in any household is the router. Even worse when it's a public one.
How so?
Everything is connected through it, to the internet. All your devices have the same IP when connecting with the outside. If your ISP has access to it (most common setup unless you have your own router) they can see every bit of traffic going through it (tho they can't decrypt encrypted traffic, there is tons of personal information going through it). The standard insecure router is not difficult to compromise (especially a public one), resulting in compromised networks. A company like Google or Facebook, even without having an account with them, can get a good profile of each member in your household simply through tracking traffic (IP and device foremost). Not mentioning the "deals" they have to obtain or share this data with each other.
A VPN solves a lot of those issues, or at least obscures it, there's still fingerprinting.
Decent ISPs will configure their routers mostly locked down, but some don't at all. It's great if they allow you to configure it yourself lest you know what you're doing.
If you're using it bare naked, don't be surprised your SO's phone or your Smart TV shows ads for stuff you've been searching for in your phone at night alone in the bathroom. Even when none of the services are logged in or from the same company. It's any tracking company's moneymaker.
I have never heard of a router phoning home to report traffic.
Most routers are made in China. Not sure if I need to explain more because we are in a privacy forum… Guess people here are discovering, not discussing…
same thing happened to me. talked about very specific health-related topic, didn't googled it or anything, the next day instagram came up with ads for the very same specific health subject.
for a start, you can check instagram's permissions (and facebook of you use it, it's meta too) and disable access to microphone.
however, that leaves whatsapp which is also meta and mic is more of a neccesity than insta/fb, but in my case, haven't seen weird ads for subjects i didn't typed into any devices since i disabled insta mic access.
Few days ago I was talking with my wife about groceries, reminded her about buying more cat food. My daughter was sitting next to me, playing some game on her Android phone. Then she chirped "I got a cat food ad! I've never gotten a cat food ad before, ever! It's like the phone heard what you just said, dad!"
Yep. VPN and Adguard are now installed to every single mobile device in my household.
I got ads for sexual assault therapy after I talked to my friend about my assault. I was livid. The audacity to try to make money off assault victims.
It's irrelevant which phone you use, iOS or Android, all smartphones are spyware by definition, risky to have important data in it.
Now do that but with your samsung phone.
Not iphone but this ones from google https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2019/07/10/google-employees-are-eavesdropping-even-in-flemish-living-rooms/
As others have said, it may be the same WiFe.
I am pretty sure the iPhone is listening though, because I saw a prank where a woman whispered to the husband's iPhone about baby stuff (to have a baby), and he complained about receiving a ton of ads about baby stuff just after that. So yes, welcome to the apple garden ahah
Always assume anything with a mic and internet is listening to feed custom tailored ads to you.
If you don't have kids, talk about your upcoming fake baby. Watch the baby ads roll in.
Don't have a dog? Talk about your fake dog and how you need to buy new collar and leash or something. Magically you get ads for it.
Some people say it's your IP, but actually IP is rarely used for tracking
On the way to privacy there are some things you should know:
- Companies know who are your friends, especially if you communicate on the same messaging apps, etc
- Also they have your location
- And it seems like apps and Instagram are always listening (so if you say "pizza, pizza, pizza, I really like pizza, I really want to buy pizza now around me" you will get an ad with pizza)