What They Know

[mirimir]

Marketers are spying on Internet users -- observing and remembering people's clicks, and building and selling detailed dossiers of their activities and interests. The Wall Street Journal's What They Know series documents the new, cutting-edge uses of this Internet-tracking technology. The Journal analyzed the tracking files installed on people's computers by the 50 most popular U.S. websites, plus WSJ.com. The Journal also built an "exposure index" -- to determine the degree to which each site exposes visitors to monitoring -- by studying the tracking technologies they install and the privacy policies that guide their use.

-http://blogs.wsj.com/wtk/-

[SirDrexl]

Regarding Facebook (and perhaps a few others), their rating seems misleading. Although they may only have 4 trackers on their own site, they have trackers spread all over the web at other sites. I'm seeing more and more "log in with Facebook" on various sites.

I didn't realize the dictionary sites were so popular. I tend to just look up a new word on a general search engine. Often I don't have to visit another site after that, as the definition is usually there in the summaries of the search results.

[mirimir]

Also interesting is the "Web Privacy Census" from the Univ of California Berkeley Center for Law and Technology -http://www.law.berkeley.edu/privacycensus.htm- They've been tracking trackers since 2009, and say that they'll release quarterly updates.

[caspian]

Originally Posted by mirimir

-http://blogs.wsj.com/wtk/-

The mention tracking files installed on people's computers. Are they referring to cookies?

[mirimir]

Originally Posted by caspian

The mention tracking files installed on people's computers. Are they referring to cookies?

Yes, plus flash cookies, HTML5 storage, etc. The summary at -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_cookie- is pretty good.

[caspian]

Originally Posted by mirimir

Yes, plus flash cookies, HTML5 storage, etc. The summary at -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_cookie- is pretty good.

Jeezus that is sick. I assume that using Sandboxie and Shadow Defender can defeat these cookies. This should be illegal.

[mirimir]

Originally Posted by caspian

Jeezus that is sick. I assume that using Sandboxie and Shadow Defender can defeat these cookies. This should be illegal.

VMs and VPNs are the way to go, I think.

[caspian]

Originally Posted by mirimir

VMs and VPNs are the way to go, I think.

A friend who I met here got me started on Ra's Fnord. It was so easy I couldn't believe it. But I have a lot to learn about VM's.

You mentioned using different VMs for different identities. I think that is the way to go. And you also mentioned using more than one VPN. So do you run a VPN for your system and then run another one from within a VM?

[mirimir]

Originally Posted by caspian

So do you run a VPN for your system and then run another one from within a VM?

I've done that. My main system now runs several pfSense VMs. Each runs a different VPN/route client. Some "outer" VPNs only connect directly. Other "inner" VPNs, which I pay for "anonymously", only connect via outer VPNs.

Generally, each "workstation" VM always uses the same inner VPN/route. Sometimes I also run VPNs in workstation VMs, giving me three levels of VPN nesting.