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Comment by Mirioron | Hacker News Reader

I think we're not really there yet. I think it's entirely possible for you to avoid most of this type of tracking if you so choose, but it does mean not using services such as Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp and not giving out your phone number to people who use these services.

What bothers me much more is that it might be possible to identify somebody through text analysis.

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Other articles in this NYT series describe how location data is used for similar types of inference. Many of these systems are nearly impossible to opt out of, since they rely on deep rooted tech, like cell carrier chipsets, credit purchase history (tied to retail addresses), or even psychographic & demographic profiles tied to people in your neighborhood (essentially block level aggregates of commute & purchase data). Your strategy of spending time generating fake data online is not enough to really opt out of these systems, and many would argue that the burden of generating consistent dummy personas is already immense. To really opt out of your data being sold or used to target you, you would need to be ready to not travel with a cell phone, not use any electronic payments like credit/debit cards, or even conceal your place of residence from public sources through complex legal obfuscation. Obviously there are different levels of obscurity that can be had, but much of this technology uses dragnets with few practical ways to entirely hide.

> not giving out your phone number to people who use these services

Come on! Are you even serious? It basically requires you being a hermit, because these people is fucking everyone. I think I'm pretty close to being as discreet as possible while being considered more or less normal, but it seems to be of no use — I'm not even always sure how fresh-new fake account on Facebook (or such) can imply this or that connection, or how youtube can recommend a video on some quite specific interest I might have shown a while ago on a completely different device.

And I don't know about you, but I'm not feeling ready to refuse to interact with a girl/friend/relative because they are using whatsapp. I can only hate fb and wish Zuckerberg a painful death, but I don't see how I can realistically avoid being monitored.

Deliberate obfuscation. Change the way you talk over time. Change your users and passwords. Even go so far as to say things that aren't the slightest bit true but can't be differentiated one way or another. Create a matrix of plausible personas you could possess and never let on to which sum of them you really are.

Wouldn’t it be better to shape the world in such a way that those techniques aren’t needed? Don’t work for nasty companies, don’t invest in them, don’t do business with them and lobby the government to outlaw tracking & stalking.

I don't think that's going to work in the long run. You can't stop technological progress.

You can’t stop progress, but you can stop it being used for certain purposes, and laws mostly work as long as they’re enforced correctly.

I don't do that and the companies still exist. You can't stop that so this is the only choice :/

> ... shape the world ...

For the first time we probably have the technology that could help realize something like this if we knew what the shape should look.

Unfortunately we will never have that because that would mean the shaping had already been done.

Then again, if you think about it, maybe the shaping has been done and the shapers already have what they want...

> ... tracking and stalking

I think governments have a vested interest in being able to track

People are bad at stuff like this.

This is not at all viable in real life, unless you have overwhelming motivation to do so, it's your one priority in life, and you are willing to lose out on a lot of things to do so.

> I think it's entirely possible for you to avoid most of this type of tracking if you so choose, but it does mean not using services such as Facebook,...

Why do you think this is a choice? This is definitely not a choice any more. It has been 10+ years since Facebook removed your choice to not use it from society.

Step outside and walk around. You will be photographed. Those photographs are going to Instagram and you are in the background. Your face is scanned by Facebook and they know where you go and what you do in the day. Facebook will know your location because other apps that you use will send Facebook your location without you even knowing it. Other people's actions online, who are tracked more vigorously, like emailing you or even meeting you in person for a coffee, will give further info to Facebook. Your cell signal location and your credit card history are probably up for sale and Facebook probably buys that too.

You want to opt-out by staying home? Just order stuff online? I'm sure Facebook will still find a way to figure you out. There is no such thing as not-using-Facebook, or opting out any more. Saying that there is a way to choose not to be tracked is dangerous and wrong.

> ...and not giving out your phone number to people who use these services.

The tracking they can do is so far past just linking phone numbers though. Trying to keep a phone number secret simply isn't going to work and if it did, it would be ineffective in protecting you from being tracked.

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