Ask HN: How does Reddit suggest local ads despite disabled location access?

2 points·seesawtron··7 comments

You have no privacy on the Internet. Your machine has its own IP address whenever you are using it, otherwise how would that website know where to send that webpage to? All the routers along the way know both the website's source IP and your destination IP of every packet that goes through them from website to you.

Surveillance is simple, they just look at those IP addresses and the contents of the packet.

You are being recorded with every packet of information you use. That just the way the Internet works. If you don't like it, don't use the Internet at all. :)

AS well as the IP address, maybe if you visit subs local to your geographic region they'll use that as a signal too.

Probably your IP address

Wouldn't disabling location essentially block the app from getting the IP address?

No. A web server (or firewall or orchestrator overlay network or whatever) absolutely knows what IP address is connecting to it. It has to send data back to it. Pretty basic TCP/IP stack stuff.

Now you could use a VPN but that would just resolve as the VPN’s IP address.

For more detail, here's the layout of an IP (v4) packet, which shows that it contains the source and destination IP addresses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv4#Header

(IP is the communication protocol layer below TCP, which is below HTTP.)

I went to tiktok one day and was confused why there were suddenly so many videos featuring Canadians. Then I realized I was connected to a VPN with an exit node in Toronto. At least I got a better understanding of how tiktok customizes content.

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