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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

If you don't want them to buy your data, stop selling it. Lock down your browsers. Don't use Facebook. Put a better OS on your phone. And sue every company that even hints at violating privacy rules.

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And don't have a car, because the DMV sells your data too. “Stop selling your data” is too simplistic.

The privacy train has already gone.

We should just accept the status quo. We should not fight for privacy aby more. We should accept global surveillance without a fight.

No. We van do something. We van limit our data. It may be futile, but I cannot leave things be like that.

It's not a full-scope solution. I think you'll find most things in the world are complex and require complex solutions, and most people are capable of understanding that discussing one solution doesn't negate the need for others.

Positions like this really aren't helpful because they detract from existing discussions on ways to mitigate data loss. The information a DMV sells isn't behavioral data.

Your actions will signal X,Y,Z and qualify you for intrusive monitoring "because you are hiding something."

This is reality.

There's probably a market for fake id streams: want my contact history? Fine here's 100 fake contacts. Want my location data? Fine. I'm at the Taylor Swift concert two states over. Want to listen in on my microphone? Fine. Here's a recording of Pat Boone trying to do rap.

I'm far from the first person to recommend this.

That will come in next-gen adblockers. Ads will run in an emulated sandbox, unseen by the user. And many user-agent tools already allow randomization, a tiny fictional history.

Sure, but they'll be banned by Apple / Android ToSes. But meh, that shouldn't stop everybody. And it would be fun to watch the back and forth between ad tech and ad blockers.

Android doesn't have ToS.

Google may.

No other variants of Android do, AFAIK.

True. Do carriers try to add stuff like this to their ToS? I usually ignore them and root my phones anyway, so I'm not current on which part of the "value chain" is offering a ToS.

That's an easy solve with a charge of corrupting of evidence or some such. We know you weren't at the Taylor Swift concert 2 states away because your WiFi history and cell tower triangulation puts you on the couch watching the Love Island.

do the chattels and daily dealings, of life become evidence at birth, or do you have to commit a crime before anything becomes evidence?

When the Eye of Sauron gazes upon you, by nature of the gaze you are under suspicion. Depending what is found while the gaze is upon you might decide if you are guilty or not. However, you cannot be ruled out as a terrorist until you've been under that gaze. By falsifying your data just means that the gaze will be much more intense because you're clearly behaving in the manner of someone guilty. It takes time to determine if that guilty looking behavior is because of guilty actions or just some nerd trying to corrupt the data. Either way, you are behaving like a subversive, so you'll just be remembered for that for future investigations.

that suggests, the chattels and daily dealings, of life become evidence at birth, is true.

by extension 5th amendment is hogwash, shielding the obviously guilty.

There is a market for this but while Google controls android and Apple controls iPhone and it remains a duopoly theres no way in hell they will unlock their ecosystems enough to allow it to thrive.

This tool sort of exists for web ads, though I think people started getting account actions or something from G.

https://adnauseam.io/

Besides being speculative, this misses the point that if more people do it, it becomes less suspicious.

...and when WEI reaches mass adoption, your privacy-oriented clients will eventually be locked out of essential services.

I sure hope you have a big war chest for litigation.

Can you find a bank, insurance company, phone carrier, etc, that doesn't have them selling your data in their terms though?

But hey, we make them send out “IMPORTANT UPDATE FROM _____ BANK” letters every time they change the pages-long legalese that allows them to sell all your data, and of course people read those from all the companies sending them and keep up on all the written mail-in opt-outs that expire.

GDPR is a disaster but the intent was good. Here in America we just say go for it.

I wish this worked... Even your ISP or VPN providers can and likely do sell data...

That works for a fringe minority of users

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