
Near, Far, Wherever You Are - danielnixon
https://reallifemag.com/near-far-wherever-you-are/
======
skybrian
The article talks about people who are "computationally near" in ways unknown
to us. But the unknown is a rich source of myths. It's not really true that
there are no coincidences. What is true is that we can't easily distinguish
coincidences from something more sinister. Sometimes all we can do is
speculate about the spies.

Here is an example of Tweet "proving" that Siri is spying that got 3.7k
retweets. I don't believe it (I expect it's in untargeted ad), but can't
disprove it.

[https://mobile.twitter.com/airbagmoments/status/112247415862...](https://mobile.twitter.com/airbagmoments/status/1122474158628253696)

I expect we will see many new Internet superstitions arise as people try to
cope with the unknowable. Maybe even new religions?

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _It 's not really true that there are no coincidences._

Coincidences happen all the time; in fact, you'd need pretty strong evidence
to tell that a particular event is _not_ a coincidence.

People aren't being told how reality works in these aspects. A particular
person talking about a particular thing with their friends, and discovering
ads about it on social media the next day? That sounds like not a coincidence.
But _a_ person talking about _a_ thing and discovering it later on _a_ social
media platform? With billions of people on-line, with this same 'experimental
scenario' happening every day? It spits such coincidences out all the time.

See also: birthday paradox.

------
HNLurker2
Reading this meanwhile trying this girl to notice me (she grew up with FB and
ig I may presumably say that she finds me to be a stranger because I am in
monk mode without any social media).

How much do people really use social media to meet people? I am _pun intended_
a stranger to this? (even thought I am your average teen highschool)

------
marstomorrow
> A decade ago, when I was a senior in high school, “Jimmy,” a jilted ex-
> patient of my dad’s, began stalking our family. Over a period of months,
> verbal harassment escalated to threats of violence and we soon found
> ourselves accompanied by police escorts for the better part of a week

> ....

> In Jimmy’s case, though, I simply cannot fathom how Instagram made this
> connection, despite quite a bit of legwork on my part to do so. He is not
> (and has never been) in my contacts, nor, after searching my email accounts,
> have I ever typed his name or even been forwarded an email about him. The
> more elaborate explanations I’ve entertained are nakedly conspiratorial, and
> so I’ve written Jimmy’s case off as a mystery that will remain unsolved,
> like a ship sunk in deepest waters.

The author described in sufficiently meticulous detail that Jimmy's location
and presence felt through verbal harassment etc were frequently in close
proximity to the author's entire family. I can think of at least a dozen
_clearly non-conspiratorial_ ways that Instagram has made the connection.

I think the author is living in the same bubble that much of the Internet is
in: that the tech companies don't care to track us in the 'real world' and
that most of it is still done with tracking pixels or smart-advertisements.

Instagram/Facebook openly use location and photographs to identify subjects
and track them. This is no secret. If there is any remote possibility of a
person having been anywhere near you for the last 10 years it should be
assumed Instagram / Facebook already know about it. Any assumption _less than
that_ sounds conspiratorial to me ("don't worry nobody cares to watch you"
etc).

~~~
mfatica
> after searching my email accounts

here's a possibility right here - google sells a list of potential names a
given user searched for, and facebook / instagram use that as a way to try to
find connections

~~~
skybrian
Google sells ads (and ad targeting) but I haven't seen any evidence that they
sell data.

There are lots of less well-known companies that will happily sell you lists,
though, cobbled up from who knows where.

~~~
jacquesm
> but I haven't seen any evidence that they sell data

It's worse than that, they give it away. RTB (real time bidding) on
advertising works by presenting the bidder with a whole pile of info on the ad
slot they are bidding on.

So even if you don't bid or you lose the bid you _still_ get all that juicy
data.

~~~
skybrian
Interesting. Do you know a good place to read about the details?

~~~
jacquesm
OpenRTB specification?

[https://www.iab.com/guidelines/real-time-bidding-rtb-
project...](https://www.iab.com/guidelines/real-time-bidding-rtb-project/)

~~~
skybrian
There seem to be three kinds of parties here, the advertisers, the exchanges,
and the websites. An advertiser places targeted ads with exchanges. The
websites send bids, potentially with user info, to the exchanges.

I'm finding web pages at Google showing that they run their own ad exchange,
and they integrate with other people's ad exchanges.

I don't know how to find out if Google makes bids using any exchanges other
their own, or whether the information from Google's bids could otherwise leak
to advertisers.

