
I Tried Hiding from Big Tech in a Pile of Privacy Gadgets - leirbagarc
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-08-08/i-tried-hiding-from-silicon-valley-in-a-pile-of-privacy-gadgets
======
pixelbath
I found myself wondering, "but why?" more than once reading this.

>I realized that Signal is located in Mountain View, Calif. So I downloaded
Burner...

So, Signal is compromised because it's physically near Google? Okay.

>and went to Amazon.com

A company you can't shop at without leaving a digital trail? Okay.

>seeing the 7-Eleven location listed there along with almost everywhere else
I’d been in the last seven years

You didn't turn off location services before trying a Faraday bag? You're
still using your Android smartphone?

I guess I can give the author credit for looking around and trying, but most
of the privacy benefits likely come from things like: using Signal (or similar
end-to-end encryption), using privacy-focused email (or a private email
server), not logging into social media, turning off location services, using a
privacy-focused search engine like DuckDuckGo or StartPage, and blocking ads
(and possibly JS if you're that bold).

If it's still not enough for the non-technically-minded, then I'd suggest
doing some more research into more advanced techniques like network
adblocking, Tor, VPN, or virtual machines.

~~~
40four
Maybe you are taking the article to literally.

I thought it was a great read & enjoyed the writing style. I took it to be
very tounge in cheek. It was a good overview of a number of cool products I
was unaware of, while also being very funny and entertaining.

Pretty silly ending, he just went back to doing the same old stuff he used to
do. Fun read!

~~~
mirimir
You took it as "tounge in cheek". I took it as a strawman, and very sarcastic
and dismissive toward people who protect their privacy.

~~~
40four
I just saw the privacy guides page you link to. Look like a good resource I
will have to check it out.

I take my privacy seriously, but it shouldn't have be so complicated/ time
consuming to defend yourself.

~~~
mirimir
Thanks.

And no, it shouldn't. But it is.

There are startup opportunities, perhaps. Something like Tails, but more
comprehensive. And even more intuitive and user-friendly. Maybe using some
lighter type of OS compartmentalization.

------
Yizahi
It is impossible to hide from big corporate. People tried (1). There is no was
to block all tracking unless you go full luddite and unless every single
person you know or simply met randomly does so too. Otherwise big corps would
just create tracking profiles for you based on activity of others. Small
recent example - remember that russian spying app FaceApp (iirk) which made
aged pics out of your photos? Even if you avoided it there is rather high
chance that your friends uploaded pictures of you instead. Or that phone
caller ID app (which is a spyware inside too) - even if you never used it they
still know your number probably because others filled it in for you.

(1) [https://gizmodo.com/c/goodbye-big-five](https://gizmodo.com/c/goodbye-
big-five)

~~~
mikekchar
Drives me crazy: My dad takes a picture of me when I visit my parents. My mom
uploads it to Facebook. My cousin tags me. Want to know where I was during my
vacations to Canada and who I spent time with? It's all there for the taking
and I'm not involved _at all_!

~~~
lazyjones
> _Want to know where I was during my vacations to Canada and who I spent time
> with? It 's all there for the taking and I'm not involved at all!_

Even if this didn't happen, Big Tech would still know since you probably took
your smartphone with you...

~~~
judge2020
I know this is against the general sentiment but I don't care much what these
corporations know about me; we all know we're just ad clickers and numbers in
their big data machines. I'm more afraid of who can see the data that's
peronally about me, whether it be due to mishap (data brach) or lack of
control (see: IG, Facebook tagging). Should any of that get out, it would be
devastating if it were put up on shady websites that allow you to look up the
data of breached inviduals via only a name or username.

~~~
lazyjones
> _I 'm more afraid of who can see the data that's peronally about me,_

Big Tech knows all about you personally, including your name, address, phone
number, locations you've been to, people you've met, things you've bought or
considered buying. And guess what: they will sell it to anyone who pays
enough.

------
oscilloscope
Since this was about devices and ad-blocking, I expected the Pi-hole to make
an appearance. But alas, the author used Brave browser.

[https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-
hole/blob/master/README.md](https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-
hole/blob/master/README.md)

~~~
colordrops
Brave works. Lots of propaganda on here against Brave for some reason. It's
open source based on chromium with all the Google bits taken out, and it has
built in ad blocking. So there's an _opt-in_ crypto coin, so what.

~~~
ac29
> Lots of propaganda on here against Brave for some reason.

I think the same reason some people find Google's advertising-based business
model problematic, they find Brave's advertising-based business model
problematic.

~~~
colordrops
What is braves advertising based business model? I've been using it since it
came out and haven't seen a single brave ad.

------
methou
I'm tired of hiding from the big techs in a pile of privacy gadgets.

How so?

They fight back, with dark patterns. Ruleset works today may not work on the
next; you can update the rules; they can make your update break things. I can
see that on some major Chinese e-commerce sites, blocking tracking scripts may
cause search function to stop working, or you cannot comment because the
submit button failed to load.

It's difficult to know, I use uMatrix, and often run into questions like what
is this <cryptic.cloudfront.net> domain doing? Sometimes it's almost 'first-
party'; sometimes it can be something else.

Domain names are too broad because I don't see why a site owner can not add
trackers under the domain, or some related domain names that were 'trusted'.

There's an option to do this as those anti-virus software do, have a database
of hashes of the scripts and css, and audit them. But you know rapid things
are changing on the web, it is next to impossible to keep track of those.
Eventually, we'll run out of passion and energy, just unplug it already.

------
vanous
When using smart watches I have found Gadgetbridge [1] useful, to keep my
smart band conveniently connected to a phone but not to send my data to
Xiaomi.

Gradully going fully F-droid [2] on my devices.

[1] [https://blog.freeyourgadget.org/](https://blog.freeyourgadget.org/) [2]
[https://f-droid.org/](https://f-droid.org/)

------
swebs
Funny how they don't mention uMatrix. Or maybe the editor just removed that
part seeing how this page loads 36 different scripts from 9 different domains
and sets 16 cookies.

~~~
inetknght
I wonder how well uMatrix stacks against Firefox's reader mode? You can
prepend `about:reader?url=` to most URLs and they'll load fine, fast, and have
_very_ clean UI elements. It's a lot less of a hassle than using uMatrix.

~~~
m463
reader mode loads everything.

umatrix prevents loading of a lot of stuff. I have configured umatrix to only
load first-party content (I can always add 3rd party content back in using the
menu and save it).

Also, umatrix can be used first, then you can use reader mode. Weirdly I
notice reader sometimes bypasses some umatrix protections.

~~~
inetknght
If reader mode loads everything, does it also execute all of the javascript?
That's ultimately what I want to avoid; I want effectively a static page with
zero javascript.

------
mxuribe
Whoa, i had never heard of Reflectacles[0]. Beyond apps, these are the kinds
of physical gadgets that we need nowadays to help protect our privacy!
Certainly, more growth in this area will evolve these products to be
more...subdued and subtle. Nevertheless, I'm encouraged to see that this type
of thing exists.

Beyond rfid wallets, these glasses, and the clothing/jacket the author
mentioned in the article, are there any other cool apparel-related gadgets out
there, which a privacy-conscious person could look into (without spending the
equivalent of a 3-letter agency budget)???

[0] = [https://www.reflectacles.com](https://www.reflectacles.com)

------
positive_future
While activities like this may result in the author being less visible to a
particular algorithm, I imagine that the instant dropoff from most networks
and instant arrival in new networks would be a very strong signal of who they
are.

The more bizarre tricks you try to stay hidden, the more identifiable you
(probably) are.

~~~
waterhouse
But if you can get hundreds or thousands of people to use the same tricks as
you, then you may be able to blend in with that group.

It's like the scenarios that weren't explored in the
[https://xkcd.com/1105/](https://xkcd.com/1105/) strip: yeah, if it's just one
guy with the 1lIl11l license plate, it might attract police attention, but if
the guy collaborated with ten others who got similar license plates for
similar-looking cars, _then_ that could work to confuse and divert the police.

------
neilv
I've been working on this since the early Web sites (starting with publishing
a popular blocker ruleset), and also ongoing exercises with all kinds of
measures, including compartmentalizing with a dumbphone when all the
smartphone options turned out to be travesties.

One thing I've found is that it's already clearly impossible to do perfectly,
and looks like it will be getting even more difficult and limited in what
privacy one can have.

(Obviously, were my own privacy the biggest concern, I wouldn't be talking
online in places where creepy companies scrape. I mainly dabble in privacy
exercises out of a vague sense of public-interest obligation as a techie.)

------
mirimir
Huh? A "pile of privacy gadgets"?

I do a pretty good job of hiding from everyone. And I don't use any "gadgets".
Indeed, not using smartphones is a major boost to privacy. Otherwise, it's
just multiple VMs, nested VPN chains, and Tor. All running on ~old i5 boxes
that I bought used, for cash.

~~~
speedplane
> I do a pretty good job of hiding from everyone. ... it's just multiple VMs,
> nested VPN chains, and Tor.

This condescension is so common and petty. It's like a real-estate broker
laughing at someone for overpaying for a property, or a lawyer laughing that
someone missed a court deadline they didn't know about.

Experts of complex systems generally know how to get what they want out of
those systems. Finding ways for non-experts to do the same should not be
sneered at.

~~~
ignoramous
> Experts of complex systems generally know how to get what they want out of
> those systems. Finding ways for non-experts to do the same should not be
> sneered at.

There's a product/market/founder fit in there somewhere.

~~~
nesadi
I'm not so sure. Seeing how popular and endemic Facebook, Google et al. are,
I'd say consumers price privacy way too low for any significant amount of
money to be made.

~~~
ignoramous
I'm starting up a privacy oriented product for non-rooted Android devices.
Hope to launch it soon.

Like you say, most people I spoke to said they wouldn't pay. The folks who
were serious abt privacy are happy to root their phones and use XPrivacyMod
and Adguard, which are as comprehensive a solution you can get on Android
short of flashing a ROM like GrapheneOS.

We do plan to charge however, a nominal fee, as low as 50¢ a year. Haven't
figured out that yet, but a long way to go. The product needs to be built
first.

------
xvector
I really loved this article. The way it was written was just beautiful.

