Anticorp ,

Thanks for sharing this, it reminded me to turn my VPN back on.

capital ,

Sorry but that isn’t gonna help.

Anticorp ,

How will it not help? It's an encrypted connection to a single server, and that's all the ISP sees AFAIK.

capital ,

This assumes the only source these companies collect from is your internet traffic. It’s not.

And even if it was, VPNs don’t protect against fingerprinting.

For the past few months I’ve been using kanary which is a service that searches for your information on hundreds of different data mining sources and submits deletion requests for you.

I started with ~225 exposures and it’s gone down over time but I’m still sitting at ~50 exposures and it seems to have plateaued.

This information was data like who I’d married and when, past and current addresses, family members, etc. None of which was gleaned from internet traffic.

Anticorp ,

Right, but you're talking about two distinctly different things. The ISP doesn't own the websites you visit. They only have a record of your traffic. The individual websites that you visit can bust your privacy through 3rd party cookies, browser fingerprinting, cross-site tracking, and a bunch of other methods created to circumvent the user security features built into the browser. Nobody shares that information back to the ISP for free. The real issues are that huge companies like Google, Amazon, and Facebook have scripts running on millions of websites, so they can track you everywhere you go. But they're still just single companies. The linchpin is that they then sell that information to Big Data brokers like Cambridge Analytica, and Informatica. Those companies combine literally everything you do online, everything you submit, all your history, all your data points, and build these fully accurate pictures of you. You need to take proactive measures to prevent this sort of data harvesting that go well beyond a VPN. But your ISP doesn't have these systems in place. So unless the ISP is buying your profile from Big Data, and then selling it to the NSA, having a VPN is enough to thwart your ISP, and the issue identified in the article. You still have to take a bunch of other precautions to prevent the larger issue if you truly want any anonymity, and they'll probably figure you out anyways.

trippingonthewire ,

I love how our tax dollars and inflated fed bucks go to this. We pay to get spied on. We've gone far beyond full circle.

AlphaNature ,

Here is the letter: https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/signed_wyden_letter_to_dni_re_nsa_purchase_of_domestic_metadata_and_ftc_order_on_data_brokers_with_attachments.pdf

makeasnek ,
@makeasnek@lemmy.ml avatar

Elections have consequences. Vote in generals and vote in primaries. Tell your reps (and potential reps) that you care about privacy.

N0x0n ,

Haha... If elections had any impact, it's long time ago we would have seen any changes... ! Every year the same parade, with the illusion of choice between a turd or a piece of shit... Either way, they both come out of the same a Hole and reeks the same...

Money = power ! Vote with your wallet instead... Stop buying unecessary things, just shut down your TV, radio, mobile... and open your mind to the REAL outside world, reconnect with your intuition, stop filling your body with deadly poison and stop being a brainless sheep (not saying you're, it's a figure of speech).

Than maybe we will see some real changes :)

makeasnek ,
@makeasnek@lemmy.ml avatar

You can do both. You always get the same shitty options to vote for because most people don't vote, and even fewer of them vote in primaries or participate in the political process in other ways.

N0x0n ,

Can't argue against that :)

BobGnarley ,

How is voting for the lesser of two evils ever going to change that every year you will still get to vote between the "lesser" of two evils?

makeasnek ,
@makeasnek@lemmy.ml avatar

The reason you only get to vote for the "lesser of two evils" is because you don't participate in primaries (assuming you are talking about the US system here). If MAGA can get a psycho like Trump to be their party nominee, you can get your kind of psycho nominated as well.

Primaries are where you actually get a chance to express what kind of candidate you want. Hell, you can even run for office! Generals are where you hold your nose and vote for the lesser of two evils because otherwise it's an automatic vote for the worst of the two evils.

I agree voting seems pointless sometimes. But it's still important. But it's a lever of power you have access to and nobody can take it away from you no. And you can spend the 364 other days of the year impacting politics in other ways.

queermunist ,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

The reason you only get to vote for the “lesser of two evils” is because you don’t participate in primaries (assuming you are talking about the US system here)

Just popping in to remind you they destroyed the Iowa caucus to stop Bernie.

makeasnek ,
@makeasnek@lemmy.ml avatar

There was some shady stuff on behalf of the DNC but he legitimately lost. He didn't get the votes. Because his voters didn't vote in the primaries. A number of reforms have been made to the primary system since then, a bunch of the people who oversaw that primary got fired, and many states are now moving towards ranked choice voting which will eliminate the need for primaries entirely. If half the people who complain about how voting is useless actually participated in the primary process, our political landscape would look a lot different. I used to be one of those people, I get it, the whole damned thing is a bit of a racket, but it doesn't change that voting takes 5 minutes and has a concrete impact on who runs the government.

Edit: And that's the presidential race. You can make much more of a difference, and the rules are much less wonky, in local and state elections. Hell, many of those positions are entirely uncontested.

queermunist ,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

He "legitimately" lost after they handed Iowa to a nobody loser like Pete to render Iowa irrelevant in the future. You don't really think Pete won, do you? Sure, they gave the appearance of "cleaning up" after Iowa, but that was always the plan! Now Iowa is done as a relevant caucus state.

I voted in Iowa. Getting my caucus vote made irrelevant showed me the Democratic Party is not a viable vehicle. They'll literally throw out your votes if they don't like it.

BobGnarley ,

That worked out well for Florida that one time. But you're missing what gets people nominated to the general primaries, boat loads of money. If you don't have that, good luck getting anyone you want to win to run. Thoughts and prayers and wishing don't fund a campaign, but money does.

BobGnarley ,

All of these bills they pass about spying on you ("PATRIOT" act, PRISM, etc) all have pretty astounding bipartisan support. I mean they can't agree on anything except when it comes to spying on us or wiping out whole societies of people that don't look like we want them to look. They all fucking incredibly come together and agree on that. Every time.

CazRaX ,

That might be a loophole since they aren't requesting it legally they are buying it like any other can.

TheMongoose ,

Yes. The answer to this isn't to restrict what the NSA can do, the answer is to stop people's privacy being a legally tradable commodity.

ArbiterXero ,

Most people don’t have any concept why their privacy matters.

And until something awful happens to them, they aren’t interested in learning it either.

library_napper ,
@library_napper@monyet.cc avatar

After something awful happens to them, they aren't interested in leading it either*

ArbiterXero ,

The awful things haven’t happened to most people yet

Anticorp ,

Most people aren't interested in learning anything, which was a hard realization to come to as an adult.

ArbiterXero ,

I felt so lied to when I left high school, having been told my entire life that people eventually grow up…. And now I’m 40ish and they really don’t.

CazRaX ,

I fully agree with that.

library_napper ,
@library_napper@monyet.cc avatar

Fyi, this was only possible since Trump made it legal

CazRaX ,

OMG, I don't care about which boogyman you fear, it would have happened eventually regardless of color in the position. Money and power speaks much louder than political party.

RandoCalrandian ,
@RandoCalrandian@kbin.social avatar

What a load of shit.

Not only have they been doing this, blatantly, since the 2000’s (remember PRISM?), but even credit report agencies were originally setup in the 80’s to do exact this, and exploit this exact loophole for the government.

Did big scwary orange man bad do that, too?

library_napper ,
@library_napper@monyet.cc avatar

ISPs weren't selling it then. Now its part of their business model. That's an important difference.

RandoCalrandian ,
@RandoCalrandian@kbin.social avatar

ISP’s have been collecting and selling browser history since 2010 at least

Them was Obama years, iirc

AngryCommieKender ,

IIRC that shit started in the mid to late 90s, so under Billy Clinton

TheAnonymouseJoker ,

Domestic wiretapping was legal since 60s when NSA was established, and since 70s, US government has been illegally surveilling the world under numerous codename programs. People who think this is about orange man or Democrats are delusional.

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