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Researchers say they can spy on your browsing by measuring SSD activity through a browser API (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 16 points 5 months ago* (5 children)

I studied data mining (now machine learning) and statistics.

I’ve spent my career explicitly NOT plying my knowledge this way. I don’t know how people do it.

I’d say my deep knowledge on how to track people has made me pretty averse to a lot of online things.

You know you can build marketing attribution systems and advertising metrics without violating user privacy.

But advertisers really like the idea of invading privacy and they pay out the nose for it.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    Good on you. Few are willing to take the overgrown path. And, funny how people who work with the subject matter often avoid it- the cybersecurity guy who doesn't own a computer, the guy who services food processing equipment who refuses to buy premade food, the guy who works/ed for the DoD who doesn't own a phone, etc.

    Would you mind sharing some of the online things you're averse to, besides all that is implied by being on the Fediverse? I'm still new to this stuff.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Just things that can be correlated. Time, device, network, accounts, and apps all correlate. Precise location, device sensors, etc also correlate.

    You have to decide what you want security or privacy against, then you have to be mindful always.

    Every internet connection is a fingerprint.

    E.g. The second you use that device on an VPN all your apps phoning home, checking notifications, logging events, etc. collapse your profile and deanonymize your anonymous activity.

    So I actually use a dedicated device for anything I want a VPN on.

    Opsec almost requires that you need a public device for your regular use, and a secondary device with limited scope, third party OS for higher privacy for anything you actually don’t want to share.

    It’s safer to tunnel specific whitelisted connections through a VPN than whole device VPN for that reason (the less traffic goes to VPN the better). iOS VPN doesn’t work for that reason.

    If you want VPN security, the best way is to run a container with only VPN networking, then a second container with the service you want protected and route all networking through the VPN container.

    Also, say no to Chrome based apps looking for devices on your network. That uniquely fingerprints you across tons of surfaces.

    They say it’s for chrome cast or something but it’s too much info to share.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago

    That's really great, thank you. I've got a working knowledge of applying opsec and related principles, but my understanding quickly drops off when we get into the why. That's super helpful.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    I work IT adjacent in physical security systems (cameras, access control, intrusion systems etc.). Everyone looks confused when they ask what I have at home or what they should install and I tell them fuck all of this surveillance state/must know every time someone thinks about my house bullshit. I push back on a lot of corporate garbage as well and I'm lucky enough to work off a company that listens and balances security with privacy when I steer us that way.

    I think this is pretty common in tech fields.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    I've got the same thing. I had someone ask me what I do for backups and they thought I was joking when I told them I have a good printer. They couldn't get their head around the idea that I don't even have a home network to attach a NAS to, and thought I was just being condescending. I had a similar conversation when asked how to secure an Alexa.

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