Gary Kovacs: Tracking the trackers

Slartybart · 02 Jun 2012

Ted is great - a university in a box.

Avi Rubin: All your devices can be hacked

Tim Berners-Lee: The year open data went worldwide

TVeblen · 02 Jun 2012

Slartybart said:

TED
Tracking the trackers

An interesting video. More interesting that 'Collusion" only shows you that people are tracking you, but does not allow you to do anything about it like the 'Do Not Track Plus' add on for Firefox.

boohbah · 02 Jun 2012

thanks for the vid, im now using ghostery

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/fir...ostery/?src=ss

Slartybart · 02 Jun 2012

That's one of the things I appreciate about TED - great lectures on just about any subject w/o promoting anything. I suppose there is some "soft" sell just by being the CEO of Mozilla - but it's still cool that they put together the map. If you ever really delve into cleaning cookies, aside from hitting the button, then you already knew how much tracking there was going on behind the scenes. I would get between 5 and 20 "ghost" cookies when going to one site.

I'm not too worried because besides the "Don't track me" option in FF and deleting history on exit, there's not a whole lot of repeat info about me. I've also opted out on, hmmmm what was that site to wholesale opt out? - I'll have to post an update with that. The trick with the opt-out is you need cookies.

I have tried to clean out only the stale bad cookies, but haven't been successful. cCleaner does the best with identifying and not cleaning cookies, but the browsers seem to delete all or nothing (cookies). I suppose that I could systematically build a safe set of cookies and then always use private browsing - but I'm too lazy and too forgetful (ooops, didn't mean to clean history.... again!)

I'll take a look at the add-ons you and Boo noted - thank... both of for bringing those to my attention:

TVeblen said:

..... More interesting that 'Collusion" only shows you that people are tracking you, but does not allow you to do anything about it like the 'Do Not Track Plus' add on for Firefox

boohbah said:

..... im now using ghostery

For anyone interested in the track mapping - the add-on can be found here - as TVeblen mentions, this only maps it for you, it doesn't prevent tracking.

seekermeister · 02 Jun 2012

TVeblen said:

Slartybart said:

TED
Tracking the trackers

An interesting video. More interesting that 'Collusion" only shows you that people are tracking you, but does not allow you to do anything about it like the 'Do Not Track Plus' add on for Firefox.

I don't know anything about the Firefox add on, but looking at the changelog for Opera, which deals with their DNT provision, it says:

Note that this will only work if the site actually honors the request. Few sites currently do, and the effect of DNT will have to be evaluated to see if it is a viable solution in the long run.

It seems obvious to me that trackers (at least in the USA) aren't going to honor DNT, so it makes me question the value of these types of add ons. Something stronger is needed.

TVeblen · 02 Jun 2012

Keep in mind there are two independent programs here:

The "Do Not Track" option in Mozilla Firefox (asking sites to be nice - agreed - ridiculous!)

And The "Do Not Track Plus" Add On for Firefox which (reportedly) actually blocks the trackers as they pop up.

seekermeister · 02 Jun 2012

Hmm, interesting! I wonder if it could be made to work in Opera?

TVeblen · 02 Jun 2012

It doesn't look like it.

Do Not Track Plus

It doesn't list Opera.

seekermeister · 02 Jun 2012

After thinking about it, I believe that Ghostery will perform this function. It is an extension specifically designed for Opera. I hadn't been using it, because it was causing problems on some websites that I regularly use, but looking at the changelog of the latest update, it may be okay, because it speaks of using dummy scripts on such sites, and I also found a way to disable the extension on particular websites.