this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2023
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In the context of VPNs for example. Some VPNs store and provide information about what sites you go to third parties. Third parties analyze it and figure out what adds to show you. Hmm... then let them show me those adds they want to show me. I do hate adds as a whole and use an add blocker, thus. But I couldn't care less what particular type of adds they show me, they are still adds.

Someone knows what sites I go, what then. If someone curiously inquired me on this type of information I'd tell them without giving a second thought. Incomparably larger amount of data I put out just by making comments and posts.

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[โ€“] blargerer@kbin.social 31 points 1 year ago (6 children)

You are thinking way too small about what can be done with that amount of data on you. I'll give you an example. I once did some programming work for a website. The website got 'hacked' (An administrative admin had their password guessed because they weren't using good password habits). This website had poor security and with the admins password the 'hacker' was able to get a DB dump. Bad stuff. So me and another guy set out trying to identify who had done it. Via server logs we were pretty sure we had correctly tied the 'hacker' to a user of the site. By looking at their activity on the site, and what referral links they had followed to get to the site previous, we learned where they approximately lived and their first name. But we knew we needed more info than that, so we looked at his hobbies and figured out he liked pokemon quite a lot. We then created a 'what pokemon are you' quiz, asking mostly unimportant questions, but throwing in a couple we needed in order to be able to report him to his local authorities (IE their last name and some other info I can't remember off the top of my head). We then had this quiz get posted by an account not associated with the running of the site. the 'hacker' filled it out, and we reported him for breaking the law with our evidence to his local authorities.

So to reiterate, 2 idiots with no background in data science and like 16 hour between us, were able to manipulate an arbitrary guy into doing what we wanted because of a relatively small amount of data. Now Imagine what people dedicating their lives to this stuff can do to you.

[โ€“] Lowered_lifted@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

LMAO they really answered one of those password reset answer phishing ass quizzes? Lucky for you they were not sending their best.

[โ€“] blargerer@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Although they were the target, they were far from the only person to fill it out. Context can make people drop their guards. But yes, not some criminal mastermind. Of course, again, I'm some idiot programmer not a genius forensic computer detective.

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