Silly USA .. "click here to buy browsing history"

[Floris]

It's not cheap, and it's for the USA, but.. it affects the world of course, that's how this nonsense works.

For $1000 to $100,000 you can buy the history of people I guess, your ISP doesn't value you as a customer, and loves to make money. Selling your browsing data is something they've always been doing (whether you believe it or not) and now it's just more public, and some senators thought it was a great idea to write a bill etc. Blah blah..

But, don't worry. There are enough resources out there to help you enjoy the Internet still, before they completely screw it up for everybody. Just be mindful what you do and how you do things.

If you do wish to hide who you are, create a fake profile, fuzz the data, and use a VPN and manage your DNS, etc. But - think twice about it. Being stupid doesn't get you anywhere.

 

[Joan]

But oh look, you can go buy congresses!

https://www.gofundme.com/BuyCongressData

 

[Mikey]

But oh look, you can go buy congresses!

https://www.gofundme.com/BuyCongressData

500M goal. pff. never gonna reach it.

 

[Aussie]

I figured nothing is sacred, and there are a billion others communicating with the same means I do. Who on earth would care enough to purchase my browsing data? It would be a heap of bunnies and fandoms.

But having the police track me down from my IP for someone else reporting I was in danger (when I wasnt)- well I think I want a VPN pretty soon, but dont know much about them - I tried Express VPN and it blocked netflix.

 

[Floris]

500M goal. pff. never gonna reach it.

He will of course pay his "not gf" her yearly salary, and then declare bankruptcy, and marry her a year later to get it back

 

[iso]

For what it's worth, you can't actually buy "identifying" information. Instead you can only buy "anonymized" information. That sounds all nice and everything until you stumble across companies like Acxiom - who specialize in de-anonymizing this kind of data. I buy/sell "opt-in" consumer data on a regular basis, so I'm really interested to see what this does to the industry... I can't imagine it'll do anything except boost a few de-anonymizing companies...

 

[Floris]

The problem is that they don't know what they're talking about, and their idea of something being anonymous, means it's anonymous.

Just replacing the i in your username basically makes your username anonymized. However, in a police investigation they find 3 people on the site with *so* in their name that's no more than 3 letters, and only ending with so, that it matches the post on the board "iso" is worth a second look, and your IP address minus the first 3 characters would mean they can confirm the geo location of you. Yep, you were online, posting such msgs, under that ip range, on those dates. Must be you. Not the other iso. And anonymous data suddenly isn't anonymous. (just a poor, random, but valid example)

The things I've been able to do with anonymous data to find someone who scammed me, it is easy to profile, guess gender, assume location, education level, .. name it. Browsing history discloses a path, a habit, and goes beyond guessing a name. It lets you dramatically pinpoint.

I don't need to know the names of those in congress - just their data, to know they have kids in certain schools, knowing they are from congress I could assume their wealth. And their browsing timestamps will disclose to me they are still home at x hours, but not at y hours. Google and their website will provide me with the address of the school the kids go to, or their personal home. I am sure that anonymous data can help certain individuals who want to do whatever for a quick buck.