| HN Mirror

Y	Hacker News new \| ask \| show \| jobs


	by mcphage 2 days ago
	> I do not see problems with fake ad clicks and have no sympathy for ad companies. Yeah, it's like—a cheap streaming stick AND it poisons the advertising well? I'm pretty happy with my Fire TV Stick, but they're really tempting me here.

2 comments

exe34 2 days ago

My pinenote runs the original spyware image - I don't have a problem with Winnie the Pooh reading along with me.

link

autoexec 2 days ago

> Yeah, it's like—a cheap streaming stick AND it poisons the advertising well?

Keep in mind that it's your IP and identity associated with those clicks and anything else criminals decide to do with your IP address. That means you're identity is being linked to things you may or not want to be known as being interested/involved in. The ads your TV stick clicks on can cause data brokers to include your name in lists of people who are heavily into drugs, have mental disorders, belong to certain religions or political parties, etc. All of that can come back to haunt you later.

Depending on what other activity your connection is used for as a proxy it can also get you in trouble with the police or with your ISP.

link

inigyou 1 day ago

So you're saying it's going to weaken the presumption that an IP can be easily tracked to an individual? Even better!

link

autoexec 1 day ago

No, your IP will be easily tracked to you as an individual. You'll just suffer the consequences of whatever your streaming stick does with your IP. If your stick clicks a bunch of ads for fast food your heath insurance bill goes up because their algorithm thinks you're a higher risk. If your streaming stick clicks a bunch of ads for high end luxury goods, online stores start charging you more than they charge your neighbor for the same items because their algorithms think you have money to burn. Your streaming stick clicks a bunch of ads for addiction recovery services, you don't get a call back for the next job you apply to because the HR department paid a data broker to run a background check looking for "red flags".

What you do on the internet has very real impacts on your life offline and it's going to happen more and more over time. AI will make it easier for companies to leverage the massive amounts of data avilable to them about you. Surveillance pricing is spreading. Consumer reputation services are spreading. Law enforcement is buying up data from data brokers. Extremists are using data brokers to decide who to target with violence.

Nobody cares if the data they have isn't 100% accurate. The data broker doesn't care. He gets paid either way. The companies buying your data don't care either. It's all a numbers game to them. They just have to be right enough times to justify the cost of the data.

link

inigyou 1 day ago

None of this is based on reality. Can you show any of this ever happened to anyone?

link

autoexec 1 day ago

This should get you started at least. Keep in mind that nobody is going to tell you that they charged you extra or didn't give you a job offer because of data collected from a data broker. No one is going to be transparent about how they use your data against you.

None of the data being collected about you ever goes away. It doesn't matter if the data comes from you. or your backdoored streaming stick, the more data they have associated with you, the more opportunists exist for you to be screwed over by it.

It's almost impossible for a person to know when or how their offline life is being influenced because of the dossiers containing their online activity, but it absolutely impacts the prices you pay, the policies businesses will tell you they have, the opportunities you are offered, and even how long companies leave you on hold when you call them on the phone.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/data-brokers-selling-personal-i...

https://web.archive.org/web/20191130221040/https://www.nytim...

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057/s41272-019-002...

https://www.mccarter.com/insights/ftc-surveillance-pricing-s...

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/07/17/6294415...

https://nypost.com/2022/12/20/how-employers-spy-on-your-sear...

https://www.cnbc.com/2014/04/16/data-mining-is-now-used-to-s...

https://www.wired.com/story/minnesota-lawmaker-shootings-peo...

https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-data-brokers-are-a-threa...

https://sites.sanford.duke.edu/techpolicy/wp-content/uploads...

https://epic.org/data-broker-helped-anti-abortion-group-targ...

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/nsa-purchases-americans-int...