The Filter Bubble

[iOWNme]

See if you can stomach this, because they are telling you something to your face. It is hidden in plain view. These young people are developing the worlds largest tracking system, meant to track every detail of the personal individuals existence.

What they call 'personalization' is the END OF YOUR PRIVACY.

THEY ARE WATCHING YOU.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8ofWFx525s

[k-os]

I was able to stomach it. It's stuff we know already. What was weird was at the very end he asked for "transparency" so that we could know the algorithms that make up the way we see things. Huh? It seemed contradictory to everything else in the speech. It was like for 8.5 minutes he talked about tracking every move, etc., then for .10 minute he wants to know how it's being done.

[joboo]

One thing is for sure, they are without a doubt going after the search engines.

Once enough of this becomes public knowledge, bye bye google, etc... Enter new unbiased search engine that becomes instant overnight success.

[k-os]

One thing is for sure, they are without a doubt going after the search engines.

Once enough of this becomes public knowledge, bye bye google, etc... Enter new unbiased search engine that becomes instant overnight success.


It was already planned before Google became Google. It was planned into Google initially. I participated in building a search engine in 1993, and I could watch, in real time, the search terms that were being entered, and find out plenty of things about that person searching from their IP address. It was a favorite office past time for us to read and yell out loud the weird things people were searching for. We were a small company, and memory was more expensive than gold back then, but we kept the search logs.

I have little hope for an independent search engine that is respectful of privacy. There are supposedly some out there already. How do you know it's not compromised? Because they said so? On top of that, where do they get the marketing budget to overtake the Google Goliath?

People do not care about privacy. That's not something most (if not all) of us here can understand on GSUS. Their general thought about the subject is "I am not doing anything illegal, so who cares?" I have had this discussion dozens of times, and that's why their needs for Facebook and Twitter are more important than their need for privacy. It's infuriating, but it's just how most people think. They don't think ahead.

Remember a few years back when Twitter announced that all of the tweets would be held at the Library of Congress? I mean . . . think about that! Nobody blinked, and everyone is still tweeting away all of their rancid inane thoughts of the moment, to be held forever, by the govt, and easily used against them in any manner deemed appropriate at the time.

Sorry about the rant. This is a hot topic for me. Also, I'd like to point out my own hypocrisy since I post here. I think it's important to point out my hypocrisy before someone else does. First! :)

[Santa]

I think it's important to point out my hypocrisy before someone else does. First! :)

Lol..... You are a delight, k-os. :)


We're evolving from a society that was the gatekeeper of technology
to an algorithmic technology that will be the gatekeeper of society.

The problem is we can't shoot those algorithmic zombies from our rooftops.

[k-os]

The problem is we can't shoot those algorithmic zombies from our rooftops.

OMG, that was a roar from me, heard by neighbors, I am sure. Thanks! I needed that!

[Horn]

Doesn't tossing my cookies fix this?

Or is Joogle one big bubble?

[joboo]

"An ad-free Google search proxy which prevents the searcher's data being stored by Google, a Firefox plugin, and tools for webmasters."

http://scroogle.org/

http://www.scroogle.org/cgi-bin/scraper.htm

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/scroogle-ssl-search/

http://www.scroogle.org/gifs/scrooge3.gif

I've posted all this below before, but it's worth repeating:

Firefox 3.6.23 (Sept 29, 2011 is the latest release)
http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all-older.html

Ref control: (control websites seeing where you came from)
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/refcontrol/

Other must have plugins: Better privacy, ghostery, adblock plus, noscript,

more:
http://www.vikitech.com/686/top-18-firefox-addons-for-better-privacy-and-avoiding-web-tracking

I'll use 3.6 until I am absolutely forced to uprade, main reason is Live Gold (PM spot price tracker) works flawlessly with it https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/live-gold/

[k-os]

"An ad-free Google search proxy which prevents the searcher's data being stored by Google, a Firefox plugin, and tools for webmasters."

http://scroogle.org/

Again, I have to ask, how do you know? Because they say so? Seriously?

[vacuum]

I view this progression that we are seeing as a natural mechanical progression. It's just what technology 'wants' to do.

Let me give you guys a disturbing example. So I work at a somewhat large company, large enough to have a small group charged with leading innovation in the company. One regular occurrence is that we get together informally about once a month and we usually watch one of these ted talks and talk about new ideas. Well, one time they had this little contest about coming up with new ideas, after watching "the internet of things" video I think.

Anyway, one of my coworker's had this idea about "googling" your life. His idea was to wear a camera that recorded everything you said or did, then you could search it when you wanted to know about something about yourself or previous actions. For example, you could ask where your car keys were if you lost them. He won first place in the contest I think. Personally, I thought that was the most effed up idea I'd ever heard in my life, but didn't say anything. What could I say? I thought about it and anything I said would fundamentally come down to principles which couldn't be argued with simple logic.

So there are people pushing this thinking forward, and they are just normal, robotic people. These people around me see it as the future and when they see these ted talks about what things will be like, the first question they ask is 'how can I make this happen?'

This is just a natural cycle in the development of complexity which we've seen from the beginning of history. And it will come to a head, I think this is what the apocalypse is about.

[solid]

Doesn't tossing my cookies fix this?

Or is Joogle one big bubble?

Tossing your cookies might be just for instant pleasure...but my question is, how do we collapse this bubble?

All these other bubbles popped, the IT one, the housing one, we should be due for a currency one as well...might as well let the internet bubble, burst.

[joboo]

Again, I have to ask, how do you know? Because they say so? Seriously?

Because it's easy enough to do, for sure someone is doing it, these are the guys doing it, google has tried to sue them, and Microsoft has banned them.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/08/msn_bans_scroogle/

[vacuum]

Tossing your cookies might be just for instant pleasure...but my question is, how do we collapse this bubble?
It would seem to me that if you allowed other people to perform searches routed through your computer, your personal searches would be embedded in the 'noise' of other's searches. And more importantly, any single search would be plausibly deniable by you.

One example would be you could run a tor exit node (though I'm not sure if I'd want that traffic). What would be cooler is if there was a ptp firefox addon or something that would automatically route your google searches through another random person who also was using the addon. Same for youtube searches or anything else. That way, if 100,000 people are using the addon, they their data mining just got a whole lot harder.

Such an addon would be open source, so you wouldn't have to rely on someone else like scroogle. It would be clear what its doing. You just search google like normal, your search goes through someone else's pc (or even your own, buried in the noise).

Note that it would also give you privacy from your isp - they don't know if its your traffic or someone else's traffic.

[solid]

Vacuum, mostly I think I'm just not that interesting of a person, for anyone to want to follow my online activities...

I'm learning differently. I keep thinking how could they track millions of folks, and why would they pay any attention to me?

[k-os]

One example would be you could run a tor exit node (though I'm not sure if I'd want that traffic). What would be cooler is if there was a ptp firefox addon or something that would automatically route your google searches through another random person who also was using the addon. Same for youtube searches or anything else. That way, if 100,000 people are using the addon, they their data mining just got a whole lot harder.

Such an addon would be open source, so you wouldn't have to rely on someone else like scroogle. It would be clear what its doing. You just search google like normal, your search goes through someone else's pc (or even your own, buried in the noise).

Note that it would also give you privacy from your isp - they don't know if its your traffic or someone else's traffic.

Brilliant! Why didn't you submit that as your idea at work? That would have won first prize! Seriously, build it! The more hoops, the better!

[joboo]

Another way to bypass the filter bubble and/or test it is to grab the latest Tor bundle

https://www.torproject.org/download/download.html.en

First download option is automatic, and portable so you can run a layered browser from a USB key. Second option installs the host suite with a firefox plugin. I first used this program 6 or 7? years ago, whenever it first came out. It's gotten a lot easier to use.

Right now I'm browsing from Denmark, so all my search requests come from that part of the world. I can reconnect, and use Iblocklist with peer block to block entire countries in order to control my traffic origins.

[Horn]

Well you guys are all way more savvy than, I think I'll just go toss my cookies.

I work on a shared wireless router anyways.

Thanks for the Scroogle thing.