alt Hacker NewsFor years, I've been practicing good privacy-hygiene in public. At my doctor's office, I always wear a Groucho Marx moustache to keep them guessing. Before I walk into my bank for a withdrawal, I team up with two of my friends, set them on my shoulders, and throw a trenchcoat over us! I made a fake ID with my birthday on July 4th and my weight as 98 pounds, but my pharmacy is now refusing to fill my prescriptions!
So what sort of benefits are you reaping from your anti-fingerprinting measures?
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> So what sort of benefits are you reaping from your anti-fingerprinting measures?
A better question would be how are you being screwed over if you never bother to try to stop companies from collecting as much data as they possibly can about your private life? It can cost you a job offer, or cause you to pay more than your neighbor for the same products/services. It can get your data leaked, or sold to scammers. Companies use the data they collect on you for things as trivial as deciding how long to you leave you on hold. The more data they have on you, the easier it becomes for them to use it against you.
Feel free to give companies every bit of personal data they want from you. They'll be thrilled to use that information at any time and in any way they think it will benefit them. Until we have laws against surveillance capitalism the only person looking out for your interests is you, but only if you can be bothered. It'll sure help companies take advantage of you if you decide it's not worth trying.
It’s really kind of pointless. They fingerprint you to target ads and that’s it. The valuable data that’s collected and sold can’t be hidden through fingerprint avoidance: anything you actually pay for. Sure there’s privacy cards, but the second you purchase a physical product you have to give up a delivery address and now they’ll just correlate all your disposable emails and privacy cards and whatever else.
Your only option is to never buy anything online and only pay cash.
Your wit mad my day even though we probably won't agree. I appreciate your humor.
> So what sort of benefits are you reaping from your anti-fingerprinting measures?
Mostly pride on knowing that I'm preventing companies from doing to me exactly what I wouldn't consent to if they asked me outright.
Sure its just for ads (mostly). Sure the chances of my data leak leading to a personalized cyber attack are slim (I don't actually believe this but you might). Sure, [niche scenario] [non-zero probability] might be prevented. Sure there is a meatspace equivalent to the cyberspace invasion of privacy.
I wouldn't consent to stalking in meatspace, for any reason, and conveniently to my knowledge no one is stalking me physically. I dont consent to stalking in cyber space either, for any reason, and I do know that companies do, and they make it an unending uphill battle to let them know and force them to not be blatantly disrespectful. So I will make it as hard as possible, within what I think is reasonable, to make it useless or difficult for them to stalk me online.
And yes, online things have affected my physical life, so these niche applications have occurred to me and my efforts have reduced the negative impacts, to a satisfactory level, and I will continue to kick against the pricks, because it works.