Don Y wrote:
On 10/18/2015 6:16 AM, Roger Blake wrote:
On 2015-10-18, Don Y wrote:
This is the key point: ---------------------^^^^^^^^^^
How far do you go in screwing up your lifestyle just for the
sake of *claiming* you've protected your privacy?

What you do consider "screwing up" ones' lifestyle? I pay cash for
all local purchases and rarely buy anything online.

Ever rent a car? Fly on an airplane? Then, you've used a credit card
(and your travels are now, literally, trackable). I was "forced" to
get (several) credit cards in my teen years as I was traveling
extensively for work; impossible to carry that much cash around the
country *or* rent a car with it!

Buy real estate? Purchase a "big ticket item" (e.g., car, expensive piece
of test equipment)? (Sub)contract a job (have your house painted, a major
auto repair, hospital bill)? Then, chances are, you used a charge card or
wrote a check.

Have a prescription filled? I.e., for most meds, it's a simple step
backwards to deduce *why* you're having the Rx filled! The more meds,
the easier the conclusions drawn.

I use settings and
install extensions on web browsers that help prevent tracking.

And, like me, are *more* trackable as a result! Several sites on
the web to check this but here's the first two that popped up:
https://panopticlick.eff.org
https://amiunique.org

The first link claims (for me):
"Within our dataset of several million visitors, only one in
2,987,527 browsers have the same fingerprint as yours"
but, only does so when I enable Jscript.

In the second web site my browser reported as "2 out of 103512"
with Jscript DISabled. I.e., the other site *could* conceivably
have included these similar tests (but didn't?).

And neither tried to take into account my IP address! I.e., any
"other" browsers that were indistinguishable from mine PROBABLY
were *not* within 100 miles of here!

[Ideally, you want to find the site that has had the greatest number
of *unique* visitors]

We already know you use Linux for USENET access -- with slrn v0.9.9p1.
And, that you post through Eternal September with account
"U2FsdGVkX1+baz31s5YbQ3GRKudpY5+z3TIqssyP5v0=" from a host that
can be uniquely identified as "0db17d4457d3cd163162e46470f0c6bf".

I used to routinely mangle the identification strings in my browser,
mail client, DNS service, etc. thinking "that way, no one will know
which versions of these products I'm running"! Of course, that
just made my network presence *incredibly* unique!

I don't use Microsoft, Apple, or Google products.

Anyone send you email? Do you *use* a telephone? Send/receive snail mail?
Each of these people/organizations further refines your profile because,
chances are, *they* have had profiles developed regarding their
behaviors. E.g., the "metadata" tells folks much about you even if the
actual "content" is never examined.

E.g., if they tend to spend a lot on alcoholic beverages, then its
likely that *you* probably also do -- just not with "trackable
currency". And, the fact that you *don't* use those mechanisms
further identifies you ("Ah, he's one of these guys who TRIES
to stay off the radar... I wonder what HE is hiding??")

Have a CATV subscription? (If you *don't*, then the value of
HaveCATVSubscription for *your entry* in the tracking database
is just '0' instead of '1' -- but it doesn't remove you from that
database!)

Have an ISP? Are you *sure* they haven't been served with a warrant
to disclose your email, IP traffic, etc. and ORDERED not to disclose
said warrant to you (or anyone else)? Even *when* you use the network
reveals something about you (owl/lark). The sites you visit even
moreso!

I had an associate who would send his finished designs to his clients
in encrypted "envelopes". And, they always seemed to take days to
arrive -- instead of *minutes*. Does the Internet have a "warehouse"
where packets *sit* during transit (like the Post Office warehouses
snail mail)? grin

To me none of this is "screwing up" my lifestyle. They don't even require
a lot of effort. (In particular buying everything with cash is just a
continuation of what I've always done. Using a credit or debit card for
everything would be the strange, screwed up thing to me.)

Ever go into a bank? Casino? Walk by a CCTV camera? Each of them
are loaded with CCTV cameras that *used* to just want to "gather
evidence" -- in the event of a crime. Now, the video is harvested.
("The guy at teller window #3 always makes CASH withdrawals" And,
no HUMAN needs to make that observation! A machine can watch what
the teller's machine is doing and correlate that with your image
on the video feed. And, associate this with a *name* on the
payroll check, etc. that you are providing or bank account number
from which the funds are being withdrawn. Or, don't you have a bank
account?)

Drive a car down a road? I.e., your license plate has probably been
routinely photographed and sits in a database, somewhere, indicating
when and where it was photographed, direction of travel, etc.

If you're deliberately avoiding all of these "tracking/profiling
opportunities", I suspect your lifestyle has *significantly* been
compromised to make that happenn

Simply put they know more about me than I know about myself, LOL!