TRACKING – If you have a smartphone, look at this and gimme some info?
ATT Skeksi
VERIZON AND ATT ARE TRACKING SOME PHONES by inserting a piece of code into EVERY web request your phone makes. And the places you GO can track it, TOO.
(CLICK ON THE LINKS, THEY’RE REALLY INFORMATIVE!)
First, a terminology correction….this thing isn’t an “advertising header” (ATT), it’s a “Unique Identifier Header” (Verizon), in the sense that it’s tracking everything you do on the web, and providing that info to ANYONE able to capture the header (everyone), and allowing those sites to gather that data in one place and get a VERY clear view of you and what you do with your phone on the web.
After reading a great article about this that really kinda shocked me, I went to this site to see if I was one of the Lucky People That Get that Crappy ID TAG.
(Quick plug for an app that I use to aggregate news stories I’m interested in called “Zite“, this thing is the bomb for finding news I care about and I recommend it highly, tho it appears to cause SOME memory leaks on my phone according to an Apple Genius who plugged some little doo-dad into my phone at the store that told him all kinda cool stuff about my phone, and presumably me, since he didn’t want me to look over his shoulder and would NOT send me the report about MY phone, which I found really interesting, but that’s a whole other deal.)
I am being tracked, shocker.
However……
When I sent that link around to a bunch of people, I got back word that some of them were NOT being tracked –
what he said
THAT got me wondering why.
Why NOT track some people and track others?
Hmmm….well, one thing might be our political views and how vociferous about them we are. I’m extremely motivated and aggressive about my political views (drrrr), the other fellow not so much….so would that play into it?
And honestly, I don’t know. But one could easily imagine that in this time of technology and NSA spying and corporate governmental takeover and erosion of free speech via erasing of privacy, that such a thing would be a trivial decision to make by those whose interests lie NOT with the public interest, but with their very very extremely rich overlords, in order to find yet one more way to track/commodify/ensnare/intimidate/control/restrain us/me/you/everyone/anyone.
One thing I know, this is NOT OK with me, and I want it to stop ASAP. So I’m gonna get in touch with ATT and let them know I’ll be moving to another provider if that thing isn’t turned off and I mean NOW.
I’ll let you know how that goes….
(Another BTW, just TRY reaching out to ATT if you’re on their GoPhone plan, and not a month to month contract plan. You’ll immediately understand that they REALLY don’t like you not allowing them to rape you for every nickel and dime they can, if you DON’T know what I mean, click that link to find out how hard you’re getting screwed, it’s a doozy that most people still don’t seem to know. Here’s another.)
So I think it’s going to be very tough to even get someone on the phone about this issue, much more so to get it changed.
Another related note….ATT wants you to think that this thing is about identifying and quantifying you and your preferences for their advertisers, (which, if truly their ONLY motivation, is still WAY NOT OK with me. I’m not the least bit interested in subsidizing them making money off of me by PAYING to be followed around everywhere I go just so someone can SELL me shit I don’t want/need!! Are you fucking kidding me?!?!)
“Take advertising, for example. The whole basis of that industry is to mislead and manipulate, to create desire where none existed before. The concept of a rational consumer may have made sense a hundred years ago, but it was posited before the advent of two essential advertising tools — mass media communications and public relations psychology.”
My last point being, if they plan on using my habits/needs/wants/interests/friends/family/sexual stuff/etc etc, then they can PAY ME FOR THAT, and TELL ME THEY’RE DOING IT!! Maybe we’ll make a deal, much like Google does; you give me a free phone that you can make money off of me with by selling my very specific info, or YOU DON’T SELL OR TRACK ANYTHING ABOUT ME, and I’ll pay for the phone.
THAT seems fair, and would allow everyone their own choice in the matter.
But I digress, usually, and often…
Something else to mention here, and that is that ATT is ALLOWING you to “opt-out” of this tracking.
Well…….kinda…
As you can see, that’s a complete farce.
But this another kind of tracking, that’s what I’m talking about.
ATT has something they call ATT AdWorks Relevant Advertising, which is what they say this bit they stick into your http requests is for, and you can *allegedly* opt out of that, so let’s look at that…
ATT’s NON OptOut
As you see, it appears that this is a way to OptOut of their tracking you on sites….BUT…bullet points #2 and #3 make it clear that’s not the case, and that it will NOT get rid of the code they insert into your http requests, #2 because all it’s saying is that you’ll still be getting ads from them, they just won’t be designed to fit you based on the profile they will develop of you, (and NOT delete, I’d bet a finger on it), and #3 because they’re making it clear that whatever deal you make with ATT will NOT be honored by anyone else, so the implication is that the info will still be there in the header, and that the info will still be gathered by others, and further that ATT might not be using THEIR profile to send you tailored ads, but I’ll bet they’ll happily use OTHER company’s profile of you….to send you tailored ads….
ATT NON Opt Out
Net effect, you still get tracked all over Kingdom Come by everyone, but you feel like you aren’t being tracked because you “opted out”.
Nice.
And yes, a lot of people are that stupid or busy that they won’t pay attention.
So, you’re likely being tracked, in new ways that you haven’t been told about and likely wouldn’t allow if you were, and you can’t do a thing about it, unless you do.
Go to this site and find out if you have the tracker, then please let me know if you do or don’t will you? I have a feeling there’s more to this bit of code than just advertising, whatcha think?
UPDATE 5:15 pm 10/29 – It appears that opting out has worked for me at least, there is now nothing in my UID field at the testing site. YIPPEE!!
I keep saying it, but it’s gonna keep getting worse.
http://www.nbc12.com/clip/10348592/second-family-says-petersburg-police-went-too-far
If we create a situation where cops are not properly screened and trained, where we allow this kind of violence to go unpunished, where we stand to the side when it’s applied to others and not to ourselves, where we allow a military (warfare) culture to infest our local police forces, we will create a situation that is by it’s very nature adversarial, and the cops will continue viewing segments of the population as the enemy and act accordingly, within the culture of *WARFARE*, NOT of policing local communities.
War is very different from police work, yet the militarization of our local police forces has blurred that line till there is almost no visible distinction detectable between them to the outside observer. Certainly the behavior of the police is reminiscent of an occupying force, not a local police department focused on applying the law to create peace and safety in a community.
These examples grow daily, and for a large group of people in many parts of our country are an obvious and de facto truth of their daily lives.
Here’s my question: if left unchecked, do you think this will continue to grow and spread, and if so, why do you think it won’t eventually make it’s way to you?
Because you’re white? Because you’re educated? Because you’re rich?
Only the last one might help you, but you better be REALLY rich, otherwise the history of these kind of progressions in societies is NOT on your side. And unless you’re REALLY rich, you’ve probably noticed your money is being siphoned away, and no matter what you do, it seems like you can’t get back to where you once were in life….
Tho if we let this continue , it seems kinda obvious where you will GO….
Read this for more info!
Rick Ledgett on TED
So I’ll first note that I’ve literally NEVER had so much trouble getting through a TED talk due to technical difficulties, NEVER. It crashed my entire roku device 4 times, each which required a hard restart. Just saying…. And in between those events was a constant rebuffering and lack of signal.
Coincidence…..? Sure, why not.
Having taken due note of that, I now feel like I need a shower after the ocean of self-righteous and indignant bullshit I just had vomited on me out of my TV, that guy is a true scumbag.
To say that I find his statements WILDLY at variance with obvious facts, as well as self-serving and contemptuously patronizing in the extreme, is to say that I would have an issue with being thrown out of a plane without a parachute, it’s not even worth talking any more about.
These people call themselves Americans, unreal.
Forced iPhone hardware upgrade…?
(If you don’t know about the context of this post, go here for some background – note that Apple has NOT released an update to iOS 6 to close this hole, which is a glaring and interesting omission )
So this last update to Apple’s iOS was ONLY for iOS 7, and they have not put one out for iOS 6, tho presumably the one or 2 lines of code would be simple and easy enough to put into iOS 6.
So why not do that?
And why was that gaping hole left there in the first place….? It’s kinda super obvious and any cursory exam of the iOS before sending it out should have caught it… but Apple didn’t catch it…was it FOR the NSA to snoop with? As in Apple says basically, “you (NSA) pay us to put this hole in, and we’ll just wait till someone finds it and then we’ll jump to fix and everyone will think we’re really on the ball… etc….and we look good and you get your software hole in our phones….”.
Yeh, probably no, but could be I guess, clearly these companies aren’t looking out for US the consumer.
Bruce Schneier has some questions as well. (tech security expert)
But I don’t think so….I think it might MORE go like this – *IF* they did it on purpose, what about the idea of putting into the iOS a very big security hole, and then when it’s found, put out a patch for ONLY iOS 7, and NOT for iOS 6, SPECIFICALLY because iOS 6 is working GREAT on older iPhones, in particular the 4 and the 4s. iOS 7 runs pretty poorly on the 4s, and downright shitty on the 4 as it is, but in truth there’s really no overwhelmingly crucial reason to upgrade to iOS 7 on these phones, they work well on iOS 6 and and unless you need the better camera etc on a 5, there’s really no compelling reason to go to either iOS 7, OR the iphone 5 hardware, your phone is pretty good and gets the job done.
Until NOW.
This security hole and lack of a patch for iOS 6 FORCES the owners of the 4 and the 4s to either accept the shitty performance of the iOS 7 on 4.x phones, or keep their phone and iOS 6 with a giant hole in it, or to do what I think might be the REAL point here, upgrade to a new iphone 5.x.
Then it’s simply selling hardware.
By now you’ve figured out that’s what I think is happening.
“I am having the same problem – to the point of it taking up to 30 seconds for my phone to unlock after the code is entered. Have an appointment at the Genius Bar this afternoon to see if they can help. Have to wonder if it is Apple’s way of pushing the new phones. Would love to go back to previous IOS! Apple support fix worked for 24 hours, then phone is back to lagging.”
I’m just pointing out something that seems obvious but I haven’t heard anyone mention, and it seems worth talking about. In fact, it’s really fricking weird no one is talking about it.
