# Big Data versus The Itinerant Crasshole....



## roguetrader (Nov 24, 2017)

well me people I been reading some pretty depressing books about the evils of Google / Facebook and big data in general - i'm referring to the huge amounts of online information that we all generate : this gets collated, aggregated and used in all kinds of ways that most people don't have a clue about.... targeted advertising may be irritating but its the way that data is shared with potential employers, law enforcement and vehicle insurance companies that really made me take notice... hows my frequent viewing of websites dedicated to drugs gonna look to these muthafuckers ? and all the other 'dodgy' websites i visit ?

so what i'm asking you technical minded STP members is what kind of strategy can we adopt to avoid leaving this trail of sensitive data every time we use the internet ? i'm aware of the TOR browser, TAILS amnesiac operating system, but is this really enough ?

I know this subject is not directly related to travelling but it certainly relates to the freedom that we all seem to cherish so much....

i'll leave you with a quote from Mark Zuckerberg - "privacy is not the new norm"


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## Matt Derrick (Nov 24, 2017)

zuckerburg is a fucking twit.
but to answer your question, i personally don't care about targeted advertising, i think that's the least of our worries, it's when the government starts combing data for potential 'terrorists' that you should start worrying.

honestly, TOR and Tails are waaaay overkill for most people. That's the stuff you use if you're actively being targeted by governments or some other super-powerful entity. Or if you're really paranoid.

You can eliminate about 95% of the tracking you're talking about by using a simple and amazing web browsing plugin called 'uBlock Origin'. In addition to blocking ads, it blocks tracking cookies, pixel trackers, etc. If you go into the settings there's all kinds of 3rd-party block lists for everything from to protecting privacy to blocking malware sites, and these lists are all actively maintained.

enjoy the internet like it was 1996, with almost no ads, and when one does slip by, you can easily create a filter for it by right clicking on it and adding it to your personal filter list. You can even use it to block simple annoyances that aren't quite ads, like the notification here on StP to new users about my book (although if you don't like that you can just dismiss it permanently by clicking the x, i'm just using it as an example).

anyways, hope that helps!


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## roguetrader (Nov 28, 2017)

thanks Matt - i'm gonna grab that plug in and give it a go.....


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