Posted on 08/03/2017 12:10:34 PM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
Researchers said it was "trivial" to identify users and view their browsing habits in purchased 'anonymous' browsing data... After receiving her free trial data, Eckert partnered with Andreas Dewes, a data scientist who runs the company 7 Scientists, to see if they could identify individual users within the massive dataset. At first glance, the browsing data doesn't look like much, just a bunch of URLs with timestamps... During their investigation, Eckert and Dewes managed to find a handful of politicians in the dataset. The web browsing habits of these public servants, such as the apparent kinky porn browsing habits of a Dutch judge, were laid bare for the researchers.
(Excerpt) Read more at motherboard.vice.com ...
The web browsing habits of these public servants, such as the apparent kinky porn browsing habits of a Dutch judge, were laid bare for the researchers.
Always use the local public library computers for surfing online porn. Duh! </sarc>
"I have this feeling that data brokers don't know what's in the data," Eckert said. "When I made these phone calls to inquire about buying data, they spoke as if they were selling stones or apples. These companies have lost their minds when it comes to data collection."
I was reading an article in my news feed on facebook about the internet being awash with free pr0n. I have to ask, though, since I don’t believe any of it is really “free”, there has to be some reason that stuff is free. And it can’t be good.
It could be something as innocuous as using the free images and videos to sell ads. Pay per click on the site like how bloggers get paid. Or it could be that they’re embedding bad stuff in the hopes that people will download it and they can data mine or do some kind of ransomware or something. I’m not terribly versed in what people are capable of through online methods, but I definitely don’t discount that lots of scummy people worldwide are taking advantage of regular users, often by criminal means.
Review.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.