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Excited to unveil my little summer project - Fung with Data!
Through this video series, I hope to shine light on how data, algorithms and software are controlling and affecting many aspects of our lives.
The first episode addresses how Facebook is tracking your data, and what you can do if you want to avoid prying eyes.
If you want to see more episodes, make sure you like and share the video!
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I enjoyed the pun "Fung With Data"!
I'm not sure how effective making an account directly would be since when I create that account they typically ask for and require that I verify an email address. However, since it's the same email address I use with Facebook as well, reconnecting the data (provided someone is willing to sell it to Facebook) is pretty easy stuff I'd guess.
I did see at some point in time in my past travels an app which browsed the web all kinds of random places from your PC while you weren't using the computer. The idea was to drastically increase the noise in the data stream to mask what activity was real. Interesting idea, not sure how well it would work.
Posted by: Adam Schwartz | 08/16/2018 at 09:01 AM
AS: Thanks for the encouragement. Yes, not using FB Connect does not mean they cannot track you. However, I like to trust human laziness - if there are more steps and hoops to jump through, it might not get done. Also, I trust error propagation: more steps result in more errors even if each step has a low error rate.
The scheme you mentioned was debunked - it is a great idea but it is hard to execute well. I wrote about it here.
Posted by: Kaiser | 08/16/2018 at 06:05 PM
Ah well, yes, I suppose I should've done my homework. That's way too obvious of an approach. I'm surprised you couldn't make it a lot more plausible simply by doing some research on what real browsing habits look like from a large group of people and then randomizing from there.
I do like the ideas of error propagation and laziness. I think it'd be helpful in your video to outline why your proposal might be helpful in this manner.
Posted by: Adam Schwartz | 08/17/2018 at 10:27 AM