Day 1: Using applymagicsauce.com
I decided to start the week off with something simple yet still informative. Before doing this project, I had never heard of the website, so it was pretty intriguing visiting for the first time. I linked my twitter and immediately got results back telling me a lot of information about myself, even though not all of it was correct. My age was off by about 5 years which I don’t hold much to because it is quite hard to tell the difference between someone in their early twenties versus late twenties. It was interesting to see my psychological gender was male as opposed to myself being female. It made me think what it analyzes to get that type of information. When I started to read the personality test it did for me, I was quite surprised how the application was able to tell all of those things just by the way I tweet, and many of them were right. Out of all of the results, I was most taken aback by the Meyers-Briggs test it does to your profile because out of all of the possibilities it guessed mine completely correct. Overall, this website really puts into perspective how much information someone can gather about you from just one social media profile online. It showed me how incredibly easy it is to create an online data double.
Day 2: Using Ad blockers
After listening to “Day 2: The Search For Your Identity” from The Privacy Paradox podcast, I went to Panopticlick.com and saw exactly what my browser was and wasn’t blocking. I was surprised that my browser was only blocking ads from tracking me and everything else was open and free. So, then I went and downloaded the Privacy Badger extension for google chrome. When I started using it, I was so surprised by how many ad trackers it had to completely block, and just how many there were constantly tracking me. It made me really think how long I had gone just letting these companies completely track me and how much information they have on me. Thankfully now, I don’t have to worry as much seeing that the adblocker is doing its job.
Day 3: Seeing and Changing My Privacy Settings
Being a frequent Apple user, I was aware of all the privacy setting you can change and have access to and a long time ago I limited these as much as I could. It was interesting to see how many apps wanted to use my location even if it seemed like they had no use for it. Some apps were even automatically set to always track your location which was also quite surprising. After looking at everything I still let some apps track my location but only the ones that are necessary and they can only track it while I’m using the app. The one new thing that I did find in my privacy settings were the option to see my “significant locations.” My phone had marked all the locations that I frequently visit and sure enough my parents’ house, my apartment, and even the building I visit most on campus was marked. I was also surprised to see it kept the location of my aunt’s house when I visited for a day during fall break. So much information is being gathered all the time and I’m not sure it’s beneficial to me in any way to keep this service on so I immediately turned it off after seeing it.
Day 4: Looking up Ad Settings on Social Media
Before the project, I wasn’t ever interested in checking exactly what my social media is tracking for ad purposes. When I went onto my Facebook, I was able to see the categories they sorted me into for ads. Thankfully, since I don’t use my Facebook all that often anymore, they didn’t have much information on me, as compared to other people. It was nice to see that for at least one day, my information was not as exposed as it could be.
Day 5: Going off the Grid
After listening to the Day 4 episode of the Privacy Paradox podcast, I tried out “Fifteen minutes of anonymity” except I tried to do it for an hour. Going into the challenge I was quite skeptical that I wouldn’t learn much since it was only an hour. I could not have been more wrong. As soon as I started the challenge, I was pretty bored. I really didn’t know what to do. I think that really says something to how much I rely on my phone for boredom. I decided to clean to at least have something to do. Even when I was cleaning, I kept getting distracted. My subconscious would keep going off with if I had gotten a text, an email, just something. It happened way more often than I thought it would. After about half an hour, the thoughts started to cease, and I was done cleaning. This meant that I had to find something else to do. I was going to do my homework, but all my textbooks were online, and so was most of my homework. I played with the cats for a little bit and then suddenly remembered this book I’ve been meaning to read for the longest time. I ended up going well over an hour while reading and while also not going to any technology. It was quite freeing to be able to survive without these things for so long. It really puts into perspective how much not only I rely on technology but also everything else, I mean who wouldn’t?
Day 6: Using an Encryption Tool
Much like the ad blocker I installed, the encryption add-on was interesting to use and look into. I downloaded Https Everywhere which is supposed to minimize the data on your computer that gets sent to various sources without being encrypted. This is quite useful and similar to blocking ads but instead of targeting ads, it targets everything, and instead of blocking it encrypts your data. As soon as I installed it and saw what services it was sending encrypted data to, I was reassured. Every website I went on was sending information to different companies, some I have heard of and some not. It was nice to see the list grow on websites and know that now I can have a little bit more peace of mind when browsing the internet.
Day 7: Taking the Exit Strategy Quiz and Reflection
I started the day off by taking the quiz located on Day 5 of the Privacy Paradox podcast. I was surprised to see I got a different result than the first time I took it. This time I was a “believer” which means I see privacy online for how it really is (or isn’t). I have lost a lot of trust in companies to keep the interests of the consumer first and keep information of data doubles open to such consumers. Most of the information I was able to access was not located somewhere accessible. I found myself trying to show other people the same information and forgetting exactly how I found it in the first place. Many times, I had to learn about myself through third parties or ad blockers and encrypters. This really just shows how companies are treating privacy and how the consumer usually doesn’t care enough to be concerned, which in my opinion will be a big problem for the future of technology.
Ashley Dowd
Koellner
LTGR 250
10 December 2018
Project Reflection
Privacy is something on the internet that is highly valued to the consumer but often not talked about by companies. I created a project to look into my privacy on the internet and what exactly companies are gathering from me. First, I must define counter-surveillance. In my own words, counter surveillance is getting access and looking at all the information being collected from me on the internet. My experiment included researching and using various forms of counter-surveillance for a week. These forms included websites, apps, browser add-ons, software, and settings. All of this was to try and create the best representation of my “data double,” or “a digital duplicate of our lives captured in data and spread across assemblages of information systems” (Jones). In the end, I would have a good picture of what my data double looks like, what my privacy is like online, and what steps I should take to limit the information given out unwillingly. Information becomes valuable to me when it’s something I wouldn’t give out to anyone myself in person. Such things include, bank, personal, and healthcare information for example. By taking back my digital identity, I hope to get some control of the information I’m giving out on the internet, both knowingly and unknowingly.
First, I’ll start off with the actions I took online with browser add-ons. I used two different types of add-ons with one targeting blocking ads and the other encrypting my data. I found these the most useful because of how often I go on the internet and use the browser that I do. I started out by using Panopticlick.eff.org which told me exactly what my browser was and wasn’t blocking concerning information being given to advertisers. The name of the website is a direct link to the Panopticon imagined by Jeremy Bentham but later interpreted by Michel Foucault. It is basically a play on the power relationships in a society, and I believe the website is referring to the advertisers and companies being the figurative central power on the internet and looking at the consumers without their knowledge. After seeing just how many websites and other sources both add-ons had to block or send encrypted data to, it made me feel as if I was unknowingly being watched. This made me feel as if my privacy was being invaded and I was just now finding out. As for the add-ons themselves, I found them useful and appreciated them. Both of them were non-invasive and I barely notice they’re there which I appreciate. Overall, the browser add-ons did what they’re supposed to and gives me access to information in an easy way.
The next category of counter-surveillance I focused on was privacy settings. The most useful information I found out about myself was how often my location is being tracked. It seems that in my iPhone’s privacy settings, some apps would default to always track my location which someone would not know about unless they accessed their settings and manually changed it. I was surprised how that showed how much some apps devalue the user’s privacy. Secondly, I was surprised by how inaccessible some settings and information is. It almost seemed as if my phone or social media does not want the user to find information they gather, yet they make it available to be “transparent.” It took me a long time to see important information about myself, for example, what Facebook gathers from my profile and uses such data to categorize me and give to advertisers. I had to click on at least five different categories and sub-categories in my settings, and this was after being told how to access it, since before I had no clue such a thing existed. After listening to the Privacy Paradox podcast, it was clear that the user has to deal with all these problems and “try to turn this creepy situation into a merely crappy one” (Privacy Paradox ep.2). Generally, it seems that using the internet leaves the average consumer with no way to completely limit their privacy, which I think says something about the way the power is balanced in terms of the company and the consumer on the internet today.
In conclusion, privacy is something that still needs to be addressed in big terms on the internet. There exist ways to take control of what is getting out, but an internet user cannot limit everything. If a person uses the internet, they have a data double without question. In terms of how other people dealt with this problem of privacy online, many of partners also installed add-ons for their browser, considering it is most likely the thing used most to access the internet. Another area of focus was social media in which a lot of people accessed their privacy settings and also found out just how much information is used to create a “data double.” Many of the outcomes of these experiments were similar to mine because of how much information you can find out about yourself. Something that I found differed between myself and other people was the level of being concerned about your information. Some of my partners used heavier means of protecting privacy and some people did less than what I did which I can assume that their level of concern was lower. In conclusion, privacy on the internet is a give and take situation, the user gives as much as they think will benefit them in the end.
Works Cited
Jones, Kyle M. L. “What Is a Data Double?” Data Doubles, 17 June 2018,
datadoubles.org/2018/05/01/what-is-a-data-double/.
Poyant, Jen, et al. “Day 2: The Search For Your Identity.” Note to Self, WNYC Studios, 7 Feb.
2017, www.wnycstudios.org/story/privacy-paradox-day-2-challenge.