[HN Gopher] Data-Free Disneyland
___________________________________________________________________
Data-Free Disneyland
Author : ohthehugemanate
Score : 117 points
Date : 2023-02-01 16:20 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.optoutproject.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.optoutproject.net)
| jwagenet wrote:
| I can't help but feel bad for the kids in this situation. I'm
| sure while they are young it could be fun to play spy, but at
| some point the extreme aversion to data collection just becomes a
| new flavor of paranoid helicopter parenting. The author even
| mentions these overprotective tendencies in the Public Books
| companion!
| petsfed wrote:
| Like, when does it stop being "we're playing spy" and becomes
| "daddy won't let me come over and play because he says your
| toaster told google about me". The face painting in particular
| (especially the OP's own admissions that its not clear how
| effective it is) feels like putting on tin-foil hats. If
| privacy concerns are _that_ great, then the OP has an
| obligation to explain to his /her kids why they can't go to
| Disneyland.
|
| There are sibling threads that provide some valuable context as
| to who might actually need this degree of paranoia. Without
| that context, this feels like a prequel to a story like this
| https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/05/06/my-
| childhood-i....
| autoexec wrote:
| > I can't help but feel bad for the kids in this situation.
|
| I feel worse for the kids whose parents don't care and have all
| their information collected before they're old enough to know
| better. They're handing children chromebooks and letting google
| collect their kid's test scores so they can sort children into
| 'smart' and 'dumb' buckets before they're out of primary
| school, letting youtube and tiktok babysit them the way
| previous generations did with television, making them carry
| cell phones at younger and younger ages etc.
|
| I think there's some solid middle ground there, but those kids
| will be much better off having been made aware of the issues
| and having their information at least somewhat protected.
| ojame wrote:
| Can you provide a source for Google 'bucketing' kids based on
| their test scores?
| matthewaveryusa wrote:
| I like the take on this, using a burner phone to blend in.
|
| At what point is the lack of signal the signal? If I were Disney
| and my tracking system showed you as not ozzing out radio or AI
| not ever labeling your stills as "person staring like a zombie on
| the phone" I would red-flag the hell out of you.
| LesZedCB wrote:
| what do you mean red flag? do they track and mark people as
| "whales" then market the hell out of them?
|
| i'm unfamiliar with the latest tech involved there.
| labrador wrote:
| Meanwhile his kids roll their eyes at Dad's obsession with data
| collection while they're just trying to enjoy the experience
| libraryatnight wrote:
| We went to Disneyland end of 2021 and it was unpleasant. The
| staff seemed stressed, there always seemed to be one or two
| people being assholes about their masking rules (they were
| outside off, inside on at that point), and the usual Disney level
| of attention to every detail was just not there. We chalked it up
| to pandemic stress, but also thought maybe new leadership was
| going in a bad - like some conveniences previously available on
| the app no longer available as they were about to transition to a
| version where those services would be paid for or made more
| expensive. Anyway, my following opinion is based on pre-pandemic
| Disney.
|
| Disney for me is a little like Apple in that you're handing
| yourself over to the corporate overlords and are reliant on their
| benevolence. These companies take some freedom in exchange for a
| clean and consistent experience. I don't like the surveillance
| state either, but going to Disneyland with two families was easy
| because of the app. We pre-booked rides, pre-ordered meals and
| snacks, kept up with where groups went if there was a ride split.
| It was easy to give kids some spending money we knew was only
| going to get spent in either of the parks they had access to. If
| you go further and pay for the hotels nearby they're even more
| connected. And it wasn't creepy, because it's why we went. It was
| what I paid for. That experience you're trying to opt out of is a
| core part of their product. It's why their movies are on repeat
| in houses all over. It's why people will hand their kids and
| their grandparents alike and ipad. There's an expectation around
| what these companies provide and a certain level of assumed
| safety.
|
| Now, in Disney's case, since we are paying for it, if we could
| just get some privacy guarantees when we surrender to their
| systems I'd love that. I'd even pay extra for it. I'm so ready
| for people to start selling me privacy tiers. I can pay to get
| rid of ads, lemme pay to not have my data sold or tracked. I'll
| vote and harass my reps accordingly, I'll use blockers and unique
| emails across services, I'll teach my family to do the same, and
| if I'm at a protest or driving someone to an abortion clinic sure
| let's talk burner phones and face paint - but I also just don't
| have it in me to miss out on experiences with friends or family
| because of my objections.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| I visited a few months after you did, the masking rules were
| gone at that point. Everything seemed pretty positive, other
| than the park just being absolutely crammed with people. I
| don't know how they'll be able to maintain quality long term
| until they can reduce the daily headcount, which means we'll
| all be stuck booking further into the future, but at least
| you'll be able to walk between rides in the evening.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Disgusting. A few year back we took the family to DL. I had read
| that they were going to take our pictures and I thought "not a
| chance" and prepared for a fight.
|
| But I knew deep down they had me over a barrel. Gonna turn around
| and say no to the family (after an hour drive and $$$ spent for
| parking) at the front steps of DL? Paying cash not practical
| anymore either, was almost $500 for tix!
|
| For whatever reason at the moment we arrived they were not
| prepared for pix and we walked in unscathed, and without apps.
| Just like the good 'ol days of... 2010?
|
| Looks like I'll never be going back.
| frietzkriesler2 wrote:
| I've long given up on keeping my data safe. What I mean is I try
| and restrict who has what data and provide junk when necessary
| but after awhile, there's only so much you can do.
|
| So I've done the opposite: I've made it impossible for them to
| use my data to target me. I block ads on all of my browsers, I
| regularly reset my advertising ID, and I hope that the amount of
| trash data I feed makes it even more useless.
|
| One day, I'll set up some sort of home server and use next cloud
| or something and finally move off of Google's garden.
| easton wrote:
| One minor note from a Disney nerd: Disney World no longer gives
| you the wristband (magicband) by default. You can buy one, but
| they want you to either use your phone or a RFID card they give
| you when you buy the ticket.
|
| The rumor is that they were never able to make effective use of
| the long range data collection beacons that used the bands.
| Alternatively (and more likely IMO), they realized that knowing
| how many people were in an area was a matter of measuring how
| many unique devices scanned for the Wi-Fi AP in that area, which
| would work even if you didn't have a band or the battery in the
| band died (the battery was necessary for the long range
| functionality, you could still get in the park via RFID no matter
| what).
|
| Since they never launched the bands at Disneyland, they probably
| were able to do a a/b test and confirm that they didn't get
| additional useful data from the bands (or that their data science
| team wasn't able to use the data to improve guest experience,
| anyway).
| jacquesm wrote:
| The best and simplest way to evade data capture at Disneyland is
| to avoid Disneyland.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I'm a privacy-focused person, but when we went to Disney World I
| kinda just accepted I was going to visit their sandbox and they
| were going to know everything I did while I was there. I don't
| want them tracking my behavior outside the park, but in the park,
| it's their territory, and there are countless strategies they can
| (and do) use to monitor it.
|
| I think if I wasn't going with a wife and kid, it would've been
| fun to try to avoid data collection as the author did, but if
| you're also staying on resort as we did, your magic band is your
| hotel key and stuff too, so it's really kinda a whole-hog thing.
| We didn't exit Disney's municipal boundaries the entire time we
| were there, so it's not like they could track us anywhere else.
|
| I guess I made my vacation to Disney World sort of a vacation
| from being a privacy advocate, and just went ahead and cried at
| the sight of my credit card statement when I got home. (Hot tip:
| The "character dinners" that your vacation planner will recommend
| are obscenely expensive, and they will definitely know you are a
| Midwesterner if you dare ask for a takeout container when you are
| leaving. It's really great when you spend like $60 a seat for one
| person who's not feeling well enough to eat that much, and a kid
| who's going to barely sample the food.)
| none_to_remain wrote:
| Wearing a fat suit and one of those Mission Impossible face masks
| to the grocery store so the cashiers and security cameras can't
| catch my true aspect
| fragmede wrote:
| Which sounds ridiculous to you and me, but if you're James
| 'Whitey' Bulger living in Santa Monica, that's not so crazy.
|
| https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/top-ten-fugitive-james-whit...
| rsync wrote:
| I think a lot about this subject and have a lot to say about
| this.
|
| Rather than nit-pick, I want to showcase this particular item:
|
| "I ended up going for the Disney lot, although they learned that
| they do have license plate readers. I was driving a rental car.
| Certainly, my name and driver's license are attached to that car,
| but that's through a different corporate database. A corporation
| that Disney does not own or have data rights to or share board
| members with ..."
|
| (and later)
|
| "Here I follow a different rule for obfuscation, which is to
| store data across corporate databases where the corporations have
| no prior relationship--or even an antagonistic one. I can be
| reasonably sure that, failing an acquisition, that data won't
| migrate."
|
| This is wrong thinking.
|
| Personal identifiers like phone number, license plate, address,
| etc., are commodities that are collected, digested and sold _by
| many different third party providers_.
|
| He's thinking about Disney somehow comparing their license plate
| reader data with Hertz or something through some unlikely
| corporate agreement.
|
| Far more likely is that _both_ Disney and Hertz employ a third
| party data intel provider that gives them enterprise wide
| coverage and query for these, and other, identifiers _while
| simultaneously_ acquiring the data to be made available _via API_
| to other "partners".
|
| A good example of this is Ekata and their reverse phone product
| which, until recently, was available via Twilio API lookup:
| /usr/local/bin/curl -s -X GET "https://lookups.twilio.com/v1/Phon
| eNumbers/$number?Type=carrier&Type=caller-
| name&AddOns=ekata_reverse_phone" -u $accountsid:$authtoken
|
| ... and would give you not only a reverse number lookup _but also
| a list of "associated persons" as well as your address and number
| history_.
|
| I feel assured that APIs like this exist for license plates,
| SSNs, IMEI, etc.
|
| I also strongly suspect that Disney and Hertz are _both
| contributors to, and consumers of_ these APIs.
| cyberlyra wrote:
| (Original author here). Yes I am aware of the identifiers that
| are sold through a third party data provider. Reading further,
| I also note that I decided not to care if Disneyland knows that
| I went, it was more about continuing to obfuscate my family, so
| I decided that was a risk I would accept. Of course, YMMV.
| lalos wrote:
| I've would be shocked to learn that Disney doesn't have the full
| path taken by each individual inside the park.
| euroderf wrote:
| So what's the chance that this set of countermeasures set off
| some red lights in the Disney master control room, and they put a
| tail on him/them for the rest of their visit ?
| its-summertime wrote:
| And by opting out manually using these methods, they've gone from
| lost-in-the-crowd to unique, including with a publicly findable
| name, since the whole writing-an-article on it.
|
| Unless you tell the other side, "hey don't track me", they can
| (and will!) legally use your aversion to tracking as another
| data-point!
|
| of course, spreading tracking-avoidance methods helps with this!
| (as long as we can all agree on which methods to use...)
| [deleted]
| birdman3131 wrote:
| I am pretty sure blogging about this removes 90% of the supposed
| tracking protections.
| advisedwang wrote:
| I suggest privacy advocates draw a distinction between
| _potential_ sources of tracking and _likely_ sources of tracking.
|
| Tracking by a credit card: 100% happening. If that's a problem
| for you you definitly should pay by cash or use a privacy
| preserving card like the author does.
|
| The app looking at history of WiFi hotspots to expose you: Pretty
| unlikely. Tethering to prevent "a record of a home wifi
| connection point" is really low value work.
| FearlessNebula wrote:
| Yeah and what are the odds Disney is correlating their license
| plate scanners with anything in the park? I'd assume the
| license plates only get looked at if a crime occurs
| advisedwang wrote:
| They actually list specific uses in a separate policy [1]
|
| > our use of the ALPR Data is limited to the following
| purposes:
|
| > * To enhance your experience while visiting such properties
| such as, for example, by assisting in locating a lost
| vehicle;
|
| > * To prevent unauthorized use of our facilities; and
|
| > * To detect, investigate and prevent activities that may
| violate our policies, be illegal, or otherwise impact the
| safety and security of our guests and/or third parties.
|
| [1] https://disneyland.disney.go.com/alpr/
| monksy wrote:
| It's also probably the same reasons the casinos are using
| them to.
|
| Verifying who is there, why they're there there, CYA for
| when they screw up, and probably looking for reasons to
| remove you.
| [deleted]
| croatiancoder wrote:
| [dead]
| salty_pretzel wrote:
| I admire the author's willingness to stick to their principles,
| but man it must be tiring.
| cyberlyra wrote:
| I'm the author of the original post. I'm happy to answer
| questions in thread.
| josefresco wrote:
| How annoyed was/is your family at your privacy antics?
| ezfe wrote:
| There's some mistakes in this, most notably that the app is not a
| requirement to go to Disneyland or Disney World.
|
| I've been to both and I can confidently say I could go without
| installing the Disney apps.
|
| Tickets: At Disney World you can get a physical RFID card and at
| Disneyland you get paper tickets to enter the park.
|
| Maps: You could download a map online, find a paper map, or just
| ask around!
|
| Wait times: https://thrill-data.com
| jjulius wrote:
| >There's some mistakes in this, most notably that the app is
| not a requirement to go to Disneyland or Disney World.
|
| As the piece notes, this is about the tech stack itself, not
| the actual experience at the park. In the companion piece[1]
| that is linked to at the very beginning of the article, it's
| clearly stated repeatedly that the app is not required, but
| that your experience may not be as "ideal" as you would like as
| a result.
|
| [1]https://www.publicbooks.org/data-free-disney/
| fragmede wrote:
| How do you access Disney Genie (nee FastPass) without an app?
| Do you just wait in line?
| davidcbc wrote:
| You can use the website directly or go to customer service at
| the park
| easton wrote:
| To my knowledge at Disney World there isn't a web client
| for Genie like there was for FastPass+, since it's all day
| of you're expected to do it in the park on your phone (I'd
| be happy to be proven wrong). Guest Services can probably
| still do it though, you're right.
| davidcbc wrote:
| You can book lightning lanes through the website (or at
| least you could last February). It's the most reliable
| way to get the ones that are very popular because the app
| is too slow, it's better to log in on a laptop from the
| hotel first thing in the morning.
| dom96 wrote:
| Shameless plug: I'm fighting back against Disney's data capture
| by capturing their data right back[0]
|
| 0 - https://mousetrack.co.uk
| tonetheman wrote:
| [dead]
| fragmede wrote:
| The cheapest method for defeating car licence plate recognition
| systems is just don't give them the plate to begin with. Just
| pull over and tape over the license plates right after you get
| off the freeway with two pieces of duct tape. Or remove the
| plates. Illegal, obviously, but weigh the chances of getting
| pulled over, vs those cameras in the Disneyland parking lot which
| don't take breaks. If you're white, and also not a drug dealer or
| a criminal on the lam, they'll just give you a ticket.
|
| If you're dedicated to the cause, here's a device available via
| Amazon Prime that will hide it on demand. Not sure how easy it
| would be to install on a rental car though, given that it needs
| power and you don't have a garage.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/license-plate-hider-gadget/s?k=licens...
|
| For more plausible deniability, there's the leaf-shaped license
| plate hider:
|
| https://crast.net/161243/they-warn-of-a-leaf-shaped-magnet-t...
| advisedwang wrote:
| Both this article and the non-tech companion article [1] skip
| over talking about why the author wants privacy. The failure to
| outline her objections makes the countermeasures seem untethered
| from any motivation; I think that is why so many comments here
| react negatively to the valuable anti-surveillance work she's
| doing here.
|
| This could be a issue by issue analysis. For example: "I don't
| want targeted ads -> prevent collecting targeting data -> use a
| privacy credit card". This is the easiest way to argue for
| privacy and can cover a lot of ground, however I worry it's too
| limited. This gives us the world of the "opt out" button which
| can fix a specific issue but somehow still leaves a really nasty
| taste about the surveillance world we are in.
|
| I'd love to see more writers make on-the-principle arguments for
| privacy. This author clearly has that depth of feeling so it's a
| real missed chance.
|
| [1] https://www.publicbooks.org/data-free-disney/
| cyberlyra wrote:
| Original author here. I'm also in favor of more writing about
| privacy motivation, even if editors don't always want that all
| in the text they publish. I'm writing more about it at The Opt
| Out Project in addition to other places: for instance, the
| famous Pregnancy Experiment, where I kept my data about my
| (unborn) children away from digital detection:
| https://time.com/83200/privacy-internet-big-data-opt-out/
| m463 wrote:
| I went to disneyland and didn't want them to take my picture.
|
| That was a pain, but they finally relented.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Seems they left out a huge point - they had a spouse/family
| amenable to this. My wife and her family don't give a shit about
| data collection. They have no imagination of how it could be used
| in the future, at which point it would be too late. Even the
| slightest inconvenience (like the marginally beneficial switching
| to DuckDuckGo, Private Browsing, turning off location, or broken
| links due to PiHole) are met with annoyed resistance. It's
| actually a struggle to get them to even lock the door when they
| leave the house...
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| I care about privacy and find switching to DuckDuckGo to be
| annoying! As the one also trying to take care of privacy
| concerns in my home, I try to go for the lowest-friction
| options: Adblockers, paid Google accounts which have history
| tracking turned off and aren't supposed to be monetized, trying
| to be Apple-product exclusive, keeping social media accounts
| private, etc. I'm not going to win any further compromises and
| am content with these good-enough solves.
| no-dr-onboard wrote:
| Fun-ish story (for me, at least): I worked with a fellow who was
| incredibly privacy conscious. Now, that means many things to many
| people. I've worked in academia where people had time to do
| things like dynamically tunnel connections to their home VPN
| concentrator only to be piped out through their handrolled
| nameserver. That was old hat compared to this gentleman. During
| one engagement, he and I were holding a seminar on location about
| secure coding practices. He insisted on using HDMI cables without
| ethernet connections, piped to his own projector of his choosing,
| and spent about 10 or so minutes finagling device drivers to get
| the projector to work with his librebooted OS. After that we
| spent 10 or so minutes trying to setup a cellspot router to
| extend his phone signal so that he could phone home to a
| concentrator setup like I mentioned earlier in order for him to
| pull the handout pdfs from his home server (also librebooted btw,
| thanks for asking). Every bathroom break, and there were only 2
| over 8h, he would disassemble his getup and take it with him into
| the stall of the bathroom.
|
| I don't know where this person is today, but I can only assume
| that the extent of his privacy consciousness has only continued
| to sink its roots deeper into his life. It struck me as a sort of
| paranoia that likely started off proper and good but grew
| malignant and degenerative over the years.
| fragmede wrote:
| OTOH if this person were Edward Snowden, that sounds more than
| reasonable!
| autoexec wrote:
| Needing to go to extremes to avoid having their lives ruined
| can be reasonable for a lot of people depending on where they
| are and the kind of oppression they live under. Someone might
| be a whistleblower like Snowden, or in the witness protection
| program, or a homosexual, or have an abusive ex or stalker,
| or be seeking an abortion, or be a protestor/freedom fighter,
| etc.
|
| All the data collection pushed on us, even if it's only for
| marketing, leaves a lot of people vulnerable.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Depending on his threat model that isn't overwhelmingly
| paranoid, that is fairly sensible.
| rippercushions wrote:
| Even the bit about taking the gear into the bathroom with
| him? The only threat model that thwarts is somebody
| physically tampering with it, which seems very paranoid to
| me.
| pixl97 wrote:
| > The only threat model that thwarts is somebody physically
| tampering with it,
|
| They way you state 'the only' seems to present a total
| misunderstanding of the fact that physical access is the
| number one easiest way to compromise just about any type of
| computing device that exists. If for example you went to
| any data center and attempted to get physical access
| without permission you would quickly find yourself accosted
| by armed personnel as to prevent the physical tampering
| you're talking about.
|
| In my work I must keep my laptop on my person, or otherwise
| locked up when I'm not using it to prevent physical access
| by others. This is in now way unique in the computer
| security industry.
| rippercushions wrote:
| You seem to have a total misunderstanding about the
| threats _this_ person faces.
|
| If your job is running seminars about IT security to
| random companies, taking the _projector_ with you to the
| bathroom is ridiculous and your clients will think you
| 're a tin foil hat weirdo to boot.
|
| Of course, if you're Snowden or Assange, your threat
| landscape is quite different and this would not be
| paranoid at all.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| For the vast majority of threat models, having someone
| you have a little bit of rapport with watch your locked
| computer is perfectly adequate. Realistically the bigger
| threat is someone stealing the laptop to sell, not as
| part of some targeted assault on your security.
|
| For that not to be adequate, your threat model needs to
| include field agents establishing a false sense of trust
| through some relationship, then leveraging that into an
| attack physical security. At some point you're getting
| really close to the "It's easier to
| bribe/blackmail/kidnap you" territory.
| pixl97 wrote:
| In some businesses the risk of being blackmailed is high,
| but it also comes at significant risk of the blackmailed
| working as a double agent. If the affected agent has no
| idea they've been compromised it is unlikely they will
| change their behaviors in any manner.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_maid_attack
|
| I mean in the case of desktop hardware, it's
| exceptionally easy to inline a USB key capture dongle.
| jacquesm wrote:
| You have a poor understanding of what kind of things are
| possible with hardware under your control for a couple of
| minutes, say the length of your average bathroom break.
|
| I once had to hand in my laptop to some busybeaver
| borderguard who wanted access to it (impossible: wiped
| clean Chromebook, only to be re-installed on destination),
| I told him that if he took it out my sight he might as well
| keep it because it would be useless to me.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I know two people this story could easily apply to and for both
| of them that's not at all paranoid. Both of them have had the
| resources of various nation states thrown at them on multiple
| occasions and they are both still walking the earth last I
| checked.
|
| To describe this as malignant would require you to be
| intimately familiar with everything they've been up to. There
| was a short period where I myself had very good reason to be
| that paranoid (and more, in fact) and it's not a memory I like
| to revisit much. Being paranoid is one thing but to actually
| know that you may be - for whatever reason - a legitimate
| target changes things considerably.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| What do you have to do for "nation state sending ground
| operatives to do hardware-level attacks against your
| security" becomes part of your threat model as an academic?
| nehal3m wrote:
| They could tell you, but they'd have to kill you?
| JohnFen wrote:
| Depending on the nation in question, it can be something as
| simple as posting a comment somewhere critical of the
| government.
| jareklupinski wrote:
| pretty much any mathematician researching novel
| cryptography
|
| maybe nuclear research
| gazpachotron wrote:
| [dead]
| aliqot wrote:
| risk profiles, like musical tastes, vary
| nfinished wrote:
| This must be what having schizophrenia is like
| FearlessNebula wrote:
| What the heck is Disney doing with location data inside the park?
| And why facial recognition? To fight crime?
| zucked wrote:
| On one end of the spectrum you have the people who don't give
| privacy any thought - they've downloaded and logged into every
| app under the sun and generally don't care that they're being
| surveilled. They mindlessly consume hours of curated TikTok
| videos and go about their day getting a barrage of targeted ads.
|
| And on the other end, you have... this. Buying burner phones and
| wearing facepaint to avoid facial recognition at a theme park.
| Imposing that on your _family_.
|
| As an academic exercise I guess it's interesting, but living this
| way must be truly exhausting. Me? I'll continue to be somewhere
| in the middle of these two polar opposites. I participate in
| society, but I don't willingly or knowingly give away more
| information than is required. I obscure or block what I can, but
| still sign up for and use accounts that can be tied back to me. I
| consider success as making it difficult to tie my data together -
| either such that I don't fit the majority pipelines and need
| extra attention, or I break hamfisted techniques altogether.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Just be an uber fan and wear a Goofy mask, and your family can
| wear other character masks.
|
| Security: "um sir? we have an unusual number of Goofies today.
| i think something is going on!"
| philsnow wrote:
| Adults aren't allowed to wear costumes in the park. You can
| wear clothing and accessories that strongly suggests a
| character[0], but no costumes.
|
| (I guess this is because they want to avoid "Goofy" or
| "Donald" spouting crazy talk.)
|
| [0] and this is apparently a big thing that enthusiasts do,
| on the level of cosplaying, see https://disneybound.co/ and
| search term is "disneybounding"
| oneoff786 wrote:
| I believe there is only one goofy at a time, ever.
| thewebcount wrote:
| > living this way must be truly exhausting
|
| Maybe, but so is constantly being bombarded with ads, offers,
| etc. when you're trying to do something else. And the tracking
| is mainly to power those things.
| DougN7 wrote:
| I very much doubt you get fewer ads - they're just less
| personalized.
| capableweb wrote:
| Which, in the second place, most ads fucking suck at
| "personalization" anyways.
| thewebcount wrote:
| Part of blocking tracking is just outright blocking ads, so
| yes, I definitely get fewer ads. Also, I'm able to see more
| content. My spouse often finds they can't access some
| random article (or not all of it) but it works fine for me
| with my extreme blocking.
| monksy wrote:
| > As an academic exercise I guess it's interesting, but living
| this way must be truly exhausting. Me?
|
| I agree with the gist what what you're saying. My concern
| involves the invasive data collection of biometrics [face data]
| and IDs. It's a concern over why is it needed, and why are they
| so forceful in collecting it.
|
| Face rec- The TSA and the airlines are trying to push this as
| if it's required. (There a lot of documents and internal
| communication showing it's not). Why do they need this, or are
| our IDs not secure enough? Was their existing process not
| enough?
|
| Porn- Lousiana is trying to push for auths via your id online.
|
| Other orgs are trying to get copies of your license. Is this
| important for their operation? Is it important for them to keep
| access to this info just for the "societal harm" that is
| claimed over content that is age restricted?
|
| Another piece why is my data being non-consentually gobbled up
| by the creeps over at Clearview AI? Why is the MSG
| entertainment group trying to look for a reason to ban me
| before I enter?
|
| All of this demonstrates a one sided demand for this data
| without having any usable benefit for the people that the
| consent is being taken from.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| You're missing another approach: use legal coercion to clean up
| your data trail.
|
| Disney is in California. You have a right to request your data
| be deleted. Pay a firm to send them a formal deletion request
| every 90 days.
| zucked wrote:
| I'm not a California resident so as far as I understand, that
| technique is not applicable in my use case.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| It's not as dead as you think it is.
| zucked wrote:
| If I read between the lines, you're suggesting that I
| abuse the system and request my data be deleted anyways?
| No thanks.
| rndgermandude wrote:
| Why would it be abuse if you just asked for the data to
| be deleted? As long as you do not misrepresent things and
| do so politely, of course.
|
| If Disney wants to spent time and money and reputation to
| figure out if they _legally_ need to delete the data they
| collected about you and only do so when that 's the case,
| then that's their choice. Same as it was their choice to
| collect data in the first place.
|
| If they instead want to be nice and consumer-orientated,
| as they like their public image to suggest, or at least
| save some bucks, then they will hit the delete button.
| They gotta have such button by now anyway for legal
| requests from Californians.
| Saturate7246 wrote:
| In all fairness, it's a stretch to call it "abuse": it's
| not uncommon for companies to preemptively extend a
| legally required service to those outside of the
| technically required jurisdiction due to the simplicity
| of not needing to account for who is where and if that's
| acceptable within their jurisdiction _at this time_
|
| It's also not unreasonable to expect that more
| jurisdictions may eventually follow suit, and so having
| to dedicate resources to ensure every request comes from
| an applicable jurisdiction that they legally are required
| to handle...
|
| ...might just be less preferable than fulfilling some
| "delete data" requests from less demanding areas.
|
| Besides, the idea that large corporations have free
| unaccountable reign to abuse systems of all sorts, while
| individuals should be quaking in their boots or snubbing
| their nose at the mere possibility of inconveniencing an
| hourly worker under faceless brands is a little over the
| top, IMO. It's just a request that can be denied.
| khazhoux wrote:
| Reminds me of RMS. Pulling at the extremes.
|
| (this is a compliment)
| triyambakam wrote:
| Regarding exhausting, here's a quote from a different blog post
| of theirs describing how to avoid surveillance in person
| purchases:
|
| > I once took about 20 minutes at a Target checkout trying to
| get enough cash from the till to buy Christmas gifts for my
| kids and nephews. Then there was the time I held a bunch of
| kids' books at the counter at Barnes and Noble and drove around
| for 15 minutes until I found an ATM open on a Sunday evening in
| NJ. Getting cash out before a kid-related purchase is basically
| second nature to me now.
| triyambakam wrote:
| I find it weird to even go to a theme park at all if this is
| their threat model.
| graphe wrote:
| I think it was excessive. He didn't need a burner phone, or
| worried about his car. He could have probably gone there, said
| I only have a flip phone or had paint to look like he was old
| and can't use a phone.
|
| Honestly this sounds like fun to impose on your family. We're
| going to hide from Disney tracking! We're getting a fancy Uber,
| everyone gets a radio, and we're painting our faces! Yes you
| can pain your arms too kids!
| altacc wrote:
| I'd add to your list: being aware of how this data is used and
| thinking before interacting with algorithmic content &
| advertising. Having worked in advertising during a younger &
| less jaded period of my life, knowing the aims and tactics they
| use helps reduce their effectiveness.
|
| Eliminating tracking for other, more nefarious uses, is very
| difficult and largely impractical against a motivated enough
| opponent. This is where we need governments to reign in
| corporate interests and human rights & privacy advocates to
| reign in the governments as much as possible, as they will
| happily increase surveillance as much as they can, in the name
| of security and a quite life.
| autoexec wrote:
| > Having worked in advertising during a younger & less jaded
| period of my life, knowing the aims and tactics they use
| helps reduce their effectiveness.
|
| It's best to be aware of what they're doing and how, but I'm
| not sure how much it helps protect us. I can't seem to find
| it now, but I'm pretty sure I've seen research saying that
| awareness doesn't offer much defense. Our brains are simply
| susceptible to certain attacks and like an optical illusion
| that can't be unseen even when you know what's wrong, we're
| still influenced to some degree by the kinds of manipulations
| commonly used by advertisers.
| ohthehugemanate wrote:
| yes it sounds amazingly hard. but then , opting out doesn't
| have to be an all or nothing. And it doesn't have to be all at
| once. Small steps are much better than no steps!
|
| this post (same author) talks about how to he strategic and
| selective about your opt outs. Not everyone has to be an
| extremist!
|
| https://www.optoutproject.net/the-secrets-to-my-success/
| cyberlyra wrote:
| (Original author here.) Yes, living this way is sometimes
| exhausting. I don't expect others to do what I do. I often go
| to extremes to reveal how complicated opting out actually is,
| in an effort to point the way to an alternative path that
| doesn't require all this surveillance. There's more about that
| here: https://www.optoutproject.net/about-the-opt-out-project/
| russdill wrote:
| Surveillance technology will only improve. Trying to live
| this way will become impossible. The only solution is
| regulation.
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| > As an academic exercise I guess it's interesting, but living
| this way must be truly exhausting.
|
| Especially because it's not sufficient against a motivated
| adversary. Disney wants the data, but they're not going to
| expend extra effort to catch the few people that slip through,
| it's not worth it to them. For example, Disney could be using
| gait recognition in addition to all the other stuff they do,
| and that could significantly help to tie together activities;
| But this is not economical to implement right now,
| beenBoutIT wrote:
| As an academic exercise it's interesting as a solo project or
| as an adventure with a fellow researcher. With the kids it's
| effectively spoiling their vacation while teaching them
| things they shouldn't have to know or understand for at least
| a few more years.
| ye-olde-sysrq wrote:
| > gait recognition
|
| Luckily the British have been preparing for this via decades
| of funding for the Ministry of Silly Walks
| zucked wrote:
| I could imagine that certain people would have a risk profile
| that might necessitate this kind of behavior -- but that kind
| of person wouldn't turn around and blog about it 1.) calling
| attention to it 2.) giving Disney more pieces to the puzzle
| if they were motivated enough to solve it.
|
| You're right - the average person doesn't need to have that
| kind of stance. Even if they were a real target, much higher
| value targets slip through the cracks _all the time_. We 're
| not nearly as good at data processing as we think (yet).
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Just wait, this is not the final stop at the train, by any
| means. Certainly D could afford it, price is not a problem.
| graphe wrote:
| Why is it exactly economical for China, but not Disney? They
| already have the video. They can do it at any time. They have
| night vision and lots of other tech so I doubt expenses will
| stop them.
| orangecat wrote:
| The Chinese government is particularly interested in
| identifying people who are trying to avoid being
| identified; Disney isn't.
| [deleted]
| babypuncher wrote:
| Disney is profit-motivated. Doubling the cost and
| complexity of your surveillance system to capture 5% more
| data _at best_ is probably not worth it.
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| China isn't interested in it being economical. They have
| different goals with their systems.
|
| Notice I also said that its not economical _right now_. In
| the future it may very well become that.
|
| I'm not aware of the actual state of b2b offerings for this
| kind of tech, but I'd imagine that when someone starts
| offering a reasonably priced turnkey solution for this sort
| of thing, Disney will start using it; Along with everyone
| else.
| splitstud wrote:
| [dead]
| pixl97 wrote:
| To rephrase this another way
|
| What is the potential economical cost of a dissenter? For
| Disney it's not likely much. For a government it could be
| loss of control.
| zdragnar wrote:
| I don't think Disney is really an adversary in this
| scenario (where an adversary is not purely economically
| transactional); the recognition is primarily geared towards
| (a) analyzing general patterns to optimize (b) selling you
| more things you would be interested in buying. Their
| motivation is entirely economical.
|
| These detection tools aren't perfect, and there is a
| diminishing return on getting that last few percent of
| people who slip through the cracks. At some point, it isn't
| worth the effort.
|
| China, on the other hand, is motivated by more than mere
| economics. It is also interested in analyzing general
| patterns- they are a partial-command society given the
| extensive centralized planning that goes into the economy
| and social behaviors. However, the people who attempt to go
| unseen are precisely the most important people to observe-
| the bad actors, the malcontents, those most likely to cause
| trouble (Luan ) to an otherwise harmonized society.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > Their motivation is entirely economical.
|
| That doesn't mean it's not adversarial.
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| Viewing everyone trying to sell you things, particularly
| the ones who you are actively seeing out to buy
| entertainment from, as adversaries is a pretty self-
| defeating approach.
| nehal3m wrote:
| Setting up a surveillance system to part you from your
| money sounds adversarial to me in the combative sense.
| That said, adversarial doesn't necessarily imply
| hostility, does it?
| autoexec wrote:
| Companies Wanting to sell people things isn't the
| problem. Using the most mundane details of our life to
| manipulate us, and to extract as much money from us as
| possible is a problem. So is failing to secure that data.
|
| https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/disney-responds-to-
| all...
|
| https://finance.yahoo.com/video/disney-responds-data-
| breach-...
|
| https://chipandco.com/the-walt-disney-world-dolphin-
| hotel-wa...
| oarsinsync wrote:
| What do you consider a smart TV vendor who advertises to
| you on your own TV?
| graphe wrote:
| There isn't an opt out for things like facial tracking,
| and it doesn't bring benefit unless your goal is to be
| sold things based on being calculated. If they had a way
| to automatically track you for your benefit like
| emotional distress, lost kids, etc it is not adversarial.
| My goal is to not be sold things I don't need or to add
| to their data, so I don't go to Disneyland.
|
| Is there any benefit to the end user if they're not
| interested in being sold to? If I don't get one is
| adversarial and they are my enemy.
| JohnFen wrote:
| You're right. But I'm not doing that. I view the data
| collection and the use the data is put to as adversarial,
| not necessarily the efforts to sell me things.
|
| Although that can be very adversarial, too, depending on
| how the sales effort is conducted.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > but living this way must be truly exhausting.
|
| Indeed. I care a lot about this stuff, but my solution isn't to
| go to extremes to evade it. I just avoid it. For instance,
| there's zero chance I'd set foot on a Disney property,
| specifically because of these issues.
| brmgb wrote:
| > I care a lot about this stuff
|
| Honest question, why?
|
| I am generally favourable to limiting the tracking we allow
| companies to perform at the legislative level because I'm
| pretty sure they are going to end up doing something
| nefarious to some group at some point going after a quick
| buck. I don't think the government should hold more than
| necessary because I fear what they can find in the aggregate.
|
| But on a personnal level? What do you gain from going to
| extreme to avoid the surveillance you think you know? It
| seems to be a hassle with no upside.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Yes, and much less exhausting than a day at a theme park. But
| I'm sad for the kids, who don't deserve this surveillance or
| else.
| beenBoutIT wrote:
| Intelligent systems look for outliers and evaders as
| potential threats. This guy going so far out of his way to
| evade detection most likely got him flagged and monitored to
| an extra degree.
|
| What kind of meaningful data is Disney going to gather on
| people based on their limited range of actions within the
| theme park context? This dad drinks Coke and never drinks
| Pepsi, dislikes the tea-cup ride...
| winterqt wrote:
| > Unlike an iPhone, my phone doesn't learn much about who is
| tethering to it, nor does it relay to the access point what is
| going on or who is accessing it.
|
| Anyone know what they're referencing here?
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