The data broker industry must be destroyed: https://www.theverge.com/news/897145/kash-patel-ron-wyden-fbi-location-data-no-warrant

[garyseven@mastodon.social]

@miclgael @alice @evacide Same! I would love to know, even a handful of steps.

[miclgael@hachyderm.io]

@garyseven @alice @evacide

i know alice has some cool repos with tools for this - is that enough?

edit: see utm_defiler, paraminator

https://codeberg.org/alicewatson

[alice@lgbtqia.space]

@miclgael anywhere. The goal is to make corporate data less profitable.

Even stuff as simple as setting your birthdate to 1970-01-01 everywhere, adding [TEST] or [DELETED] as your name or account notes anywhere you don't need them to know your name.

Using plugins like AdNauseam to poison ad trackers (and cost them marketing dollars).

Using VPNs set to different locations.

Signing into data broker sites to "correct" outdated info (they'll often let you do that with little-to-no proof of identity, but will require your passport or state ID in order to delete your info). Bonus points if you correct it to someone else's info on their site that's similar to yours.

Only fill in required fields when you sign up for anything, but only provide correct info if it matters for you to use the service, otherwise provide plausible, but incorrect, data.

If you use LLMs anywhere, use the free tier and always vote thumbs up for bad answers and down for good ones. It wastes their resources and drives up their costs while making their training data worse.

@evacide

[alice@lgbtqia.space]

@miclgael that was a proof of concept, and needs a lot of work. I'd love to see AdNauseam or uBlock Origin pick the idea up and roll it into their plugins.

@garyseven @evacide

[alice@lgbtqia.space]

@garyseven https://lgbtqia.space/@alice/116260090256181750 @miclgael

[miclgael@hachyderm.io]

@alice @garyseven @evacide

feeling inspired to maybe pivot my own silly poc extension toward this goal. https://codeberg.org/miclgael/firefox-no-shit-shirlock

[disorderlyf@todon.eu]

@bayo @evacide I know I probably haven't actually downloaded a flashlight app in over a decade, but I don't actually recall even needing to agree to a ToS that a lot of these apps could bury their "consent" in. I just tapped the "install" button.

[bornach@fosstodon.org]

@alice @miclgael @evacide
I have already been entering random dates for my Date of Birth because I just assumed that was part of the authentication info—like a poor man's 2FA. I'm always surprised when I unexpectedly get happy birthday wishes from some automated system.

[alice@lgbtqia.space]

@bornach the reason to use 1970-01-01 is because it's Unix epoch time, and usually means something is formatted as a date, but has invalid data. In my years in marketing, it's often discarded when using birthdate to determine age demographics for campaigns, because it's *more likely* to be an error than a real birthdate, and it's easier to discard anything that whiffs of bad data, because sending marketing materials costs money.

@miclgael @evacide

[sleepfreeparent@kolektiva.social]

@bayo @evacide "legal infrastructure designed to manufacture the appearance of consent while eliminating its substance."
Thanks, I've been looking for a concise phrase to capture the difference between self-governance and government, and I think this really gets to the heart of it.
These data brokers have been building on top of layer upon layer of consent-stripping infrastructure put in place by corporations and governments, all of it designed to simultaneously remove our ability to protect ourselves from it

[diogoconstantino@masto.pt]

@evacide it does, but not only because it harms americans, it harms humanity, and there's also something very wrong about the USA Government, which is as guilty of this harm, likely more guilty.

[aly@mastodon.nz]

@alice @bornach @miclgael @evacide or use Feb 29th on a non leap year if it lets you. Programmers love this.

[notknown@infosec.exchange]

@evacide

I say this often, and with fervor!

[misusecase@twit.social]

@utf_7 @evacide >> as long as people are blindly and happily using the services hoarding the data, data brokers will be around.

I can’t opt out of having my data collected and then sold to data brokers by credit bureaus and if you’re American, you can’t either.

And that’s just the example I can think of off the top of my head.

[agturcz@circumstances.run]

@alice @evacide Just saying, I chuckle every time receiving email with greeting: Dear Chujcie. As my name is given as Chujcie Toobchodzi. Which is a very rude way to say "you don't need to know it".

[fossthought@mastodon.social]

@evacide Plus, government bodies are funded by taxpayer dollars, so we're paying for our own surveillance.

[charlesmagne1@mastodon.social]

@evacide

Patel is a scourge on the civil liberties of Americans. He serves an autocrat. The only positive news of his appointment is that he is dumb. .