Apologies because it’s probably not the right forum, but send me in the right direction please
I’m not particularly savy but I am concerned about giving away my data, considering others have become billionaires with the accumulated data, so I’m interested in securing my digital “value”, so to say
It’s really such a big subject, but how do I start to see what is seen of me when I’m online, and with a phone or on a pc
My indiscretions are for the latest iasip episode, and I’m single so i don’t need to bother about search history, so I don’t want to have to use the onion to browse YouTube to stop them building a profile and profiting from my data, but to continue
I’ve used Firefox for 2 decades now and is become increasingly difficult to access YouTube with a vpn on the platform, to the point that for me at least it requires a login now. But on the same system the brave browser from specific eu states gives content and from others is blocked
The point is still, how do I know what they see? And tbh, any suggestions and advice/options for access into the net as a normal person who sees value in protecting their privacy/personal usage data
By default, if you do nothing to protect yourself, “they” see everything you do (every click etc.). And “they” use ad networks to share all the collected data with hundreds if not thousands of “data brokers”* to track your activity between different sites and build up a profile about you: your activity, your purchases, your interests, etc. If you give up any further info on any of these sites, they can also add your name, address etc. to this profile.
So, what can you do?
If you’re in the EU, always decline cookies (there’s usually a “Decline all” or “Only necessary” option somewhere, although you might have to click on “more info” or something like it to reach it).
Install NoScript for a rather steep learning experience. This wonderful plugin blocks most javascript by default and allows you to allow them again per-domain. This blocks most tracking and most ads, but also most site funtionality in the default config. You need to enable domains by trial-and-error to get each site functional again, which is a bit of a pain, but you’ll also learn which domains are typically used for tracking this way (e.g. you’ll see Google’s doubleclick.net tracking-and-ad domain in a lot of places, and keeping it blocked never hurts site functionality).
An alternative to NoScript that is much easier to use and also very effective is uBlock Origin. You will not get the same understanding of how widespread these ad networks and data brokers are as with NoScript though.
Set firefox to clear cookies on exit. (Perhaps with a few exceptions for sites where you wish to stay logged-in – these sites already recognise you by your login after all.)
Then there are even more advanced ways for sites to track you specific browser etc, and ways to mitigate that, but the above are good starting points IMO.
* If you’re in the EU and get GDPR cookie consent banners you can sometimes see this: “We want your consent to store cookies and share data with our 1,741 partners” (no exaggeration, these are the numbers you see in these consent requests!).
There is no real way to see what they see. Yes big data brokers exist, but they don’t share unless you want to pay them.
The better option is knowing what is collected and how much of that is a risk for you.
Example, nearly all cars made in the last 10 years have cell phone chips in them and upload your location back to the manufacture. They then sell this information and the auto insurance companies (and others) use this information to figure out your insurance rate. Don’t want to be tracked every place you drive, then figure out how to turn that off.
Same for any IOT smart devices. Ring cameras are recording video of you. TVs are watching what you watch and uploading it so they can target ads. And yes, your cell phone is tracking your location too. Microsoft is sending your keystrokes (in some applications) for them to review.
Each item you should look at and consider if the risk is worth the cost. You can call the car manufacture and have them not collect/sell your data, or pull a fuse or something, but your sat nav might stop working, or might not.
For everything else, you can greatly reduce your digital footprint and even keep much of the same services by self hosting. But you will be putting in the work, instead of “paying” for someone else to do it with your information they can sell.
YouTube algo suggested a video which named tools like: Intel Techniques / Epieos / Sherlock / Holohe / Cellebrite Open / hHunchly (evidence trail) / Overpass Turbo / Spiderfoot. You can search or download-and-run them to see what’s in publicly-available databases about you.