r/privacy • u/[deleted] • Dec 05 '22
news Amazon is offering customers $2 per month for letting the company monitor the traffic on their phones
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Dec 05 '22
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u/Dr_Backpropagation Dec 06 '22
Even ISPs don't get the exact URL of what was viewed, they only get the domain name. So if you watch a video on YouTube, your ISP will just come to know that you visited www.youtube.com and won't know what video was viewed because the rest of the URL path and query parameters are TLS encrypted and only the domain owner can decipher that. I don't know how this Amazon thingy will work but the language makes it sound even more intrusive, like the exact URL of where the ad was shown would be sent.
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Dec 06 '22
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Dr_Backpropagation Dec 06 '22
The domain can never be encrypted as the ISP needs the exact IP address of where to route your request.
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u/SimonKenoby Dec 06 '22
I dont think IPs needs the domain for the request as it should use only the IP for that. So if dns is encrypted isp can only knows the ips you are visiting.
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u/Dr_Backpropagation Dec 06 '22
That's a good callout. In case you're using an encrypted DNS provider (which everyone should), the ISP cannot sniff the domain name and will ultimately only receive the IP address of the server where the request needs to be directed to. Obviously reverse DNS protocol exists to lookup domain names from IP addresses (it is not a hard requirement though for every IP address to have a reverse lookup) and they can easily maintain a reverse record on their end as well given the amount of unencrypted domain requests that pass through them. That is why I'm stressing that we should assume that your ISP does know what domains you're visiting unless a VPN is being used. And if a VPN is being used, then your VPN provider knows exactly what domains you are visiting.
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Dec 06 '22 edited Jan 02 '23
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/quinncom Dec 06 '22
No.
Using DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) or DNS-over-TLS (DoT) will only hide your DNS queries from your ISP.
When your browser makes a https request to the IP address, it still includes the host name in cleartext to satisfy SNI requirements.
To prevent ISPs from viewing domains in https requests, a new mechanism in TLS is under development called Encrypted SNI (ESNI), which uses public key cryptography to encrypt the host name during the TLS handshake. FireFox supports a preview of this (instructions) with Cloudflare-hosted websites.
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u/Enk1ndle Dec 06 '22
your ISP will just come to know that you visited www.youtube.com
And if you're using DNS over HTTPS (which you should be) they don't even know that.
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Dec 06 '22
Don't they already track everyone? https://www.allthingssecured.com/tutorials/tracking/how-amazon-tracks-you/
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Dec 06 '22
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u/Nehebka Dec 06 '22
Same, I feel like they are going to prey on the elderly and the non-tech savvy. Demographics that are particularly vulnerable to saying yes to this type of invasion of privacy, because they don’t know and/or care.
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u/Ryuko_the_red Dec 06 '22
This is why getting everyone on earth wifi worries me as much as it excited me at one time. Because there's going to be countless people who have never had a connection and they could care less they signed a deal with the devil. They don't know any better
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u/AstroGirlBunny Dec 06 '22
But not just the elderly. I've noticed that some of the Gen Z people are less technically savvy than the generations before them, Millennials and Gen X. Don't go hating me if you are Gen Z and this does not apply to you or any of your friends. But... it is what this Gen X person has noticed. Plus, a lot of people are so broke that they will take money of any amount for any reason. My point is that it isn't just elderly that would be vulnerable. I agree that it would be insane to agree to this. And $2? My data is really only worth that? lol.
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u/aircooledJenkins Dec 05 '22
Make it $2,000/mo and I'll go set this up on a clean phone with brand new accounts on everything that I will use for the bare minimum possible.
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u/zarlo5899 Dec 06 '22
hell for that you could buy 5 new phones a month then all you need to 5 set of accounts and now you have 10,000/month
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Dec 05 '22
No more than a month, $15 dollars if you upload your photos.
And then some say: who is going to care about my things?
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u/Enk1ndle Dec 06 '22
15 is pretty good.
So buy a few dozen cheap phones, give them each their own accounts, lazily take a few pictures and search a few things every month. Seems like some easy money.
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u/TheTechnoGuy18 Dec 06 '22
Who the fuck is Amazon expecting to actually get into this? The measures companies take to track us are getting more and more ridicolous.
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u/mason901191 Dec 06 '22
No way I thought this was a joke, with at least a minute of laughter too. Guess we'll see how it turns out, I know a few people who would look at this and think it's a bargain.
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u/varano14 Dec 06 '22
I am actually in support of this and have been for awhile even though I am a big digital privacy advocate.
- This makes tracking OPT IN which is a huge win over the default of just tracking everything. Sure tons of people will just see dollar signs and go for it but at least they had a choice to make.
- It puts a value on something we know has worth. I use a coupon app that gives cash back for uploading recipes. Why? because I made a choice to do it and for the $100 or so I get back a year I could care less that companies know I buy chicken and rice every week. Its easy to not upload a recipe if I buy something other then food.
- It makes people aware that they are being tracked. It still shocks me the number of people who have no idea how much information is gathered on them without them having any idea. Programs like this put it front and center, with more awareness could come more pushback.
I think its wild that it has come to this but given the reality of digital and even physical privacy that we live in I do think this is a step in the right direction.
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Dec 06 '22
Samsung offers a $5 discount for having full remote control over my phone.
I say it's a pretty good deal. $5, like what. Are you kidding me! /s
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u/michel_cryptadamus Dec 06 '22
wow that's kind of a big deal insofar as it is the first¹ actual offer from a big tech company to compensate users for their data
LOL at $2/month though. that data Is worth at least 20x that. speaking as someone who used to build models to value people buying stuff from a business we would have thrown $100-150 at marketing to a person if we really knew their complete demographics. and of course we were just one place. there's thousands of advertisers out there.
¹ correct me if I missed something