# Matt's Privacy Footprint Practical While I don't usually pay much mind to my Internet footprint and am not typically too concerned about my privacy, I found segments of the readings eerie, particularly those describing intentionally covert tracking methods that everyday platforms use. In Chapter 11 of Kernigham's *D Is For Digital*, Kernigham describes methods such as **invisible 1-pixel embedded images** that create cookies and track users across site and **hidden JavaScript** in URLs/HTML that **disguise third party cookies** as first party cookies to circumvent blockers. While I don't really care when I can tell I'm being tracked, I still find these practices disturbing because they are *intentionally* misleading and even directly go against permissions explicitly set by the user in the case of the disguised cookies. As I've said in previous responses, I don't see an inherent wrong in user tracking myself, but I still think users should be able to disable tracking. Rather than seeing these settings as a challenge to be overcome, ad services should **acknowledge the boundary** set by users who disable third party cookies. In the [Haridy's](https://https://newatlas.com/computers/facebook-not-secretly-listening-conversations/) article about the myth that Facebook listens to our conversations through our devices' microphones, I found it interesting that he explained how Facebook *wasn't* listening because the cell phones tested didn't use as much data as a virtual assistant like OK Google and then did not elaborate on what these assistants *are* doing. I've heard the same rumor about virtual assistants that I have about Facebook listening in to our conversations. While I understand that listening for keywords is part of their service, I'd be interested to see what these same researchers have to say about the rumor that these assistants track us in the way that people imagine Facebook has been. ## My Identity As I'm writing this, I'm realizing the instructions say to conduct a Spokeo search but I earlier clicked a link to Intelius that I can no longer find. After putting in my name and hometown into Intelius, the service was able to link me to my parents and my brother (whose name appeared twice in my relatives list for some reason). However, it displayed by middle initial as "B" when it's actually "R" and I'm curious to know where online my middle initial it listed as "B." ![image alt](https://i.imgur.com/xKGMQXa.png[/img]) I also tried entering my name and town on Spokeo and was not able to find myself in their list of Matthew Roses from the area. ## Browser I was surprised by my results on the ["What your browser knows about you"](http://webkay.robinlinus.com/) website, specifically my social media results: ![Social Media results](https://i.imgur.com/LmEaR8Z.png[/img]) I know my Spotify is always logged in through the Spotify app on my computer, but I didn't realize my browser says I'm always logged into Facebook and Instagram when I never keep these tabs open and rarely access them from my computer. Also, I didn't know I had a Flickr account and was surprised to learn it's constantly logged in as well. ## Google On my Google account, I was amused by the ad personalization categories Google believes I'm interested in and would like to see a ranked rather than alphabetical list depicting how Google perceives my interests. Certain topics such as "country music" and "motorcycles" surprised me as I don't recall any research I've done on either. I suppose categories like "marital status," "household income," and "homeowner status" were not shocking but still felt strange to see among a list of my "interests." I'd also like further insight into what some categories mean, such as the vague "men's interests." The list reminded me of a trend a while ago where people would post screenshots of Instagram's version of this interest list to their finstas. Although, I remember these lists of tags and categories being much more extensive, oddly specific, and more often inaccurate which made them funnier. Google seems to share fairly broad categories it uses rather than these more specific tags. Also, I didn't know the Maps timeline existed on Google but was pleased to find that any date I tried on both my personal and Northeastern account had "no location history for this date." My web history was also set to "pause." ## Social Networks Using some of the tips recommended by [Burt](https://www.theedublogger.com/how-to-check-your-web-footprint/), I first searched my name and then my emails on Google and Google Images and found nothing relevant to me. The images section for "Matthew Rose" rarely showed more than one picture of the same person and none of them were me. I checked my info sharing sections of Facebook and Google and was surprised to learn that I don't allow access to many apps from either. I'm not sure if I was using some different Google account, but I definitely feel I've checked off "Allow Access to Google account" on more sites/apps than the page showed me. Overall, I did not find anything too disturbing or shocking in a negative way when I stalked myself on the Internet.
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4/19/2021
Matt's Reading Responses (Set 2)

5 Reading Responses March 16 - Ads Online ads are now a staple of commercial businesses because they can easily track user activity and target ads using a vast dataset of factors including demographics, time of day, locations, interests, online behavior, etc. According to Stokes (2014) in "Online Advertising," social media is an increasingly popular platform for online advertising because an individual's activity on social platforms can provide ad servers lots of information about a user/customer. While some platforms lend themselves better to certain types of ads, social media is also a great tool for advertisers because it can host a range of display ads and sponsored content. Some of the main display ad types include: Banner adverts, which are graphics on a webpage that can be interacted with. They vary in size and may expand with interaction. Interstitial banners, which appear on the website between pages. Popups and pop-unders, which open new windows either over or beneath the main web page.

4/19/2021
Matt's Ad Blocking Practical

Before UBlock Origin: After UBlock Origin: I definitely noticed that sites loaded faster with UBlock on, and I found I was able to more efficiently read web pages without the insistent distraction of attention-hungry banner ads, pop ups, and floating ads. While this no-ad system makes it easier to interact with the content I intend to, if every individual blocked all ads it would create a problem in which ad-supported free content would not be sustainable. Free sites may have to implement pay walls or, if no users are willing to pay for previously free content, shut down entirely. As I argued in a prior reading response, ads are not inherently bad and, while they may be annoying, they allow us to have easy, unpaid access to lots of online content. However, I still believe that users should be able to deny permission to be tracked by ad servers. Rather than moving towards ad blockers, users who are bothered by tracking should be encouraged to activate tracking protection as discussed by Marti in "Targeted Advertising Considered Harmful." In this way, users would be able to browse the Web without being tracked across sites by third-party ad servers. Users would still be shown ads, and therefore tracking protection would not be a detriment to advertisers as ad blockers would. However, these ads would be relevant to the content on the page rather retargetted based on a user's previous online behavior. Marti explains that this makes ads more meaningful to viewers and increases their signaling power as long as users know they are not targeted, which the user of tracking protection would know. Ad "blockers" like AdBlock Plus that allow some ads through their filter, as long as they are deemed acceptable and as long as advertisers pay the blocker, are after their own profit and do not offer the best solution to users. While ads may be more in line with the page's content, this is the same effect that tracking protection would have. Furthermore, the model is susceptible to corruption in which unrelated ads eventually get through the filter for high prices, creating a similar environment to the pre-blocker Web except with another middle-man seeking to profit. Therefore, the best solution for those who are bothered by ad tracking but enjoy free ad-supported content is to implement tracking protection. Unfortunately this does not provide a solution for users like myself who are not really bothered by tracking but would simply prefer to view web pages for free and without ads, as UBlock allows. I suppose we are instead forced to accept that we have to allow ads on our pages if we want to continue to enjoy the benefits of ad-supported content. Although as ads lose their impact and users develop "banner blindness," a term coined by Betsy Haibel and quoted by Marti to describe users gradually tuning out constant online ads, even this system people like myself now take for granted may need alterations.

3/17/2021
Matt's Reading Responses (Set 1)

5 Reading Responses January 29 How the Web Works offered a simplistic metaphorical explanation of the relationship between clients and servers that was difficult to grasp and felt like it was hiding something when I would have preferred a more in depth explanation. While I was able to mostly follow their metaphor that compared the parts involved in accessing a webpage to parts involved in a person getting an item at a store, I have trouble truly understanding the process even at a surface level without a literal depiction of what is happening. I had similar issues understanding Hartley Brody's article explaining HTTPS. This second article did offer better explanations of the parts in the system it described, and the color-mixing graphic was useful in illustrating the mathematical concepts. However, I still think I need to see it functionally explained with pictures or examples of the true process in action in addition to merely reading about it. In both articles, there are many unfamiliar terms talked about in relation to each other and, even with their description and metaphorical comparison, I have trouble understanding how the system operates without understanding what each part literally or physically is. For instance, I do not know what is meant by describing Transmission Control Protocols as "communication protocols," and I do not know what is meant by describing HTTP as "an application protocol that defines a language." I would like to better understand what each part literally is so that I can understand how they interact as a system. Similarly, I have trouble understanding how the parts physically interact. How does a one wireless device communicate with a server and download information from it on a physical level without being connected to it? February 8 Make It Stick offers an idealistic method of learning that, while mostly convincing of its superiority, is an unrealistic expectation for the majority of learning. The text sets up "rereading" as the most common method of studying and argues that empirical evidence has shown no signficant learning benefit to repetetive rereading. It proposes instead that learners adopt more effortful, challenging, engaging methods of study such as retrieval practice, in which learners are required to recall and/or apply concepts to answer quiz questions, and interleaving, in which learners switch among studying various topics to provide space between practicing each subject. While these suggestions are possible, they make the assumption that learners always have an internal motivation to learn the material they are required to learn when in my experience this is often not the case. I found myself frustrated reading the book's suggestions as it condemned the practice of cramming for a test as only bringing short term benefits rather than longterm mastery; most people don't care about mastering every subject, but we are still expected to get good grades on every test. The text includes multiple praises of flashcards over rereading notes, arguing that rereading is more time consuming than it is worth (10). However, notes are often taken during classtime and can easily be reread, while the flashcards method proposed as an alternative requires the additional effort of the learner to create flashcards on their own time and plan to use them often and spaced out over time. This is often unlikely for students who juggle about 8 subjects in high school and maybe 16-19 credits in college with tests and assignments occurring in too rapid a succession to be able to study far ahead of time for all of them, especially on top of extracurriculars, jobs, volunteer work, etc. that are also expected of students. For those who know they can grasp the material well enough in the short term for tomorrow's test by rereading their notes the night before, mastery may not be a concern. Similarly, the concept of reflection is emphasized as a form of retrieval important to learning (66), when common education formats often provide no motivation or opportunity for such reflection after the test has occurred since its grade is already final.

3/9/2021
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