# Privacy Footprint - Nov. 8
### My Identity
Upon reading the two articles we were assigned, I immediately realized many different things; from the information that I've disclosed online unknowingly, to the times where I've just been careless about my own privacy and personal information. Specifically, in Cara McGoogan's article about Facebook and obtaining phone numbers, she goes through the same process that I did a couple years ago when I found out that Facebook had my phone number. McGoogan does a good job at explaining the multiple possible ways that Facebook "tricks" you, into getting your phone number, and it's extremely shocking. In Kernighan's *Data and Information*, I learned a lot more about how each user is tracked through multiple platforms; whether that be social networking sites, google searches, cloud storages etc. None of this really surprises me, but it is very interesting to read about the different methods and approaches to tracking user behavior and interests. Additionally, I enjoyed the segments about advertising, as Kernighan discussed multiple things we either learned in class, or things that i've been exposed to at my previous co-op (eg. Google Adwords and real-time advertisement bidding).

In lieu of privacy, I decided to take a look at my own online footprint.

I first conducted a Google search of just my name, and looked at the results I got for news, images, and videos.


At the moment, there was nothing too surprising; this article was written by a member of the Huntington News after I had won a dance challenge at a organization event. This interview was fun and I remember being a bit shocked that the interviewer was one of my NU.in friends.


Then I browsed the images and videos section, which mainly contained a lot of my Youtube video thumbnails, or videos with me in. As you can see in the images section, 4 out of the 5 search results in the second row are all Youtube thumbnails. In the videos section, it was just my YouTube channel and all the videos that I've been in before (mainly dancing videos).

Then I conducted a search on *Intelius* but didn't find anything substantial since I am from overseas. However, I actually searched up some of my friends and I found some of their information on the site. It's a bit scary knowing that these sites have such personal information without people knowing it at all.

I also went on https://webkay.robinlinus.com/, which basically shows you what every webserver knows about you and your computer. I found it very intriguing that such sites can deduce what system of Mac you're using, the graphics card, and such specific information. Though, I am not surprised at all.


In regards to online recognization, Kernighan briefly discussed the site that could identify each user and tell them how unique they were ([Panopticlick](https://panopticlick.eff.org/)). I was extremely curious and I decided to try it and below are my results.


The interesting thing is that my browser fingerprint was **unique** compared to other respondents; I expected the worst. The biggest takeaway however is the importance of Ublock Origin. Previously, I was running Adblock Plus and Adblocker, two programs that were somewhat outdated and lacking in their activity. After installing Ublock Origin, I didn't feel that much of a significant difference. However, I paused Ublock Origin and ran the two former programs to see what kind of results I would get and if the theory I had, proved true. Once I ran it on Panopticlick, I found that the results were drastically different.


As you can see, Ublock Origin is significantly better in terms of blocking tracking ads, invisible trackers, and trackers included in the "acceptable ads" whitelist. This really shocked me but I'm glad that Professor Reagle introduced me to Ublock Origin. I have been recommending it to all my friends who have been using Adblock or Adblock Plus.

When it comes to Google, I have always been aware of my privacy and the secrecy of my personal information. Outside of that, when I made accounts with Google and Youtube, I've always turned off any tracking-related setting (as shown below). This decreases the risk and possibility of being tracked on any of their sites.


When it comes to Facebook however, I never bothered to check my settings. Through this assignment and the readings in both Kernighan's chapter, and McGoogan's article, I have been more aware of my privacy on Facebook. Thus, I made sure to check my privacy settings and change my preferences for how people can find me.


It's shocking that I had no idea about any of this and Facebook basically sets up these defaults by themselves.

Lastly, among all of these interesting highlights, this one shocked me the most. About a month ago, I realized my Spotify had been hacked; the email associated with my account had been changed and the devices connected to the account were ones I had no idea about. A few months before this, I got continous emails in my inbox regarding suspicious activity and different sign-in locations. I changed my password multiple times but it kept popping up. Finally, I was able to get in touch with Gmail and setup multiple authentication processes in order to secure my account. Additionally, I contacted Spotify to recover my account and change the password for that too.

I didn't think much of this after it had past...that is, until this assignment. When conducting a search for my email account, I came across something that alarmed me.


It seems as though the owner of these websites, or contributors, knew the password to my email account, as well as my Spotify account. It's written there clearly, among thousands and thousands of other people's accounts. The blacked out bars are my password and it's scary because it's a fairly secure password, and I use it for many of my other accounts. However, upon seeing this, I have been changing my passwords for all of my important accounts in order to secure my privacy further.

This was an interesting but also eye-opening assignment. I've learned so much, not only from the readings, but just from a simple Google search for my email.

***