This Company Has Built a Profile On Every American Adult (bloomberg.com) 225
Reader schwit1 writes: Every move you make. Every click you take. Every game you play. Every place you stay. They'll be watching you. IDI, a year-old company in the so-called data-fusion business, is the first to centralize and weaponize all that information for its customers. The Boca Raton, Fla., company's database service, idiCORE, combines public records with purchasing, demographic, and behavioral data. Chief Executive Officer Derek Dubner says the system isn't waiting for requests from clients -- it's already built a profile on every American adult, including young people who wouldn't be swept up in conventional databases, which only index transactions. 'We have data on that 21-year-old who's living at home with mom and dad,' he says.
Good luck (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Good luck (Score:5, Funny)
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What part of "We have data on that 21-year-old who's living at home with mom and dad" was unclear? I don't think location in the house matters.
He's 22 (Score:3)
At least that what his DOB on our database says...
The first...? (Score:3, Informative)
Hell, back in the mid 90's I was helping on a project there to come up with a unique identifier and to build records upon that for every individual worldwide....
Way back when, they used to cut binders of phone books and scan them in for databases.
They get all the US Postal records, all states that publish/sell drivers license info...
They got info from all those little sheets you fill out when you send in a warranty card....etc.
They
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your post just broadcast your location (IP address from Slashdot's logs we've hacked), employment status (none), what you read (nerd) and respond to and your age. We can get your name from your parents internet account and all about you from the public records of your birth, school, etc. Simple, easy and done! Criminal record? Done. Miss anything?
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Good luck finding me in my mom's basement!
Hey Brandon Sharp, is that really you? how is your mercedess 220D doing? have you upgraded to the latest Ubuntu ?
Re:Good luck (Score:5, Interesting)
See headline, think to myself, "Hmm, I used to know people in this industry." Continue reading, "The Boca Raton, Fla., company's database..." Oh, shit. That's where I was when I knew them. Please don't be somebody I know. Please don't be somebody I know. "Chief Executive Officer Derek Dubner says". FUUUUCKKKKKK. Oddly, though, I don't know him from this industry but rather from a company in another industry that I worked with him at.
On a serious note, some insider information. First, yes, they do in fact know that much about you and yes the tools work incredibly well. I worked on the product that became the NSA's PRISM program (after I was no longer working on it). Believe it or not, it actually started out as a marketing tool to find potential leads. After 9/11, the company's owner Hank Asher realized that it would work well for tracking and researching people for the feds. The tool could query incredibly detailed information on anybody in the US with sub-second response times... in the year 2000. No off the shelf tools like hbase existed back then to do something like this.
About the only way to stay under the radar with this kind of stuff and not be homeless is to have a mailbox at someplace like the UPS Store, get paid under the table and pay cash for everything, and move around every 2 months without any written lease. After that, your new location gets fed into these systems. The time to stay at one place may actually be shorter these days.
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"Are you saying that received unregistered mail is recorded somehow?"
The postal office scans every piece of mail to send it at its destination. By 'scanning' they mean, they photograph each and every piece of mail (to ocr it) and they don't throw that away, it's too juicy for so many people.
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For instance, I find myself having to whitelist various content providers that serve across multiple websites (like CloudFront). If I assume that CloudFront fingerprints me, I will leave a trail on every site that I enable scripts on that pulls from CloudFront. Then, maybe CloudFront and some other CDN's put
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They know where you are in the basement, who your mother is, who your father is (not who you think), how many pizza crumbs and pepperonis you left in the couch, how many times you wanked last week, what you were wearing while wanking, how many Linux distros you own, how many still won't boot, how many times you cried over losing D&D this year, how many times you told users to RTFM, how many times they actually did, why your last and only girlfriend is at Bellevu
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So you know exactly what you do, you become an internet actor, 'it's not lying, it's creating many false profiles'. Basically poison their databases by creating abstract false information about yourself all over the internet. Run stuff like this http://www.cs.nyu.edu/trackmen... [nyu.edu]. It creates chaos in their databases. Computers are really great a tracking information and keeping records, they are even better at creating false information to flood relational databases with false connections that generate even
cant be every adult (Score:3)
Unless they've got gps chips and fingerprint scanners built into each dollar bill.
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Cool, free upgrade. Does this mean I can browse the Net with my thoughts? Connect to other drivers to figure out what they're going to do? Shared dream instances?
Re:cant be every adult (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, as usual this is just another hyped-up clickbait summary. When you read TFA, you find that what they actually claim to have is:
All KNOWN addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses (jeez, they know stuff they know)
Propery bought and sold, including mortgages (public records stuff)
Vehicles owned (public records)
Criminal record (public records)
Voter registration (public records)
Hunting permits (public records)
They also claim to have 'biilions of photographs from private companies with license plate scanners'. Kind of doubtful, companies don't give that info away for free, and why would they buy it if they don't need it.
Oh, and the 'every purchase' bullshit? Well, they own a couple of coupon companies, and IF you sign up for their coupons they ask for stuff like email and birthday, and IF you use those coupons when you buy something they know what you bought. No shit.
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They also claim to have 'biilions of photographs from private companies with license plate scanners'. Kind of doubtful, companies don't give that info away for free, and why would they buy it if they don't need it.
They buy it because it helps their goals, whatever those are. It can't be that expensive, it's just manual labor and a little data processing. Someone with a multi-directional camera mounted on their vehicle just drives around and the camera records the location of every license plate it finds. We've seen those vehicles driving through our parking lot. It's not that they're reaching out to private businesses and asking them for their license plate data, they hire private contractors to drive around and
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actually sounds more like a marking hype for selling to VC's.
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marketing (sp)
Re: cant be every adult (Score:2)
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Re: cant be every adult (Score:2)
Seriously. My record would be muddier than the Mississippi River after a major flood of the surrounding area. I have people that use my loyalty cards and I use theirs (family, close friends, girlfriend, her family, etc). Hell, so does my GF. We buy things for ourselves and others. Her dad was flagged for marketing for products he was helping me research.
Going even further, there is tons that makes me even harder to track - numerous VMs, years in other countries, and the lack of concentration of information
Ad Blocker Irony? (Score:4, Interesting)
Ironic. The link to the article begins by complaining about my use of an ad blocker in my browser. So what was newsworthy about that article again? Shameless linking of online behaviour and personality profile? You wonder how they got all that data.
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Actually, they don't need cookies anymore. Your Browser is unique enough that they can track that without needing cookies.
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"our Browser is unique enough that they can track that"
No its not. I analyzed billions of rows of logs across millions of computers, and at best you can fingerprint 1/3 of PCs as unique. But the next time they get a Windows update or update their browser that is out the Windows.
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this goes completely against their marketing pitch to VC's, which enables them to sell their fool proof tracking database that they have created on every human being in less than one year!!!
so you MUST be wrong, ;) TGIF
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http://akademie.dw.de/digitals... [akademie.dw.de]
You may be right.
https://www.theguardian.com/te... [theguardian.com]
Or not
http://www.pcworld.com/article... [pcworld.com]
or ... you can see for yourself
https://panopticlick.eff.org/ [eff.org]
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FYI my score is "Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 124,790 tested so far."
And that is pretty much by FONTS alone.
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That's really helpful, thanks for the links!
I'm also slightly depressed after seeing my own results. I hadn't realised that hashes from webgl etc were used. There are some smart people. Devious but smart.
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With noscript, their stupid javascript can't detect the blocking of their malware, and the article is readable.
I know, I laughed at the deliciousness of their stupidity.
Their "pleeeeez don't use an adblocker" detector uses Javascript and blithely lets you in if Javascript is turned off. Brilliant.
Let's not tell them about NoScript, shall we?
So is this enough finally? (Score:5, Insightful)
To get some good privacy laws passed?
'Cause it really creeps me out that a coupon site is being used to confirm information. And aside from that aspect, which seems to be setup to prey on the poor and less fortunate, that the company
"...including young people who wouldnâ(TM)t be swept up in conventional databases...".
That says to me they're going after children under 18 and doing so on purpose.
Of course they'd not show an example to the reporter. That'd either expose some proprietary info or that they're full of shit. Either way, this thing should be shut down.
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It probably isn't enough. I think it's going to take somebody being able to show they've been harmed by the data collection and it will have to work it's way to the supreme court.
I wish the company had a way that I could get (or even purchase) a copy of the report on me. I can't think of any reason why they should object to that.
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Stalking Is Illegal. (Score:5, Interesting)
If I put up a chart of someone's activities, they call me a stalker, but if a company does it, it is called smart business. 2 sets of rules. Greed is great. Fuck me moar.
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Google would seem to fall under the same categorization. But more so, and they are impossible for most people to avoid because they are on nearly every site on the web, often behind the scenes in ways that are not obvious to non-techies.
Re:Stalking Is Illegal. (Score:5, Interesting)
Likewise, if you're gathering information about a specific individual in RL, it's stalking. But if you're gathering information about everyone, you're just collecting data. What needs to be done is to pass a law which requires such personalized data collection to be anonymized, so that it can't specifically be tied back to an individual, like the Census does. But the advertising industry will never let that happen.
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What needs to be done is to pass a law which requires such personalized data collection to be anonymized, so that it can't specifically be tied back to an individual
I think one of the major problems we face with tech these days is, it's surprisingly hard to truly anonymize any data unless you aggregate.
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It's totally legal to hire a PI and "stalk" someone.
Because PIs are licensed to do so. And they have to be otherwise uninvolved with the case. An unlicensed person or a PI who is determined to be personally involved is subject to prosecution for stalking.
is it legal to monetize that profile? (Score:1)
Is it legal to sell this information to anyone? Athletes license their image and likeness, receiving fees in return for the right to use them for monetization. Aside from public records, shouldn't I own the data about me, and thus be able to insist it not be sold without my consent? Shouldn't I legally own the rights to a profile about me?
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not if it is publicly available information, in other words they have made a google wrapper.
SubjectsInCommentsAreStupidCauseTheSubjectIsTFA (Score:1)
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The idea that EU privacy laws are never broken. Hellllooooooo!
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You are naive if you think your companies comply with the law. It certainly would be a first.
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Why is it necessary for the EU to even have privacy laws? Are privacy laws the only laws that are never broken? Has no one ever been charged with violating one of those laws? What about laws against selling drugs, does the EU have those also? Are those ever broken?
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mod you as uninformed.
arrests of anti-immigration protesters and speakers is a real thiing
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Um no (Score:5, Insightful)
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This is a publicly traded company, so no one is looking for VC.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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quantrics started this crap (technically socci too), then companies like Target, Ralphs, and Best Buy decided to bring it in house and make it proprietary, literally bankrupting them overnight.
Great! I hope this company soon follows suit.
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Is there anything in those databases (e.g. Acxiom) that can realistically be poisoned? And what would be worth poisoning these days, stuff that's possible to do and really does have an effect on their end-product quality?
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[quote]the truth is we really do not know why some of these audiences (18-32) fail brand permanence, brand awareness, or our consumer confidence and profile metrics other than (gasp) they probably just arent interested in the product.[/quote]
Looking at purchases where I'm a loyal customer (TP, toothpaste, deodorant, laundry detergent, paper towels, NB shoes), I got locked in as a kid. I've been using most those products since I was a kid that my parents bought. Deodorant was the only brand that could handle
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I go back and forth on this one.
I am affected the same as anyone else when I see the condensation on the outside of a glass of yummy looking liquid, my mouth waters. I am affected at a low level by most advertising. That is not bad, that is just being human.
However, I also couldn't really care less about name brands. I am interested in quality and usability and several other factors when making buying decisions. The only problem is that it is nearly impossible to do enough research ahead of time so it somet
Ecouragement (Score:5, Insightful)
Good. Keep building those databases. Hoover up as much data as you can. Soon it won't be worth the disk drives you're storing it on.
I still get plenty of companies trying to sell me an extended warranty on a car I haven't owned in years.
I still get plenty of companies trying to sell me services for a job I haven't had in more than a decade.
It's cheap and easy to get data. It's hard and expensive to keep it clean. A few more years of this explosive growth in personal data availability and it will all turn to garbage.
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Exactly. My wife has been dead over 20 years. She still gets daily mail for cruise trips, health insurance(!), beauty products, etc. sent to an address where she never lived. It's so fun getting the mail every day realizing she gets more mail than I do.
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But those companies paid/pay for your information even though it's crap and they will continue doing so as it works for ~1% of the population they send it to. So these types of companies will continue selling them crap information and stay in business and you'll continue receiving spam, just in case you react to one of them.
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The downside of poisoning the data is that these databases are used for verifying your identity. Have you ever get hit with a series of questions like "Which of these four address have you lived at in the last 10 years?" That's an instance of this verification technique. But there doesn't seem to be any verification, since I have gotten questions where there is no correct choice.
My fear is not about good data getting out but so much bad data getting in so that I can no longer prove who I am.
Back off and Nuke Them From Orbit (Score:2)
What Stops Us From Suing? ...All of us, I mean? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't recall signing an authorization for my data to be used this way. Nor did I engage in informed consent with any of the vendors that have disclosed this information to this third party--how about we just figure out who is selling them data and sue a few of them into bankruptcy? It'll scare away other potential sellers and take this predatory organization down.
So... stalking is okay (Score:2)
Provided you're making (enough) money off of it. :D
Solution (Score:2)
And you worry about Big Bad Government (Score:3, Insightful)
Or buying a first home
Or getting a car loan
or asking for a raise
But these people will, if there is enough profit in offering a dataset that maximizes someone else's profit at your expense.
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bigbadgovernment is just the logical conclusion to all of that. The ultimate monopoly.
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1. I could choose not to buy.
2. I could choose to buy.
3. Others could go into business and compete with him, assuming no government interference.
In contrast a government monopoly:
1. forces me to fund whether I want/like the service or not. In this case, it's likely happening as bigbadgovernment is likely this company's primary target customer.
2. Can make it expensive to compete, or even lock out competition altogether using law.
3. can threaten me with jail for noncompliance.
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1. Then your own prices go up accordingly. If the prices for this widget spike enough times, someone else will enter the market eventually.. unless of course government steps in to maintain the monopoly.
2. Politics load?
3. If they're bought out, then that means the owners (or investors) felt they weren't good enough to compete long term. Unless of course the incumbent was shielded by government....
2. Patents, trademarks, and copyrights are enforced by governments. I don't want to abolish them but I do think
Standby for news this company's database hacked... (Score:2)
in 3, 2, 1...
not that anyone will notice as we are all "alarm fatigued" of hacked databases.
How many are me? (Score:2)
I wonder how many profiles they've generated for me?
I have several email addresses that I keep segregated. One I use for junk email, my local sport teams' message boards, this site, etc. I have a second account that I use for buying things online (Steam, Amazon, Netflix, etc.) And a third address strictly for personal emails.
It's entirely feasible that all 3 have been picked up by this company, and treated as 3 completely unique people with the same name.
Class-action lawsuit with 300M plaintiffs (Score:2)
Creepy (Score:2)
Query? (Score:2)
Is this something that I can query to see what my current address is for $5 or so or do they only deal with multi million dollar deals?
Anonymous (Score:2)
Re: Time for a law change America (Score:1)
Yes, only the government can do this
Regards, the nsa, cia, fbi, hls
Re:Time for a law change America (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a different idea. I think Congress should pass a law saying such information always remains your property, and that every access of it for the purposes of making profit by any authorized entity must see you paid 50% of the gross revenue generated. Unauthorized access sees you paid 95%. Lack of payment by any company is regarded as theft, and will be prosecuted as a criminal offense.
Re:Time for a law change America (Score:4, Interesting)
Unauthorized access sees you paid 95%.
Make that 5000% and we can start talking about there being some downsides to tracking (for the tracker).
Re: Time for a law change America (Score:5, Interesting)
Within the past few years, some former college football and basketball players sued the NCAA successfully. For over a decade, officially licensed college football and basketball games were produced by EA Sports. The games didn't include player names but the uniform numbers, positions, physical attributes, and player skills, which were clearly derived from the real athletes. No names or actual player photos were used, but the court still decided that everything else constituted an unauthorized use of the likeness of players, who had not licensed that use. Because EA Sports and the NCAA used that information for profit without license from the players, the court decided they were entitled to compensation. If this company is profiting by selling profiles of people they have built without a license from those people, it still seems to be an unauthorized use of a person's likeness. I'm not sure new legislation is required, just for someone to test this idea in court with existing laws.
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"Within the past few years, some former college football and basketball players sued the NCAA successfully."
They settled and there was no legal precedent established as there was no court or jury ruling. Feel free to try it in court, but you likely don't have the sort of case these players had, and you'll likely fuck up and lose.
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America is so effed-up, this might actually work *if* you were recognized as a corporation.
winner winner... um no (Score:2)
The only people who would win in this scenario is lawyers. Our entire system is built by lawyers, for lawyers. In general, the answer is not "more laws".
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That's why I say authorised use or personal information (via, say, you agreeing to an EULA) means you get a 50 cut.
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Governments are one of the big customers of these list vendors, doh.
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So in other words, our (and your children's) personal data is in the hands of cons, criminals and scam artists. Gee, what a comforting thought.
And some of them don't even work for the Government!
yeah, but do they Hillary's emails? (Score:2)
or Trump's tax records?
if not, they're not worth beans.
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How the fuck is there a difference?
Each is selling your personal info for money. How they collect it is minor at best.
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How the fuck is there a difference?
Each is selling your personal info for money. How they collect it is minor at best.
there is actually.
Google doesn't sell their data set. It is part of their secret sauce, they decide what ads you see and the companies advertising just give google the demographic they want to target. So only google knows that you have a fetish for short Asian women wearing hulk hands, so marvel pays google to show adds for avengers toys to people likely to buy them and never know about you or your weird interests. As opposed to this company that simply sells of that info to anybody willing to ask for it.
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Your line is vague at best.
Other people still know what I'm like. And get paid for it.
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Your line is vague at best.
Other people still know what I'm like. And get paid for it.
no not really.
google is passing on ads to people the fit the desired critera of the agency placing the ad
this company selling your info giving this info to those companies.
your data never leaves google to the advertiser.
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LOL at never.
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