I do not own a car. 20 minutes after a conversation and one txt about car tires and boom! There's an ad for tire rack on my phone. This is the business model of several of the internet megacorps. They filter-feed information from your electronic interactions with the world and sell it.
Perhaps the most soul-destroying type of ad, it the "survey" that requires active participation. You can't ignore these, instead the ad is now coursing through your brain doing it's evil work.
My rebellion against these is to actively subvert their purpose. Youtube "surveys" often have a "skip survey" button, but they want you to press that. By that time, you have already taken in the names of the 4 tire/glue/car companies and they're burrowing into your subconscious. So why is the skip button there?
Simple, they don't want data, what they want is signal. If they ask which car company you feel makes more reliable cars, the last thing they want is a person who knows nothing about cars mashing a random button. This is because the randomness creates noise. Pulling information out of raw data is ALL about signal to noise ratio. The absolute last thing they want is randomness, or, worse, actively incorrect answers. So I always mash a random/wrong choice. This won't go very far however. So, let's extend the principle.
The Privacy-through-noise app will have access to all the things many other apps do, your text messages, microphone, location, contacts, browser etc. Crucially, there will be quite a lengthy setup procedure where the app learns all about you in order to create a fake persona that designed to inject as much confusing noise into your communications and web use as possible. Then, as soon as you lock your phone it springs to life....
For me, it might google which beach trends are hot right now or what the Toronto real-estate market is like. It will send a real text message to one of its friends (really another phone with the app). If I'm heading to a food place, it might use my location data to look up the opening times of a nearby store I'm not at all interested in.
In internet megacorp world, confusion will hopefully reign. How will companies get information on their products to people who would like them? After all, the electronic waters are so muddy now. Well, the app has the answer*. In a deep, encrypted corner, you can select products you are actually looking to buy. What, when, where and how much. This will be gold, since right now, I get a lot of ads for things I have just bought.
There, the user gets old-fashioned non-creepy ads, internet megacorps loose a little money and companies cut marketing costs by being fed genuine leads.
*In the premium version, obviously. In the free version, we give 6 months grace period, then start de-noising the info and selling it back to whoever, we're not a charity.-- bs0u0155, Aug 05 2020 https://en.wikipedi...d_blocking_software [pocmloc, Aug 06 2020] Use_20cookies_20to_...tes_20look_20better [hippo, Aug 07 2020] Even your preferences for noise may reveal something about you.
Might I suggest Privacy Through Ownership (TM)? Create a mobile platform to replace android, Apple, etc. and grow immensely rich on goodwill, etc.-- 4and20, Aug 05 2020 //preferences for noise may reveal something about you.//
That's why I jab away randomly half the time. Can't have my anti-noise showing up as signal.
//Create a mobile platform to replace android, Apple, etc. and grow immensely rich on goodwill,//
Learn to code, write, develop & test a new OS good enough to go up against the two biggest tech giants* and gain traction. Resist buy-outs, endless expensive legal fights and talent poaching and get hardware developers on board to bring a new product into a market Samsung feel isn't worth it anymore? I've got a slot late friday afternoon/early evening** I'll call it "bOS". I'll let the marketing dept. work out if the S is really an ambiguous 5 and what that means.
* and various world governments ** I might be a couple of sheets to the wind by 7.-- bs0u0155, Aug 05 2020 I'd buy it. I always thought this whole obsessive profiling of potential customers was a scam designed to rip off corporations who were clueless about how to create cutting edge products that everybody would want. A great company figures out what people would buy if it existed and creates that product. Steve Jobs didn't have focus groups and polls asking people what they wanted. It seems like it's just industry being lazy and un-creative. Plus, the intrusion into privacy is obnoxious at least and potentially prone to unethical misuse at worst. [+]-- doctorremulac3, Aug 06 2020 //potentially prone to unethical misuse// I think that ship has sailed...-- neutrinos_shadow, Aug 06 2020 LOL, uhh, yea.-- doctorremulac3, Aug 06 2020 //There's a recursive joke ... did you notice?//
No.-- pocmloc, Aug 06 2020 // I'm not getting the "soul destroying" part. //
Ask Satan if you can borrow your soul back for a few hours, then try again.-- 8th of 7, Aug 06 2020 You had me at "privacy"-- Voice, Aug 06 2020 //ignore the rest.//
Perhaps, for some you can. But, there's a lot of bright people spending an awful lot of time working on the problem of people ignoring ads. They probably use language like "engagement" etc. One of their solutions is the requirement for participation, I think it's Hulu that even makes you choose which ad you must watch before they play it at you, because god forbid you wander off to the kitchen while the ads are on, no, they'll stop the tv and make sure it's all waiting.
For me there's been an absurd uptick in ads across all media in the last 18-24 months. Maybe I'm hyper sensitive because of 30 years of no-ad BBC into US tv with 1/3rd air time dedicated to ads, or because even the paid-for streaming services have started running ads routinely, probably because the venture capital ran out and it's time to start paying back. Even checking the cricket score, the BBC themselves run a full page ad before you can get into the home page. I definitely resent that my efforts to avoid ads are progressing toward futility.-- bs0u0155, Aug 06 2020 Bs0u, I like this, but one problem I see is that clueless corporations would gladly pay for a "consumer profile" of somebody that eats 30 pounds of bananas a day, is shopping for a solid gold garbage dumpster, wants to invest in old used socks and is interested in a bulk purchase of 20 pound weighted exercise toothbrushes.
I've often heard the term "soulless corporations" but "brainless corporations" is a term that should be more widespread.-- doctorremulac3, Aug 07 2020 Instead of complaining, why not use this data gathering to your advantage? (see link)-- hippo, Aug 07 2020 Sorry Hippo, already up-voted it back in 14.-- doctorremulac3, Aug 07 2020 [bs0u0155] Ublock Origin works wonders for me, although Google has taken to packaging some of its ads on Youtube with the comment section so it's both or neither. I choose neither.-- Voice, Aug 08 2020 // quite a lengthy setup procedure where the app learns all about you//
Everyone will be wanting to crack this noise app and OS for all the juicy concentrated data. That's a large fight to take on for a single individual coder.-- wjt, Aug 08 2020 random, halfbakery