Lord777
Professional
- Messages
- 2,578
- Reaction score
- 1,520
- Points
- 113
Introduction
Security is always a trade-off. If we are talking about personal information security, then we are standing on a segment at one end of which there is a user who connects his entire life with the Internet and integrates all his actions into it. At the other end of the segment is a person who does not use the Internet. It depends on each individual person in which place of the segment he will stand and closer to which end.
It is important to understand that the Internet has turned out to be so tightly connected with a person's daily life (by the way, have you heard that the right to access the Internet is a basic human right? that at the beginning of 2021, almost 60% of the world's population is users of this network.
For about a decade, the concept of a "digital footprint" - a unique set of actions and data that allows identifying a user of a global network-has been haunting society. And if ten years ago there were big doubts about the ability to profile all Internet users, then with the development of big data and artificial intelligence-based data processing algorithms, these doubts were dispelled. Whereas in the era of TV advertising, specially trained people chose the time and channels that correspond to the target audience of the product, now contextual advertising algorithms allow you to personalize the advertising output for each person individually.
Contextual advertising is one of the key aspects of processing the digital footprint we leave, but it is far from the only one. For example, the algorithms used to generate new videos in the YouTube service can convince a person of a certain point of view simply because they will not see the existence of other points of view.
And how to counter this?
As mentioned earlier, the only effective way to reduce the digital footprint is to exclude the Internet from your life. At the same time, this statement is incorrect if we are talking about public people – for example, a teacher who is worried about his digital footprint can find reviews about himself online.
The passive digital footprint (which includes cookies, browser information, and IP address) is quite difficult to reduce. So, if you go online at approximately the same time, visit approximately the same sites, then you will have a bright and characteristic digital profile. There are many ways to" blur " it. The basic ones include the following:
An active digital footprint (which includes messages, comments, reviews, tags, uploaded files, etc.) is much easier and faster to reduce. It is enough for this purpose:
There is also the practice of creating fake accounts on social networks. These accounts are used for a specific purpose (for example, visiting specialized forums) and therefore leave a less noticeable digital footprint than user profiles with a public first and last name.
Advanced techniques
The strategy of reducing the digital footprint goes hand in hand with the strategy of ensuring anonymity, so many of the methods used by fighters for anonymity are also applicable to reducing their traces.
Randomization IP addresses that the connection passes through
This method reduces the likelihood of profiling based on the user's IP address. There are several ways to implement this technology. For example, the TOR browser is often used to randomize addresses – user traffic passes through a random sequence of nodes and then continues its path from one of the output nodes (node-node of the TOR network). In addition, proxy servers are used. There are many free and paid proxies, and their choice is at the discretion of the user.
Of course, when using this method, the user transfers their data to third parties, so you should take into account the possibility of data leakage.
Randomizing browser parameters
This method reduces the likelihood of profiling based on browser parameters. The profiling process implies that if the user prefers a particular browser, then any site can get a" fingerprint " of service information and personalize the user based on it.
There are a number of applications that allow you to reduce the amount of information provided by the browser as part of its "fingerprint". Some tools also allow you to replace some fingerprint parameters with random values, such as:
In combination with the previous point, the solution to reduce the passive digital footprint works quite effectively. At the same time, accidentally changing the parameters can cause inconvenience – for example, changing the Screen Size parameter will distort the appearance of the site being opened. In this case, the appropriate solution is to use the maximum common window size.
Getting rid of your personal data in the public domain
Here everything is quite simple. The amendments made to 152-FZ in March of this year abolish the category of publicly available personal data and introduce the category "personal data allowed for distribution". It follows that any dissemination of personal data, including the Internet, requires the subject's permission. Accordingly, if you do not have such permission, you can request the deletion of your personal data.
This aspect is partly related to the collection of cookies – currently, many sites explicitly tell the user that cookies are necessary for the correct operation of the site, so they need to be collected and processed. And if the user clicked the "accept cookie" button, then you will not be able to submit a claim. Fortunately, cookies are stored on user devices, so you can delete them yourself.
Conclusion
Thus, we see that the use of a number of useful practices can reduce the amount of digital footprint left by users. As a nice bonus, the user gets additional protection from attacks implemented through social engineering.
Of course, you should not turn your life into running away from big companies, and even more so give up using the Internet. There are many different positive aspects to the digital footprint as an entity, and with critical thinking, most of the negative aspects can be discarded.
Author: Valery E. Kunavin, information security analyst
Security is always a trade-off. If we are talking about personal information security, then we are standing on a segment at one end of which there is a user who connects his entire life with the Internet and integrates all his actions into it. At the other end of the segment is a person who does not use the Internet. It depends on each individual person in which place of the segment he will stand and closer to which end.
It is important to understand that the Internet has turned out to be so tightly connected with a person's daily life (by the way, have you heard that the right to access the Internet is a basic human right? that at the beginning of 2021, almost 60% of the world's population is users of this network.
For about a decade, the concept of a "digital footprint" - a unique set of actions and data that allows identifying a user of a global network-has been haunting society. And if ten years ago there were big doubts about the ability to profile all Internet users, then with the development of big data and artificial intelligence-based data processing algorithms, these doubts were dispelled. Whereas in the era of TV advertising, specially trained people chose the time and channels that correspond to the target audience of the product, now contextual advertising algorithms allow you to personalize the advertising output for each person individually.
Contextual advertising is one of the key aspects of processing the digital footprint we leave, but it is far from the only one. For example, the algorithms used to generate new videos in the YouTube service can convince a person of a certain point of view simply because they will not see the existence of other points of view.
And how to counter this?
As mentioned earlier, the only effective way to reduce the digital footprint is to exclude the Internet from your life. At the same time, this statement is incorrect if we are talking about public people – for example, a teacher who is worried about his digital footprint can find reviews about himself online.
The passive digital footprint (which includes cookies, browser information, and IP address) is quite difficult to reduce. So, if you go online at approximately the same time, visit approximately the same sites, then you will have a bright and characteristic digital profile. There are many ways to" blur " it. The basic ones include the following:
- Use of search engines that do not store search information. You can check the effectiveness of such systems (or systems that position themselves as such) by requesting a purchase of a product and then visiting a site with a large amount of advertising;
- Periodic cleaning of the "advertising preferences" in your profile also allows you to temporarily blur the digital footprint related to the provision of contextual advertising. Services such as Yandex and Google, allow you to control the settings for advertising preferences or delete them.
An active digital footprint (which includes messages, comments, reviews, tags, uploaded files, etc.) is much easier and faster to reduce. It is enough for this purpose:
- Minimize or stop posting likes and comments;
- Responsible approach to uploading personal files;
- Avoid writing reviews.
There is also the practice of creating fake accounts on social networks. These accounts are used for a specific purpose (for example, visiting specialized forums) and therefore leave a less noticeable digital footprint than user profiles with a public first and last name.
Advanced techniques
The strategy of reducing the digital footprint goes hand in hand with the strategy of ensuring anonymity, so many of the methods used by fighters for anonymity are also applicable to reducing their traces.
Randomization IP addresses that the connection passes through
This method reduces the likelihood of profiling based on the user's IP address. There are several ways to implement this technology. For example, the TOR browser is often used to randomize addresses – user traffic passes through a random sequence of nodes and then continues its path from one of the output nodes (node-node of the TOR network). In addition, proxy servers are used. There are many free and paid proxies, and their choice is at the discretion of the user.
Of course, when using this method, the user transfers their data to third parties, so you should take into account the possibility of data leakage.
Randomizing browser parameters
This method reduces the likelihood of profiling based on browser parameters. The profiling process implies that if the user prefers a particular browser, then any site can get a" fingerprint " of service information and personalize the user based on it.
There are a number of applications that allow you to reduce the amount of information provided by the browser as part of its "fingerprint". Some tools also allow you to replace some fingerprint parameters with random values, such as:
- User Agent;
- HTTP_ACCEPT Headers;
- Browser Plugin Details;
- Time Zone;
- Screen Size and Color Depth;
- System Fonts.
In combination with the previous point, the solution to reduce the passive digital footprint works quite effectively. At the same time, accidentally changing the parameters can cause inconvenience – for example, changing the Screen Size parameter will distort the appearance of the site being opened. In this case, the appropriate solution is to use the maximum common window size.
Getting rid of your personal data in the public domain
Here everything is quite simple. The amendments made to 152-FZ in March of this year abolish the category of publicly available personal data and introduce the category "personal data allowed for distribution". It follows that any dissemination of personal data, including the Internet, requires the subject's permission. Accordingly, if you do not have such permission, you can request the deletion of your personal data.
This aspect is partly related to the collection of cookies – currently, many sites explicitly tell the user that cookies are necessary for the correct operation of the site, so they need to be collected and processed. And if the user clicked the "accept cookie" button, then you will not be able to submit a claim. Fortunately, cookies are stored on user devices, so you can delete them yourself.
Conclusion
Thus, we see that the use of a number of useful practices can reduce the amount of digital footprint left by users. As a nice bonus, the user gets additional protection from attacks implemented through social engineering.
Of course, you should not turn your life into running away from big companies, and even more so give up using the Internet. There are many different positive aspects to the digital footprint as an entity, and with critical thinking, most of the negative aspects can be discarded.
Author: Valery E. Kunavin, information security analyst
