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Introduction
Security is always a compromise. If we are talking about the information security of an individual, then we are standing on a segment, at one end of which there is a user who connects his whole life with the Internet and integrates all his actions into it. At the other end of the segment there is a person who does not use the Internet. It depends on each specific person in what 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 closely 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 are users of this network.
For about ten years, society has been haunted by the concept of a "digital footprint" - a unique set of actions and data that allow identifying a user of the global network. And if ten years ago there were big doubts about the profiling abilities of all Internet users, then with the development of big data and data processing algorithms based on artificial intelligence, these doubts have disappeared. If in the era of television advertising specially trained people selected the time and channels that corresponded to the target audience of the product, now contextual advertising algorithms make it possible to personalize the advertising output for each person individually.
Contextual advertising is one of the key manifestations of processing the digital footprint we leave, but far from the only one. For example, the algorithms for issuing new videos on the YouTube service can convince a person of any point of view simply because he will not see the existence of other points of view.
How to resist this?
As stated earlier, the only effective way to reduce your digital footprint is to eliminate the Internet from your life. At the same time, this statement is incorrect when it comes to public people - for example, a teacher who is worried about his digital footprint can find reviews about himself online.
Passive digital footprint (this includes cookies, browser information, IP address) is difficult to reduce. So, if you go online at about the same time, visit approximately the same sites, then you will have a bright and distinctive digital profile. There are many ways to “blur” it. The basic ones include the following:
An active digital footprint (this includes messages, comments, reviews, flags, uploaded files, etc.) is much easier and faster to shorten. For this it is enough:
Advanced techniques
The digital footprint reduction strategy goes side by side with the anonymity strategy, so many of the methods used by anonymity campaigners are applicable to reducing their footprints.
Randomization of IP-addresses through which the connection passes
This method reduces the likelihood of profiling based on the visitor's IP address. There are several ways to implement this technology. So, 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 is a TOR network node). In addition, proxy servers are used. There are many free and paid proxies, their choice is at the discretion of the user.
Of course, when using this method, the user transfers his data to third parties, so it is worth taking into account the possibility of data leakage.
Randomizing browser settings
This method reduces the likelihood of profiling based on browser settings. The profiling process implies that if the user prefers a certain browser, then any site can get a "fingerprint" of service information and, on its basis, personalize the user.
There are a number of applications that can reduce the amount of information provided by the browser as part of its "fingerprint". Some tools also allow you to replace some parameters of the "fingerprint" with random values, such as:
Getting rid of personal data in the public domain
Everything is quite simple here. Changes made this year abolish the category of publicly available personal data and introduce the category of “personal data permitted for dissemination”. It follows from this that any dissemination of personal data, including the Internet, requires the permission of the subject. Accordingly, if there is no such permission, you can request the deletion of your personal data.
This aspect is partially related to the collection of cookies - nowadays, many sites directly 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 pressed the "accept cookie" button, then the claim will no longer be possible. Fortunately, cookies are stored on the user's devices, so you can delete them yourself.
Conclusion
Thus, we see that the application of a number of good practices can reduce the amount of digital footprint left by users. As a nice bonus, the user gets additional protection against attacks implemented through social engineering.
Of course, you should not turn your life into a rush from big companies, and even more so, refuse to use the Internet. The digital footprint as an entity has many different positive manifestations, and with critical thinking, most negative manifestations can be discarded.
Author: Valery Kunavin, Information Security Analyst
Security is always a compromise. If we are talking about the information security of an individual, then we are standing on a segment, at one end of which there is a user who connects his whole life with the Internet and integrates all his actions into it. At the other end of the segment there is a person who does not use the Internet. It depends on each specific person in what 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 closely 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 are users of this network.
For about ten years, society has been haunted by the concept of a "digital footprint" - a unique set of actions and data that allow identifying a user of the global network. And if ten years ago there were big doubts about the profiling abilities of all Internet users, then with the development of big data and data processing algorithms based on artificial intelligence, these doubts have disappeared. If in the era of television advertising specially trained people selected the time and channels that corresponded to the target audience of the product, now contextual advertising algorithms make it possible to personalize the advertising output for each person individually.
Contextual advertising is one of the key manifestations of processing the digital footprint we leave, but far from the only one. For example, the algorithms for issuing new videos on the YouTube service can convince a person of any point of view simply because he will not see the existence of other points of view.
How to resist this?
As stated earlier, the only effective way to reduce your digital footprint is to eliminate the Internet from your life. At the same time, this statement is incorrect when it comes to public people - for example, a teacher who is worried about his digital footprint can find reviews about himself online.
Passive digital footprint (this includes cookies, browser information, IP address) is difficult to reduce. So, if you go online at about the same time, visit approximately the same sites, then you will have a bright and distinctive 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 the purchase of some product and then visiting a site with a lot of advertising;
- Periodically cleaning up the "advertising preferences" in your profile also allows you to temporarily blur the digital footprint related to PPC delivery. Services such as Yandex and Google allow you to manage or delete a user's ad preferences settings.
An active digital footprint (this includes messages, comments, reviews, flags, uploaded files, etc.) is much easier and faster to shorten. For this it is enough:
- Minimize or stop liking and writing comments;
- Responsibly approach uploading personal files;
- Exclude writing reviews.
Advanced techniques
The digital footprint reduction strategy goes side by side with the anonymity strategy, so many of the methods used by anonymity campaigners are applicable to reducing their footprints.
Randomization of IP-addresses through which the connection passes
This method reduces the likelihood of profiling based on the visitor's IP address. There are several ways to implement this technology. So, 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 is a TOR network node). In addition, proxy servers are used. There are many free and paid proxies, their choice is at the discretion of the user.
Of course, when using this method, the user transfers his data to third parties, so it is worth taking into account the possibility of data leakage.
Randomizing browser settings
This method reduces the likelihood of profiling based on browser settings. The profiling process implies that if the user prefers a certain browser, then any site can get a "fingerprint" of service information and, on its basis, personalize the user.
There are a number of applications that can reduce the amount of information provided by the browser as part of its "fingerprint". Some tools also allow you to replace some parameters of the "fingerprint" with random values, such as:
- User Agent;
- HTTP_ACCEPT Headers;
- Browser Plugin Details;
- Time Zone;
- Screen Size and Color Depth;
- System Fonts.
Getting rid of personal data in the public domain
Everything is quite simple here. Changes made this year abolish the category of publicly available personal data and introduce the category of “personal data permitted for dissemination”. It follows from this that any dissemination of personal data, including the Internet, requires the permission of the subject. Accordingly, if there is no such permission, you can request the deletion of your personal data.
This aspect is partially related to the collection of cookies - nowadays, many sites directly 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 pressed the "accept cookie" button, then the claim will no longer be possible. Fortunately, cookies are stored on the user's devices, so you can delete them yourself.
Conclusion
Thus, we see that the application of a number of good practices can reduce the amount of digital footprint left by users. As a nice bonus, the user gets additional protection against attacks implemented through social engineering.
Of course, you should not turn your life into a rush from big companies, and even more so, refuse to use the Internet. The digital footprint as an entity has many different positive manifestations, and with critical thinking, most negative manifestations can be discarded.
Author: Valery Kunavin, Information Security Analyst
