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Speaker 1: slash tech Stuff. Hi to everybody, Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: My name is Chris Boulett. I'm an editor here at
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works. And next to me, as usual, is
Speaker 1: our senior writer, Jonathan Strickland. Hey there everyone, Actually I
Speaker 1: probably shouldn't have revealed that. Oh yeah, you've you've violated
Speaker 1: my privacy. Yeah, yeah, but I violated my own first,
Speaker 1: so I guess it's okay, right, And and we're online,
Speaker 1: so we're talking about online privacy. Hey you know what
Speaker 1: that seguys right into what we were going to talk
Speaker 1: about today, right, funny that. Yeah, so we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about is your greatest threat to your to your privacy online?
Speaker 1: Clowns Now that that's just your the greatest threat to
Speaker 1: your sanity online or otherwise? Um no, we're talking about
Speaker 1: actually two big contenders. So if if you'll just permit
Speaker 1: me a little a little uh net cast magic, do
Speaker 1: we do? We need to ring the here we go,
Speaker 1: here we go and this corner we have weighing in
Speaker 1: and who knows how much Internet service providers and their
Speaker 1: opponent in the other corner or in the red trunks
Speaker 1: we've got Google. Yeah, those are the two begins. Wouldn't
Speaker 1: they be like the red and yellow and green and
Speaker 1: blue trunks? Yeah? Pretty much, But I just didn't. I
Speaker 1: kind of wanted to cut it short. I know people
Speaker 1: don't like the hooky stuff so much as I do,
Speaker 1: But so, yeah, those are the two begins. I think
Speaker 1: most people agree that the two major potential threats to
Speaker 1: your online privacy are your internet service provider or internet
Speaker 1: service providers in general and M and Google and other
Speaker 1: advertising agencies online as well. So not just Google. It
Speaker 1: could be Yahoo or but really a double click is
Speaker 1: a big one. But but since Google is kind of
Speaker 1: the dominant uh web advertising company out there right now,
Speaker 1: I mean when we think Google, we think Search, wrote you,
Speaker 1: and I might not just think Search because we work
Speaker 1: on so many other projects that involve Google. But in general,
Speaker 1: you think Google Search, but what companies often think is
Speaker 1: Google ad Sense add words. I mean, it's this online
Speaker 1: advertising that's related to search. That is a very powerful
Speaker 1: tool in the advertising world. Um, but it has some
Speaker 1: pretty serious implications as to the average users privacy. So,
Speaker 1: and if you if you're one of those who only
Speaker 1: thinks of Google is search, and you use something like Gmail,
Speaker 1: if you look to the right of your screen, to
Speaker 1: the right of your email, you'll see ads um and uh,
Speaker 1: that's pretty much the same can be said for a
Speaker 1: lot of their services. Right, you know their texts, so
Speaker 1: they don't you know, capture your eye always, but you
Speaker 1: know they're they are. Yeah, And and here's where the
Speaker 1: privacy thing comes in. Google can track where you go,
Speaker 1: especially when you're using Search. They can see what you're
Speaker 1: searching too. If you're using Google Chrome, they can check
Speaker 1: pretty much everything you're doing, including everything you type into
Speaker 1: the right right exactly. That's how the omnibar knows what
Speaker 1: you're doing, right, I mean, other otherwise it's just magic.
Speaker 1: And we don't cover that in this podcast. We just
Speaker 1: concentrate in the science and texts. So you've got Google
Speaker 1: where they're they're tracking where you're going. And it's not
Speaker 1: necessarily for some sort of you know, nefarious purpose, but
Speaker 1: but it is a concern, I mean it, and it
Speaker 1: what it allows advertisers to do is or actually Google
Speaker 1: itself to do, is to target you for very specific advertising.
Speaker 1: So let's say, if you were like me, um, then
Speaker 1: you may go to a lot of movie related websites.
Speaker 1: Happens to be one of the things I like to
Speaker 1: check out on almost a daily basis, So I tend
Speaker 1: to go to a lot of um, not just the
Speaker 1: Internet Movie Database, but things like chud and aint it
Speaker 1: cool News and dark Horizons and all these other movie
Speaker 1: news sites because I'm a movie news junkie. Well, if
Speaker 1: Google's checking that out, then they can start targeting ads
Speaker 1: to me that specifically relate back to my my apparent
Speaker 1: uh love of movies. So it might be things like
Speaker 1: uh ads for certain DVDs or or even movie clubs
Speaker 1: or whatever. And this again doesn't necessarily sound nefarious, but
Speaker 1: it does mean that what they're doing is they're looking
Speaker 1: at my behavior and they're they're targeting me because of that.
Speaker 1: So there that raises some warning flags. Right, Well, that's true.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you've ever been one of those people
Speaker 1: who looks up at the the banner at at the
Speaker 1: top of the screen and go, wait a minute, that's
Speaker 1: for something in my town. How does it know where
Speaker 1: I am? Right? Well, they can. They can tell from
Speaker 1: your Internet protocol address. They can tell a lot of
Speaker 1: things about you simply by you know, just you're using
Speaker 1: the Internet from where where the because it has to
Speaker 1: send traffic back to you, so they know where you
Speaker 1: are sent right just by being there. And and Google
Speaker 1: tries to frame this as a good thing and that
Speaker 1: what they're doing is they're they're tailoring your search results
Speaker 1: so that they're more relevant to you. And that sounds great.
Speaker 1: I mean, I love the idea of if I'm going
Speaker 1: to search for something, it's gonna really bring back the
Speaker 1: things that I most likely really want to see. But
Speaker 1: that also means that Google knows more about me than
Speaker 1: most of my close friends. I mean, And and there
Speaker 1: comes a point where you say, well, what happens if
Speaker 1: they start to use the information in other ways? The
Speaker 1: whole issue about the putting your your medical records up online,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a that's got a big can of
Speaker 1: worms there. What happens if an insurance company gets to
Speaker 1: access your medical records, sees that you have some sort
Speaker 1: of family history of something, and then decides to hike
Speaker 1: up your rates because of it or drop your coverage
Speaker 1: because of it. UM. I mean, these are just some
Speaker 1: of many privacy issues that that you really have to
Speaker 1: think about. And the Internet has just kind of made
Speaker 1: this a whole new problem, you know. I mean it's
Speaker 1: it's a huge issue that isn't easily tackled. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that's true. UM. Other search engines have tried to to
Speaker 1: do that. Ask dot Com in fact, UM, not too
Speaker 1: long ago. I guess a few months ago now offered
Speaker 1: a way to erase your tracks um as you searched.
Speaker 1: That's that's sort of a help. You could go into
Speaker 1: your web browser and clear your your cookies out, which
Speaker 1: will help. Those are basically cookies are are basically little
Speaker 1: pieces of text that are stored on your computer that
Speaker 1: that help UM. Advertisers and websites track where people are going. UM.
Speaker 1: For example, if you went to the New York Times website,
Speaker 1: they would want to know if you were going to
Speaker 1: the Washington Post, the l A Times, CNN to look
Speaker 1: at other UH companies. They might want to know if
Speaker 1: you shop on Amazon dot com. You know, those kinds
Speaker 1: of information gets sent back to uh the New York
Speaker 1: Times or whomever it is that that's putting that cookie
Speaker 1: on your computer, so you can you can kind of
Speaker 1: do you know, raise your own tracks. So your web
Speaker 1: browser UM and UH Google Chrome their browser and the
Speaker 1: new version of Internet Explorer are offering, uh offering a
Speaker 1: sort of a privacy shroud so that you're searching and
Speaker 1: anonymously theoretically, so UM yeah, so that you can sort
Speaker 1: of mask what you're doing. UM. It's it's similar, I
Speaker 1: guess in a way to uh to tour, which is
Speaker 1: a UM sort of a it's kind of hard to
Speaker 1: explain it, and redirects your certain your traffic, your web
Speaker 1: traffic through servers in other parts of the world to
Speaker 1: sort of hide your tracks. UM. So you know, those
Speaker 1: things are things that you can do, uh to do that.
Speaker 1: But you know, the question is are the sites able
Speaker 1: to track you from that information? And right? And in general,
Speaker 1: cookies don't really let sites track everything you do. UM.
Speaker 1: Cookies mainly allow a website to see how often you
Speaker 1: visit UM, and it allows you to store certain information
Speaker 1: on your computer that makes it easier to load up
Speaker 1: a page. UM, they're not really used to track everywhere
Speaker 1: you go. Although there's a caveat to this. UM. Services
Speaker 1: like double Click, which isn't a web advertising service. Uh,
Speaker 1: they have ads all over the net. And if you
Speaker 1: get a cookie for a double click add on one
Speaker 1: site and then you go to a different site that
Speaker 1: also has double click, then theoretically double click can see
Speaker 1: both of those sites that you've visited, and they can
Speaker 1: actually start to piece together information about a user, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of profile a user based on the multiple visits. UM.
Speaker 1: Whether or not they bothered to do that is another
Speaker 1: question because you have to remember, uh, not everyone's using
Speaker 1: the exact same computer all the time. Like if you're
Speaker 1: talking about say a computer in a computer lab like
Speaker 1: a library or something, you have multiple users all using
Speaker 1: that computer. You can't really build a comprehensive profile on
Speaker 1: someone if it's really you know, a hundred different individuals
Speaker 1: who are using that computer throughout the course of a week.
Speaker 1: So uh so cookie tracking, I mean you it is
Speaker 1: a good idea to clear out your cookies regularly, UM,
Speaker 1: if you want to try and protect your online privacy. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's probably not the most important factor to take into consideration.
Speaker 1: But it's definitely something that you have control over yourself.
Speaker 1: So that's a that's a positive and if nothing else,
Speaker 1: there's nothing worse than stale cookies. Right, let's let's move
Speaker 1: on to Internet service providers. Um, this is kind of
Speaker 1: just really quickly. I mean, well, well, there are several
Speaker 1: things we need to touch on in this discussion, but
Speaker 1: we've already we've already kind of bashed Google a lot.
Speaker 1: And uh and I like, I like to say, I'm, I,
Speaker 1: for one, welcome our Google overlords. But well, the reason
Speaker 1: the reason we uh sort of pick on Google is
Speaker 1: simply because they are uh, somebody that you will be
Speaker 1: familiar with as a listener and uh, I mean certainly, um,
Speaker 1: but also because they are so involved in the advertising world.
Speaker 1: Um to yeah, yeah, I mean they're they're just big
Speaker 1: enough so that you know, they are able to offer
Speaker 1: a lot of advertising and a lot of search and
Speaker 1: a lot of different kinds of products that you will
Speaker 1: be interested in. But basically it's it's anybody of that
Speaker 1: size that offers those services to you. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: toolbars that you plug in your browser. Basically, these things
Speaker 1: are all ways for them to help get more demographic
Speaker 1: information for their subscribers. So it's not just Google. So no,
Speaker 1: that's just the easiest target in that bunch. But for
Speaker 1: Internet service providers, UM, right, there are a lot of those. Recently,
Speaker 1: an associate professor of law at Colorado Law School UM
Speaker 1: named Paul Ohm mentioned that he believed he actually published
Speaker 1: I think a seventy page something page document on the
Speaker 1: issue that he believed the Internet service providers uh constitute
Speaker 1: the greatest threat to our online privacy. And um, it's
Speaker 1: because they can see everything that we're doing. Because technologies
Speaker 1: now exist they allow i sp s to do deep
Speaker 1: packet inspections on their users. Deep packet inspection it's pretty
Speaker 1: creepy stuff actually, so they can really take a good
Speaker 1: look at what you're doing where you're going online. Um.
Speaker 1: And and technically you would call it spying. They could
Speaker 1: spy on you, now do they, Well, that's another matter.
Speaker 1: The point is that they have that capability at this point. Yeah. Now, UM,
Speaker 1: for the uninitiated, a packet is the way that information
Speaker 1: gets sent around the internet. Uh. It may not seem
Speaker 1: like that to you, but in the background, UH, to
Speaker 1: send information on the Internet, a computer requests uh something
Speaker 1: from another computer, and that computer sends it back. Now
Speaker 1: how does it do that, Well, it breaks it into
Speaker 1: lots and lots of tiny pieces. Um I think Mike
Speaker 1: TV on Willy Wonka if you will, But lots of
Speaker 1: little chunks of information called packets, and the uh, the
Speaker 1: computer send that information to one another on various different
Speaker 1: pieces of the Internet. UM, so that you know, if
Speaker 1: it finds that one computer in between is down, it
Speaker 1: can reroute the traffic to another computer. And that's how
Speaker 1: you know, stuff gets from point A to point B
Speaker 1: and back to point A on the Internet. Well, deep
Speaker 1: pack and inspection. We're talking about the Internet service providers
Speaker 1: ability to look at those chunks of information and this,
Speaker 1: you know, can meet anything that you send, any key stroke, UM,
Speaker 1: any password, emails, anything that's going across the Internet, they
Speaker 1: can take a look at and and uh if they
Speaker 1: really wanted to um. And there are many reasons they
Speaker 1: might do this, one being again kind of selling information
Speaker 1: to advertisers so that advertisers can target consumers. So sort
Speaker 1: of the same thing Google is doing in that sense.
Speaker 1: And uh. The question is whether the I s p
Speaker 1: s view advertising as a major source of revenue or
Speaker 1: if they consider it themselves just to be Internet service providers,
Speaker 1: like they're just selling access to the Internet. Uh, that's true.
Speaker 1: I mean in March two thousand seven, UH, Compete Incorporated
Speaker 1: Chief Technology Officer UM David Cancel said that i sp
Speaker 1: s are selling their click streams. Uh, your customers click
Speaker 1: streams too, different people for revenue, so you know, service provider. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I mean there there are hundreds of I s
Speaker 1: p s out there and of all different sizes, so
Speaker 1: it's we can't really paint them all with the same brush.
Speaker 1: But the point is that they have the capability. Whether
Speaker 1: or not they have the motivation is another matter. I guess, well,
Speaker 1: they do have other reasons for doing Deep packet inspection
Speaker 1: allows an I s P to see, um where traffic
Speaker 1: is coming from. They can kind of get an idea.
Speaker 1: They I sps can monitor the system traffic and if
Speaker 1: all of a sudden there's a big spike in traffic
Speaker 1: coming from one place, they might, you know, take a
Speaker 1: look at the packets to see what's going on. And
Speaker 1: if it turns out that someone has gotten a you know,
Speaker 1: downloaded a trojan horse and their computer is now part
Speaker 1: of a bot net and ascending out spam uh, as
Speaker 1: part of a denial of service attack, they can shut
Speaker 1: it down, right, so there's there's a good reason to
Speaker 1: do it. They can they can tell exactly what what
Speaker 1: program is used to do that. Um, so you know,
Speaker 1: if you are downloading torrents. Yeah, actually that's only aware
Speaker 1: of that. It's one of the issues that Professor own
Speaker 1: was was talking about these about things like organizations like
Speaker 1: the m p A A or the r I double A. Uh,
Speaker 1: that would be the Motion Pictures Association American Good Old
Speaker 1: Record Industry. Right. So yeah, these guys, they have a
Speaker 1: vested interest in making sure that that they're that intellectual
Speaker 1: property isn't being freely distributed across the Internet without you know,
Speaker 1: the actual without people actually buying it. So they're they
Speaker 1: they've been known to put pressure on I s p
Speaker 1: s to look into that sort of thing. Um. Actually,
Speaker 1: they've been known to put pressure on just about everybody.
Speaker 1: They're kind of like the the mafia of the corporate
Speaker 1: world and in the United States at any rate. So
Speaker 1: they've they've put pressure, both political pressure and corporate pressure
Speaker 1: on these kinds of organizations, um, to try and detect
Speaker 1: this This digital theft essentially is what it is. And
Speaker 1: to cut it off at the source. UM. So that
Speaker 1: constitutes a privacy concern. Um. And of course there's always
Speaker 1: the concern that the government could put pressure on I
Speaker 1: s p s to reveal information about users. Um. And
Speaker 1: you know, they may have reasons that sound perfectly legitimate,
Speaker 1: like trying to battle terrorism, but it still means that
Speaker 1: they're violating your privacy, which is one of those things
Speaker 1: that the Supreme Court said, ages and ages and ages ago.
Speaker 1: It was something that we pretty much have a right to.
Speaker 1: We have the right to be let alone well against
Speaker 1: unreasonable search, unreasonable search and seizure being a big one.
Speaker 1: That would be the fourth Amendment that would be right there.
Speaker 1: What's funny that you should mention the government because an
Speaker 1: article wired on August fifteen, UH, A T and T
Speaker 1: said that Google was more troublesome than their uh, their
Speaker 1: program to install eavesdropping equipment on their network. Um yeah,
Speaker 1: they said Google's advertising is much more serious than anything
Speaker 1: that that we would do and the eavesdropping network. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, A T and T is the UH the
Speaker 1: target of a class action lawsuit for helping the n
Speaker 1: s A and wire tapping wortless wire tapping issues. So
Speaker 1: so yeah, you guys take it with a grain of
Speaker 1: salt um and uh in um. In August two thousand eight,
Speaker 1: it turns out everyone's getting on the Google's worse than
Speaker 1: we are a bandwagon. And this is not an i
Speaker 1: sp but Microsoft said that, uh, they're actually the Peter Cullen,
Speaker 1: the chief privacy strategists, said that Google's privacy standards are
Speaker 1: not up to part There may be seven to ten
Speaker 1: years behind Microsoft's own. According to an article in zd
Speaker 1: Net Australia. So and and just in case you guys
Speaker 1: think that we in the United States have it rough,
Speaker 1: assuming that you know, for those of them, for those
Speaker 1: of you listeners who are in the US, and you're like, wow,
Speaker 1: this is really tough, keep in mind. In June of
Speaker 1: this year over in Sweden, Swedish parliament passed a law,
Speaker 1: very controversial law that allows a government organization to monitor
Speaker 1: and intercept all online traffic that crosses the Swedish border.
Speaker 1: So anything that's going across the border, this this agency
Speaker 1: can intercept and read and track back to whomever sent
Speaker 1: it or received it. And there's also the fear that
Speaker 1: perhaps this agency may even expand its capabilities beyond that
Speaker 1: and be able to monitor all traffic within Sweden, whether
Speaker 1: it crosses the border or not. So it's it's rough here,
Speaker 1: it could be worse. The important thing is to keep
Speaker 1: an eye on it to make sure it doesn't get worse.
Speaker 1: That's true. And the other thing to to remember as
Speaker 1: far as your privacy goes online is people don't really
Speaker 1: have time to read all this stuff. So honestly, you know,
Speaker 1: before you turn off the computer and and you know
Speaker 1: throw it away and you know, freak out because your
Speaker 1: privacy is being violated, it's probably not unless somebody has
Speaker 1: real reason to. Uh. You know, people at I sps
Speaker 1: and and search engines and advertising companies, they really don't
Speaker 1: have time to look at your personal information. They're more interested,
Speaker 1: they're more interested in you and as a number, um
Speaker 1: than as as a person in your personal info. So
Speaker 1: you're probably not seriously under suspicion and to jump off
Speaker 1: the grid yet. No, but don't forget. Basically, anything you
Speaker 1: do can be looked at. So you know, if you
Speaker 1: are concerned about something that might be for it or
Speaker 1: intercepted and might be embarrassing to you, maybe you're better
Speaker 1: off leaving it offline. Right And if you're interested in
Speaker 1: organ zations that that are very much focused on this issue,
Speaker 1: I recommend visiting either the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has
Speaker 1: some good information on this subject, or the Electronic Privacy
Speaker 1: Information Center also known as EPIC. Both of those have
Speaker 1: a lot of articles and documents on this reports. Um,
Speaker 1: if you feel like you need to get involved, they
Speaker 1: have information where you can look into doing that as well. So, UM,
Speaker 1: it's really up to you. It's better to I think
Speaker 1: better to be informed than not just in general. Well,
Speaker 1: I guess that that pretty much wraps up our our
Speaker 1: cheerful conversation on online privacy. UM as to whose worst
Speaker 1: Google or the I s p S, I think time
Speaker 1: will tell. Right now, it looks like Google's in the lead,
Speaker 1: but uh, I s p S seem to have a
Speaker 1: pretty good potential for UM for mass chaos down the road,
Speaker 1: So cheer up. The world's about the end, right Well,
Speaker 1: on that note, we're gonna take a little break. When
Speaker 1: we come back, I'll tell you about a special place.
Speaker 1: Special place that one might think only exists in fairy tales,
Speaker 1: but in fact is reality. On this podcast is brought
Speaker 1: to you by Go to Meeting, the web based tool
Speaker 1: that lets you hold instant online meetings from your office,
Speaker 1: confidence trim or home office with people anywhere in the world,
Speaker 1: so you can do more and travel less, which means
Speaker 1: you can save money and make more money. Try go
Speaker 1: to meeting free visit go to Meeting dot com slash
Speaker 1: tech stuff. Okay, so what is this special place. Well,
Speaker 1: the special place would be the headquarters of Google, the
Speaker 1: Google Plex. And what makes it so special, Well, it's
Speaker 1: it's got some pretty amazing amenities. Uhwer of them than before,
Speaker 1: Fewer than before, but still pretty pretty amazing. So yeah,
Speaker 1: Google might be violating your privacy, but they're letting their
Speaker 1: their employees swim in in infinity pools. So and some
Speaker 1: free food, some free food. So if you want to
Speaker 1: learn all about google Plex and see where these evil
Speaker 1: geniuses work, you can read How the google Plex Works.
Speaker 1: That's by Hey, it's by me jovin Strickland, and that's
Speaker 1: live at how stuff Works dot com. Right now, we'll
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