WEBVTT - Web Analytics and Your Data 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:13.720 stuff Works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tex Stuff. 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:16.439 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:19.960 how Stuff Works and I love all things tech and 0:00:19.960 --> 0:00:22.720 in our last episode, I talked about how web analytics 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:25.400 work in general and why they are important both for 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:30.240 people visiting a website and owners of websites and the 0:00:30.400 --> 0:00:35.159 advertisers who support websites and the companies that advertise through 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:39.600 these advertisers. They really help website designers also get a 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:43.159 better understanding of how their users navigate and consume stuff 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:46.760 on their sites and allows the web administrators to tweak 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:49.760 things to make the experience better. So it's not just 0:00:50.040 --> 0:00:53.360 about advertising. It's also about how can I make this 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:58.520 website easier to navigate, more intuitive, more interesting, more exciting 0:00:58.560 --> 0:01:01.400 to use, or more useful or whatever the purpose of 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:04.600 the website is that benefits the visitor, makes the experience 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:08.720 more satisfying one, and it helps the website administrator also 0:01:08.840 --> 0:01:11.560 monetize through web advertising. But now let's get to the 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:15.959 other side of the coin. Tracking information obviously brings with 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:20.920 it some very nasty potential problems like threats to privacy 0:01:20.959 --> 0:01:27.119 and security. Information is incredibly valuable. It is the currency 0:01:27.160 --> 0:01:30.040 of the Internet. You might thought it was bitcoin, it's not. 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:35.199 Data is your currency. And generally speaking, the more data 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:39.600 a company can get about people who are using the web, 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:43.200 the better it is for that company, not necessarily better 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:47.360 for the people, the better for that company. Knowing information 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:50.960 about a person means being able to sell to that 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:54.280 person more effectively, or it might mean being able to 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:59.480 exploit that person in less legal or ethical ways, and 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:02.040 so they out of gathered about users can become a 0:02:02.040 --> 0:02:05.560 tool or a weapon, depending upon the type of information 0:02:05.600 --> 0:02:09.160 gathered and the will of the person who has access 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:14.520 to that information. So ideally you don't have any bad 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:18.360 actors out there, and even if people are gathering a 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:21.760 lot of information about users, they're not trying to put 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:24.680 it to any malicious purpose. Before I dive into a 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:28.119 detailed account of web analytics and privacy, I should say 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:30.840 that not everyone is out to scrape every bit of 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:33.959 data off of users or to figure out the identity 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:37.040 of a specific user. Many analyzes are more focused on 0:02:37.120 --> 0:02:41.800 identifying emerging trends rather than singling out one specific user, 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:46.160 So the goal is not to look at that data 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:50.160 like a browser's history, like looking at the cookie information 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:53.600 and saying, oh, this person went from X website to 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:56.880 HY website to Z website and then come to the 0:02:56.919 --> 0:03:02.320 conclusion of that must be Jonathan Strickland instead. More often 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:06.120 than not, these analytics companies are looking at aggregated data 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:11.040 that is, at least on the service level, anonymous, and 0:03:11.120 --> 0:03:13.880 the purpose is to see more valuable information, such as 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:18.119 rose Gold is so totally in right now, so put 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:21.079 all your rose Gold products on your main page because 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:23.400 people are gonna go nuts. Right This really dates this 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:28.480 podcast because I'm about about two years out of touch, 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:30.840 so it tells you this one should have come out 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:35.040 two years ago. Anyway, this concept makes sense when you're 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:38.440 thinking of big sweeping strategies, like which products you want 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:42.520 to feature on an online stores homepage, or which news 0:03:42.560 --> 0:03:44.320 stories are likely to be thought of as the most 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:47.200 important and relevant on any given day. So you might 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:49.920 look at something like Google Trends and say, oh, well, 0:03:50.080 --> 0:03:54.040 a lot of people are searching this particular term. Let's 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:57.640 create an article about this thing. We can inform people, 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:00.080 we can make sure it's a really good article, but 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:01.880 we can also take advantage of the fact that people 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:06.440 are interested in this idea right now, so it's kind 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:11.000 of a mutually beneficial experience in the ideal. But it 0:04:11.040 --> 0:04:14.720 would be silly to say that no one's interested in 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:19.320 your individual preferences, because that's not true. There are people 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:22.280 who are very interested in your individual preferences. For one thing, 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:27.159 it can help identify what different groups of people like, 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:32.039 so a company could present those different groups with distinct 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:36.279 experiences that were meant to appeal to that group. Right. 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:40.160 That's targeted marketing or targeted advertising. So let me give 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:44.200 an example. Let's say I run an online store, and 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:47.640 I've coded my home page in such a way that 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:51.680 it can dynamically display different products based off the information 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:55.599 I glean from analyzing a user's behaviors. And my site 0:04:55.680 --> 0:05:00.479 uses cookies and JavaScript, and those analyze the are and 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:05.520 it presents the most appropriate products for return visitors. So 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:07.960 when you pop into my store, I happen to know 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:11.599 that you recently started for Star Wars toys because the 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:15.120 cookie information that I've installed on your browser from your 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:19.080 previous visit has told me this, And so I have 0:05:19.240 --> 0:05:22.560 some Star Wars related products that I want to prominently 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:25.360 show to you in my homepage. Now when I say 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:28.719 I want to, all of this is done automatically. You've 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:32.400 got all this meta information, these tags that computers can 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:37.440 use to sort through and select to present what appears 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:41.240 to be the most appropriate products that will appeal to 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:44.560 the visitor. Now, let's say your buddy shows up and 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:46.720 your buddy is not as into Star Wars as you are. 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:50.880 Your buddies like a big clover Field fan, and your 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:53.760 buddy visits my online store and see is a totally 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:57.120 different selection of products than you do when they pop on. 0:05:57.520 --> 0:05:59.880 Maybe your buddy is visiting my store for the first time, 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:02.880 in which case I don't have any for any information 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:05.720 about him or her. I don't know anything about this 0:06:05.760 --> 0:06:08.080 person because they've just come to my website for the 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:12.039 first time. Now, they come there and I decided to 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:16.320 pop a cookie on their web browser, so i'll know 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:18.839 the next time they come through. But this first time, 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:22.760 it's a blank slate. That means that my store is 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:26.680 probably gonna show them a pretty neutral selection of products. 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:29.239 Maybe there will be some of the most popular products 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:32.039 that happened to appeal to a broad spectrum of people, 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:35.839 but they aren't targeted toward that specific person yet. Because 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:39.880 I don't know what that person's preferences are. But as 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:44.120 your friend navigates through my site, I'm collecting more and 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:47.839 more information about what they like based upon their behaviors, 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:51.240 and then I can make sure the next time they 0:06:51.240 --> 0:06:54.200 come to my website that it serves up a more 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:59.680 appropriate landing page for them based upon their preferences. Again, 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:04.000 and I say, I decide this is all automatic. Let's 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:06.960 go a step further. Let's say that you are running 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:10.640 a blog that has online advertising on it. So you've 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:14.080 got spaces on your blog that are reserved for advertising, 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:19.120 and the ads themselves are tracking users with cookies and JavaScript. 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:23.680 Most ads come from brokers who have numerous clients, right, 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:25.880 So let's say that you go to a blog and 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:29.480 you see an ad for a popular soft drink company. 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:33.680 That ad did not come directly from the soft drink company. 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:37.280 More likely than that it came through an advertising company 0:07:37.360 --> 0:07:40.680 that has that soft drink company is one of its clients. 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:44.600 So the brokers, these companies that have thousands of clients 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:48.360 representing all these different industries, can use this tracking information 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:51.760 in cookies and JavaScript to determine what stuff you're most 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:55.480 likely to respond to based upon your browsing history, so 0:07:56.640 --> 0:08:00.520 that means the broker could potentially serve up ads based 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:02.960 on the information to help improve the chances that you'll 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:06.800 find any given ad more useful and click on it. 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:12.280 In these cases, the experiences are personalized, but that personalization 0:08:12.400 --> 0:08:18.000 still is not dependent upon your identity per se. I mean, 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:22.080 it's based upon what you like and what your behaviors 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:26.320 have indicated you find valuable or interesting. But it's not 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:31.240 like that specific data is identifiable stuff like your name 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:35.679 or your address or anything like that. Although they can 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:38.800 at least get an approximation of your address based upon 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:42.920 uh your IB address, so that that could at least 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:47.360 know generally where you were, um maybe more specifically if 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:49.960 you're happy to use a mobile device and you have 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:53.960 location tracking on, or as it turns out, you don't 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:56.559 necessarily have to have location tracking turned on. There was 0:08:56.559 --> 0:09:01.040 a recent story from uh AP that looked into this 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:04.920 and said that Google Android devices would check in with 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:10.840 Google an average of fourteen times an hour, giving information 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:15.040 about location even with location services turned off. So that's 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:19.319 a kind of tracking information that definitely rubs people the 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:24.000 wrong way, very valuable information. If Google wants to serve 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:26.480 up ads to you. That's that are based on your 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:30.839 your locale, but not very comforting if you're thinking about 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:33.440 I'm just carrying my phone around. I don't need my 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:38.000 phone telling Google everywhere I'm going throughout the day. Now, 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:40.640 there are instances where a company, an agency, or a 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:45.240 government might want to identify someone based upon their browsing behavior. 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:48.360 For example, let's say that there's a crime that's been 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:51.600 committed and law enforcement has come into possession of a 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:56.000 computer that they believe belonged to the perpetrator of that crime, 0:09:56.600 --> 0:09:59.520 but they still don't know who that perpetrator is. They've 0:09:59.520 --> 0:10:01.840 got they've up the computer, his or her computer, but 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:04.400 they don't know who that person is yet, and there's 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:09.199 no overtly identifiable information on the computer's hard drive, no fingerprints, 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:11.360 that kind of thing. Would it be possible for an 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:14.240 investigator or an analyst to be able to figure out 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:18.520 the identity of the computer's owner just through that person's 0:10:18.720 --> 0:10:23.080 browsing history. If you looked at the information of what 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:25.840 websites they went to, would you be able to figure 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:30.360 out who it was that owned that computer? Well, setting 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:34.000 aside the possibility that the perpetrator had remained signed into 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:37.839 any services that would link back to his or her identity. 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:40.160 The task would require the analysts to look at the 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:43.080 patterns of behaviors and the browser history to figure out 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:47.120 what had the person had that computer's keyboard been doing. 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:49.719 It's kind of scary to think about this, but this 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:52.000 is totally possible to do. It's built upon the same 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:55.360 principles that were used to support e commerce. Back in 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:59.120 two six there were some Russian analysts who proposed a 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:03.840 method of user profiling that would create profiles of users 0:11:03.840 --> 0:11:08.600 based on their browser history. So you would get shoveled 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:13.280 into progressively smaller groups based on your behavior. So you know, 0:11:14.240 --> 0:11:18.000 initial analysis might put you in one of several broad categories, 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:26.079 but the more specific behaviors you exhibit, the more specific 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:28.840 the groups could be that you would be sorted into, 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:32.280 and that would represent profiles. As word vectors, that's a 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:36.240 method to assign context to words that ties into natural 0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:39.240 language processing. I did a couple episodes on those a 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:42.960 little while back. The researchers use those word vectors to 0:11:42.960 --> 0:11:47.000 create clusters of topics in a hierarchy to determine or 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:52.000 determined by rather user behavior and the stuff that users valued. 0:11:52.040 --> 0:11:55.480 More as demonstrated in their behavior by following links or 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:58.000 staying on certain pages for a longer time, or making 0:11:58.040 --> 0:12:01.080 searches would occupy a higher place in that hierarchy, and 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:04.760 that was one way of identifying users, at least by interest. 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:07.000 Now again that didn't assign a name yet, but that 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:09.600 was a building block towards this. There's a two thousand 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:12.319 seven paper I read that described a different approach that 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:15.800 could predict a user's gender and age based on his 0:12:16.000 --> 0:12:19.680 or her web browsing behavior. The researchers created a model 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:23.840 that relied on users reporting their age and their gender, 0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:27.400 so it's a self reporting kind of thing, and they 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:30.320 would also give up access to their browsing history to 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:34.640 this model, and the model would learn the associate to 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:38.080 associate certain behaviors with respect to age and gender and 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:42.520 draw general conclusions based on that. And once it learned 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:45.840 through this training process, it could then analyze an unknown 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:50.000 users browser history and then predict that person's gender and age. 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:52.840 I don't know how accurate it was. I came across 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:56.240 this information all reading a totally different but related paper, 0:12:56.440 --> 0:12:58.840 didn't have time to track down the two seven document. 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:04.000 By this does lead to the way law enforcement might 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:09.240 use user profiling to identify someone based on their browser behavior. 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:11.840 I'll explain more in just a second, but first let's 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:22.480 take a quick break to thank our sponsor. Before the break, 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:25.800 I mentioned a paper that related paper was specifically about 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:29.760 identifying a suspect based on their web behavior and it 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:34.880 has the title Web user profiling based on Browsing Behavior Analysis. 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:38.000 And in that paper, the researchers describe a method in 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:41.440 which a computer believed to belong to a suspect is 0:13:41.480 --> 0:13:46.800 compared to other computers that have known users. So law 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:49.280 enforcement gets hold of a computer, they know that this 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:52.240 computer was used by the perpetrator of a crime. They 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:54.640 don't have an identity yet, they do have some suspects. 0:13:55.360 --> 0:13:58.040 They don't know if any of the suspects actually were 0:13:58.080 --> 0:14:01.960 the perpetrator. So the goal is to take this target computer, 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:06.880 the one that was involved with the actual perpetrator, with 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:11.559 candidate computers the ones that suspects are using, and factors 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:14.800 such as the specific sites that were visited, the time 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:19.560 spent on every site, the order that the user would 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:22.480 browse the sites. All of these things are taken into consideration, 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:24.760 and at the heart of the matter is the idea 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:27.560 that we humans tend to be creatures of habit. So 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:30.720 here's how it would work. Investigators take that target computer 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:34.920 and they perform a data extraction on the computer. They 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:37.760 pull all the information they can off of it to 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:40.240 get a lead on the identity, and includes the browser 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:44.600 history and browser behaviors, and they analyze this. They have 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:47.920 identified some suspects and those suspects may be using other 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:52.200 computer s access online services, and those are the candidate computers. 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:56.840 So law enforcement gets possession of those candidate computers, presumably 0:14:57.000 --> 0:15:00.160 through a warrant, and they preserve they do the same 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:02.040 sort of thing. They do a data extraction on each 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:07.360 of those computers. Then they process all that information and 0:15:07.400 --> 0:15:11.600 they analyze it, and investigators determine which factors are domains 0:15:11.600 --> 0:15:16.120 of interest, like what what are the things in the 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:21.520 target computer that could potentially be identify irs for somebody, 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:25.240 and they break this down into a vector representation. They 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:27.960 wait each of the factors to assign each one in 0:15:28.040 --> 0:15:32.520 relative importance. So, for example, awaiting might represent that the 0:15:32.560 --> 0:15:36.080 activity on the target computer showed the perpetrator repeatedly visited 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:40.040 the same five websites, so those websites would be weighted 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:44.040 heavier than others because the perpetrator had gone to them 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:48.640 multiple times, and it might within those five websites, each 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:51.560 of those websites might have their own weighting that is 0:15:51.560 --> 0:15:55.160 based upon the amount of time spent on those sites 0:15:55.680 --> 0:15:58.200 and the number of times that the perpetrator had logged 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:01.640 into them that are recorded in that browser history. These 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:06.560 indicate trends and behaviors. Then you would compare that with 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:09.520 the information you found from the candidate computers, and if 0:16:09.560 --> 0:16:13.600 you found one that demonstrated a similar browsing behavior as 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:16.040 the one that was on the target computer, you can 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:19.280 make an argument that the respective suspect may well be 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:22.480 your criminal, then you can consider them a lead. It's 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:27.320 not exactly a smoking gun, but it's certainly says this 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:32.840 person browses on the Internet exactly the same way as 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:36.040 the person who owned this computer, and we know the 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:39.360 person who owned this computer committed the crime, and it 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:42.920 can lead you into a more specific investigation. In two 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:46.680 thousand and seventeen, Gizmoto ran a piece titled Here's all 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:49.680 the data collected from you as you browse the Web, 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:52.760 and it was written by David Neild and I really 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:56.880 recommend checking out this article. Again, it's called here's all 0:16:56.880 --> 0:16:59.360 the data collected from you as you browse the web. 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:01.760 It's great piece. I'm gonna kind of go over it 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:04.560 here a little bit. Neil points out the type of 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:07.520 data your computer can share with sites on the Internet, 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:12.040 and as he mentions, it can include all of the following. 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:15.720 Your IP address. Now that makes sense. The IP address 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:21.280 corresponds to your computer or your router UH or a router. 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:24.159 It's necessary so that a site knows where to send 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:28.320 the data that you've requested. So if you visit a 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:31.439 website your typically you're technically sending a request to a 0:17:31.480 --> 0:17:34.359 web server. The server has to know where to send 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:39.040 that site otherwise you'll never get anything back. But an 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:42.600 IP address can provide information that gives the site owners 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:46.920 a general idea of your location, not specifically where you are, 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:50.119 but generally where you are. Then there's the type of 0:17:50.240 --> 0:17:53.040 system you're using, such as whether or not you're on 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:55.679 a phone or a tablet, or a computer or a 0:17:55.720 --> 0:18:00.480 gaming console. UH. This is what will also typically include 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:04.920 information like the operating system that you're using, the display 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:08.760 resolution on the device you have, what processors your machine 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:12.440 might have like CPU and GPU, and the specific types 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:15.840 like how many cores that how much processing power that 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:19.080 kind of stuff, Which browser you might be using, what 0:18:19.280 --> 0:18:24.040 plugins you have installed in that browser, your devices battery 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:27.720 charge could be part of the information. All of that 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:31.280 is part of the information that that your machine is 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:35.200 handing over. In this exchange, Neild also mentions the web 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:37.400 page that will let you know all the data your 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:41.160 browser since two pages. By default, that site is called 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:45.920 web k dot robin linus dot com or linus if 0:18:45.920 --> 0:18:49.439 you prefer, it's w E B k A Y dot 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:53.800 R O b I n l I n us dot com. 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:55.359 So I went ahead and checked it out just to 0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:57.560 see what would say about my connection here at work. 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:01.760 So it knew my work computer is running when seven, yeah, 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:05.280 I know. It also knew that I was using Chrome 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:09.480 as my browser. It identified the GPU and the CPU 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:13.960 for my computer. It knew what resolution I had set 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:16.320 my screen. It knew my laptops battery was at a 0:19:17.119 --> 0:19:19.639 charge because it was plugged into a docking station at 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:23.639 the time. It identified the I s B my office uses. 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:27.679 It identified the download speed I had available to me. 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:30.680 It estimated my location. It was off by a couple 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:33.240 of blocks, but it was in the general area. It 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:37.560 identified which social media accounts I was logged into at 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:41.560 that time. If it had been a mobile device, um, 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:44.360 it would have also told me about my devices orientation, 0:19:44.480 --> 0:19:46.600 like whether it was in portrait or landscape mode, and 0:19:46.680 --> 0:19:50.199 more information like that. And then yield linked to another 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:54.359 site called click that one can monitor mouse movements and 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:57.600 mouse clicks and how active you are with a site. 0:19:57.640 --> 0:19:59.600 I visited this one too, and it was kind of creepy. 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:01.600 It's just find in a way to actually reveal to 0:20:01.640 --> 0:20:06.040 you how much information is being sent to a website. 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:10.360 So there's actually a voice that talks to you, prerecorded 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:14.359 stuff that's meant to be a little unsettling, and it 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:17.240 sends you information telling you, oh, you just move the 0:20:17.280 --> 0:20:19.520 mouse to the right, you just moved it to the left, 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:22.760 You've sat still for thirty seconds, You've been viewing this 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:26.080 page for a minute. So this is all information that 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:28.600 could be sent to a site like they could actually 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:32.920 monitor where is your mouse moving across a web page, 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:35.760 which again gets a little creepy. Right now, there are 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:39.400 legitimate uses for that kind of information from a website 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:41.440 design perspective, it could tell you a lot about the 0:20:41.480 --> 0:20:45.200 sort of things users find attractive or interesting. About your website, 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:50.679 but there are also potential misuses and legit analytics firms 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:54.439 won't use information to compromise users privacy, but not everyone's legit. 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:59.520 Here's another example. Let's say that you are in a 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:02.520 faery person. Actually, I'm not gonna say that you're a 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:05.399 nice person, you're not nefarious. Let's say there is a 0:21:05.480 --> 0:21:09.639 nefarious person out there, and this nefarious person has installed 0:21:09.720 --> 0:21:13.920 some rogue JavaScript on a website, then has tricked people 0:21:13.920 --> 0:21:17.840 into going to it, and is able to give certain 0:21:17.960 --> 0:21:24.160 bits of information that appear to include compromising information about 0:21:24.200 --> 0:21:28.879 the user, and they're able to contact the user to 0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:32.119 send a message out to that users perhaps their email 0:21:32.160 --> 0:21:35.919 address or something on those lines, and through this method 0:21:35.960 --> 0:21:39.240 of contact, they are trying to blackmail the users, saying 0:21:39.720 --> 0:21:42.800 I have dirt on you because I know that you've 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:46.400 visited such and such website. Maybe it's an adult content website, 0:21:46.440 --> 0:21:50.520 maybe it's a website that's about a sensitive subject. And 0:21:50.560 --> 0:21:54.080 they're able to tell this from the cookies or the JavaScript, 0:21:54.720 --> 0:21:58.440 and so they're sending a message that's essentially saying, if 0:21:58.480 --> 0:22:01.159 you don't cooperate with me, I'm going to reveal the 0:22:01.200 --> 0:22:03.280 information I have about you, Now that may not be 0:22:03.359 --> 0:22:06.880 that they have any real information about you, anything that's 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:13.920 of any real damaging worth. But they're trading on people's 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:18.960 natural fears and and they know that even if not 0:22:19.960 --> 0:22:22.760 of their attacks are going to be successful, at least 0:22:22.840 --> 0:22:24.560 enough of them will be for it to be worthwhile. 0:22:25.280 --> 0:22:28.199 So that's one way someone might make nefarious use of 0:22:28.200 --> 0:22:30.840 this kind of data. I'll talk a little bit about 0:22:31.000 --> 0:22:38.119 some ways that governments and companies and individuals have tried 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:42.560 to protect themselves and others from this kind of abuse 0:22:42.720 --> 0:22:44.880 in just a second, but first let's take another quick 0:22:44.880 --> 0:22:55.320 break to thank our sponsor. Now, there are some laws 0:22:55.440 --> 0:22:59.119 in place that help protect people from predatory use of 0:22:59.240 --> 0:23:03.200 their data. In the United States gets a little loosey goosey. 0:23:03.320 --> 0:23:07.040 There's some state level laws in some places, but obviously 0:23:07.080 --> 0:23:10.800 those apply within a state, not across the entire country. 0:23:11.119 --> 0:23:13.440 There are a few federal protections that are in place. 0:23:13.560 --> 0:23:16.879 In Europe, the protections are way more extensive. The g 0:23:17.040 --> 0:23:19.560 d PR resolution is an example of that, but it's 0:23:19.600 --> 0:23:23.360 just one example of that. So in Europe people generally 0:23:23.480 --> 0:23:27.679 enjoy a better level of protection as far as uh 0:23:28.359 --> 0:23:31.040 their data security is concerned, and there are a lot 0:23:31.040 --> 0:23:33.480 of analytics companies out there that have tried to address 0:23:33.520 --> 0:23:37.320 these issues because they want to know. They want people 0:23:37.320 --> 0:23:39.560 to know, Hey, what we do is valuable. What we 0:23:39.640 --> 0:23:43.000 do actually is part of what makes the Internet work. 0:23:43.720 --> 0:23:47.639 As long as we do it with accountability and we 0:23:47.680 --> 0:23:50.439 do it with respect to your privacy, everything should be 0:23:50.480 --> 0:23:53.080 fine and everyone should benefit. So one of the big 0:23:53.119 --> 0:23:56.919 pushes in the industry is to be more transparent about 0:23:57.359 --> 0:24:01.560 what which data points these rights are collecting and to 0:24:01.720 --> 0:24:04.800 what purpose, Like why are they collecting all this information? 0:24:05.720 --> 0:24:07.800 And it can't just be transparent. It needs to be 0:24:07.840 --> 0:24:10.879 worded in a way that makes sense. It's not buried 0:24:10.920 --> 0:24:14.920 in jargon and legal ease, because then just nine people 0:24:14.920 --> 0:24:17.000 just skip over it and they don't get angry until 0:24:17.080 --> 0:24:21.160 something goes wrong. So being able to explain in blame language, hey, 0:24:21.240 --> 0:24:26.000 we are collecting these data points about people. This is 0:24:26.080 --> 0:24:29.080 how we're using that data. Here's how you will benefit 0:24:29.160 --> 0:24:32.720 from that use, and here's how we benefit from that use. 0:24:32.760 --> 0:24:37.439 If it's completely transparent, everyone is much less likely to 0:24:37.480 --> 0:24:41.920 get upset because they're less likely to misinterpret what is 0:24:41.960 --> 0:24:47.160 happening or to make assumptions about the worst right. So 0:24:47.200 --> 0:24:50.240 tracking in itself might not be malicious. It's meant to 0:24:50.240 --> 0:24:54.280 make things better for everybody, but it's also very easy 0:24:54.320 --> 0:24:58.600