> A decade ago, when I was a senior in high school, “Jimmy,” a jilted ex-patient of my dad’s, began stalking our family. Over a period of months, verbal harassment escalated to threats of violence and we soon found ourselves accompanied by police escorts for the better part of a week
> ....
> In Jimmy’s case, though, I simply cannot fathom how Instagram made this connection, despite quite a bit of legwork on my part to do so. He is not (and has never been) in my contacts, nor, after searching my email accounts, have I ever typed his name or even been forwarded an email about him. The more elaborate explanations I’ve entertained are nakedly conspiratorial, and so I’ve written Jimmy’s case off as a mystery that will remain unsolved, like a ship sunk in deepest waters.
The author described in sufficiently meticulous detail that Jimmy's location and presence felt through verbal harassment etc were frequently in close proximity to the author's entire family. I can think of at least a dozen clearly non-conspiratorial ways that Instagram has made the connection.
I think the author is living in the same bubble that much of the Internet is in: that the tech companies don't care to track us in the 'real world' and that most of it is still done with tracking pixels or smart-advertisements.
Instagram/Facebook openly use location and photographs to identify subjects and track them. This is no secret. If there is any remote possibility of a person having been anywhere near you for the last 10 years it should be assumed Instagram / Facebook already know about it. Any assumption less than that sounds conspiratorial to me ("don't worry nobody cares to watch you" etc).
here's a possibility right here - google sells a list of potential names a given user searched for, and facebook / instagram use that as a way to try to find connections
> but I haven't seen any evidence that they sell data
It's worse than that, they give it away. RTB (real time bidding) on advertising works by presenting the bidder with a whole pile of info on the ad slot they are bidding on.
So even if you don't bid or you lose the bid you still get all that juicy data.
There seem to be three kinds of parties here, the advertisers, the exchanges, and the websites. An advertiser places targeted ads with exchanges. The websites send bids, potentially with user info, to the exchanges.
I'm finding web pages at Google showing that they run their own ad exchange, and they integrate with other people's ad exchanges.
I don't know how to find out if Google makes bids using any exchanges other their own, or whether the information from Google's bids could otherwise leak to advertisers.
> In Jimmy’s case, though, I simply cannot fathom how Instagram made this connection... and so I’ve written Jimmy’s case off as a mystery that will remain unsolved
Is it really that mysterious? The connection could have been made in the other direction. For example, Jimmy could have had the author's email address in his contact list and allowed access to his contact list to some web site? Jimmy could have searched for the authors name on Instagram (not sure - I'm not a user) at some point?
The article talks about people who are "computationally near" in ways unknown to us. But the unknown is a rich source of myths. It's not really true that there are no coincidences. What is true is that we can't easily distinguish coincidences from something more sinister. Sometimes all we can do is speculate about the spies.
Here is an example of Tweet "proving" that Siri is spying that got 3.7k retweets. I don't believe it (I expect it's in untargeted ad), but can't disprove it.
> It's not really true that there are no coincidences.
Coincidences happen all the time; in fact, you'd need pretty strong evidence to tell that a particular event is not a coincidence.
People aren't being told how reality works in these aspects. A particular person talking about a particular thing with their friends, and discovering ads about it on social media the next day? That sounds like not a coincidence. But a person talking about a thing and discovering it later on a social media platform? With billions of people on-line, with this same 'experimental scenario' happening every day? It spits such coincidences out all the time.
Reading this meanwhile trying this girl to notice me (she grew up with FB and ig I may presumably say that she finds me to be a stranger because I am in monk mode without any social media).
How much do people really use social media to meet people? I am pun intended a stranger to this? (even thought I am your average teen highschool)
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[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 47.1 ms ] thread> ....
> In Jimmy’s case, though, I simply cannot fathom how Instagram made this connection, despite quite a bit of legwork on my part to do so. He is not (and has never been) in my contacts, nor, after searching my email accounts, have I ever typed his name or even been forwarded an email about him. The more elaborate explanations I’ve entertained are nakedly conspiratorial, and so I’ve written Jimmy’s case off as a mystery that will remain unsolved, like a ship sunk in deepest waters.
The author described in sufficiently meticulous detail that Jimmy's location and presence felt through verbal harassment etc were frequently in close proximity to the author's entire family. I can think of at least a dozen clearly non-conspiratorial ways that Instagram has made the connection.
I think the author is living in the same bubble that much of the Internet is in: that the tech companies don't care to track us in the 'real world' and that most of it is still done with tracking pixels or smart-advertisements.
Instagram/Facebook openly use location and photographs to identify subjects and track them. This is no secret. If there is any remote possibility of a person having been anywhere near you for the last 10 years it should be assumed Instagram / Facebook already know about it. Any assumption less than that sounds conspiratorial to me ("don't worry nobody cares to watch you" etc).
here's a possibility right here - google sells a list of potential names a given user searched for, and facebook / instagram use that as a way to try to find connections
There are lots of less well-known companies that will happily sell you lists, though, cobbled up from who knows where.
It's worse than that, they give it away. RTB (real time bidding) on advertising works by presenting the bidder with a whole pile of info on the ad slot they are bidding on.
So even if you don't bid or you lose the bid you still get all that juicy data.
https://www.iab.com/guidelines/real-time-bidding-rtb-project...
I'm finding web pages at Google showing that they run their own ad exchange, and they integrate with other people's ad exchanges.
I don't know how to find out if Google makes bids using any exchanges other their own, or whether the information from Google's bids could otherwise leak to advertisers.
Is it really that mysterious? The connection could have been made in the other direction. For example, Jimmy could have had the author's email address in his contact list and allowed access to his contact list to some web site? Jimmy could have searched for the authors name on Instagram (not sure - I'm not a user) at some point?
Here is an example of Tweet "proving" that Siri is spying that got 3.7k retweets. I don't believe it (I expect it's in untargeted ad), but can't disprove it.
https://mobile.twitter.com/airbagmoments/status/112247415862...
I expect we will see many new Internet superstitions arise as people try to cope with the unknowable. Maybe even new religions?
Coincidences happen all the time; in fact, you'd need pretty strong evidence to tell that a particular event is not a coincidence.
People aren't being told how reality works in these aspects. A particular person talking about a particular thing with their friends, and discovering ads about it on social media the next day? That sounds like not a coincidence. But a person talking about a thing and discovering it later on a social media platform? With billions of people on-line, with this same 'experimental scenario' happening every day? It spits such coincidences out all the time.
See also: birthday paradox.
How much do people really use social media to meet people? I am pun intended a stranger to this? (even thought I am your average teen highschool)