# the social dilemma



## Zeus. (20 Sep 2020)

Hi folks,

Thought it was worth giving the heads up to 'The Social dilemma' which is a documentary-drama hybrid on Netflix which IMO is well worth the watch.

" This documentary-drama hybrid explores the dangerous human impact of social networking, with tech experts sounding the alarm on their own creations. "

I'm not a facebook or tweeter user, but I do (or did) use 'Google' as a search engine. Its quite scary how the AI (Artificial Intelligence) which these free software products use are changing our behaviour by tailoring our news feeds and searches on the web to suit the data it has on us. Which is changing the places we buy are online products and what we think about the NEWS in general.

Its time to make a search on the web a true search, not based upon what some AI thinks is best based on you location and previous searches, There's a reason why these products are free and yet they make Billions in profit a year.

I've switch to Qwant as a search engine ATM,  which is a little tricker to use as it does not know your location so doing a search for say 'Screwfix' doesn't find your local store for your country, its not hard to UK to end off your search, it also means your search results  return looking very different as its not been prefiltered by the search engines AI/Logrhythm which is heavy influenced by the companies that pay the software companies that produce the  search engine.

your call 

Zeus


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## hypnogogia (20 Sep 2020)

You might enjoy reading this, @Zeus :

Amazon product


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## LondonDragon (20 Sep 2020)

We are all sheep in this tech world  AI and ML will guide to make unconscious decisions all the time, it will only get worse! People who constantly use social media have a completely different perspective on most things.
It's even more clear on Apps that send you targeted product Ads you can clearly see that everything you do no matter in which Apps is all being monitored and linked with everything else. Scary times!!


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## Nick potts (20 Sep 2020)

I am a FB user, I also interact with a lot of social media and other things for work (web developer).

While I know that Google and pretty much every other service out there track everything I do, I still use them, just like most people, the ease of use is worth the loss of privacy (if I need something to be private for any reason I would not use these services.). I think the key is understanding what these companies collect about you and how they use it.

Most of what they do is pretty harmless IMO, they see you searched for an aquarium filter for example, so you may see ads for filters on your social media etc. Unfortunately, this is the way the world works and always has, just in the digital age it is so much easier for the companies trying to sell us stuff to know what we what or possibly want.

Of course, there is the potential for data like this to be used for sinister reasons (a government tracking people who don't agree with them etc).

For me, the biggest issue by far with social media and data tracking comes down to filter bubbles, where people are never exposed to views/news that contradicts what they think or believe, whether it is right or wrong, so it just reinforces those beliefs. Something does need to be done about that, as to what I don't know.


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## Zeus. (20 Sep 2020)

hypnogogia said:


> You might enjoy reading this, @Zeus :
> 
> Amazon product




Cheers m8 - added to my wishlist on Audible  definitely sounds a good 'listen' too 



Nick potts said:


> Most of what they do is pretty harmless IMO,



Most of it is very helpful indeed, but we should be able to use say 'google' and turn off the filters the AI is using at least


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## veerserif (20 Sep 2020)

I'd strongly recommend the work of Sarah T. Roberts or Safiya Noble's work on the topic. They're both researchers who have spent their careers studying how tech and the search for "efficiency" impacts our daily lives, especially the lives of people who are drawn into the work of trying to keep what we see 'clean' and above board.


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## Tim Harrison (20 Sep 2020)

hypnogogia said:


> You might enjoy reading this, @Zeus :
> 
> Amazon product



Oh the irony...
Amazon is always at, or near, the top of the results page of every product search I do 



Zeus. said:


> I've switch to Qwant as a search engine ATM, which is a little tricker to use as it does not know your location so doing a search for say 'Screwfix' doesn't find your local store for your country, its not hard to UK to end off your search, it also means your search results return looking very different as its not been prefiltered by the search engines AI/Logrhythm which is heavy influenced by the companies that pay the software companies that produce the search engine.


Would using a VPN and/or Tor browser make any difference ?


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## Zeus. (20 Sep 2020)

Tim Harrison said:


> Would using a VPN and/or Tor browser make any difference ?



Maybe/ dunno no expert on the topic, just had a read about Tor and it does seem to be useful tool. I was hoping by starting a thread on the topic to get others input on the subject who are more well informed than myself, thereby hopefully I will be better informed and have a better plan how to help protect myself family and friends alike.

Collecting data for the benefit of mankind for a better world or health I have no issue with, however collecting data so some AI can predict our decisions which help advertisers and profits, which news stories to put in our news feeds to change our behaviour is morally beyond the scope of which these software companies should be allowed to do


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## Tim Harrison (20 Sep 2020)

Maybe Paulo @LondonDragon knows more about how VPNs and Tor work.


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## kammaroon (20 Sep 2020)

Zeus. said:


> I've switch to Qwant as a search engine ATM, which is a little tricker to use as it does not know your location so doing a search for say 'Screwfix' doesn't find your local store for your country, its not hard to UK to end off your search, it also means your search results return looking very different as its not been prefiltered by the search engines AI/Logrhythm which is heavy influenced by the companies that pay the software companies that produce the search engine.


I've been using DuckDuckGo on my phone for the past year which has a similar philosophy to Qwant. You have the option to enable country relevant pages and location for maps, so sounds like it's easier to use. The results are generally good but I do find Google returns results of more relevance, probably due the high level of tracking.


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## Nick potts (20 Sep 2020)

Tim Harrison said:


> Oh the irony...
> Amazon is always at, or near, the top of the results page of every product search I do
> 
> 
> Would using a VPN and/or Tor browser make any difference ?



I can't see what hypnogogia has posted?

As for a VNP or the TOR network. They can help.

VNP's are mostly used to circumvent geoblocking, but can also help with privacy concerns.

Tor was originally developed by the US navy, it is good for keeping your online activity private and also has other security features built in.

The main downfall with tor is speed, it's great for people who may be risking their lives, or whistleblowers etc, but when I tried it, not so great for general browsing ( i haven't tried it in a while so may have changed)

VPN's can also suffer from speed issues, there are good ones but they cost.


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## hypnogogia (20 Sep 2020)

Nick potts said:


> I can't see what hypnogogia has posted?


Odd.  Anyway, I’d posted a link to a book on amazon.


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## LondonDragon (20 Sep 2020)

Tim Harrison said:


> Maybe Paulo @LondonDragon knows more about how VPNs and Tor work.


Most of the telemetry and data collection happens on the devices on your phone, the VPN is not going to help you on that.
Some VPN service providers do block some of this stuff, but they are more a way to protect your data and hide what you are doing from your ISP or in public networks that you don't know what they are doing with your traffic.

I use a VPN all the time on my home PC (service called VPN Unlimited got a lifetime subscription for $39 for 5 devices, been using it for 5 years now), just because I don't want my ISP to see what I am doing or downloading, and they don't keep a track on it. There are many ways to track what you are doing, analysing the data you are sending, checking your DNS request, most ISPs keep all this data on you. Do I care what my TV is doing? Not really, do I care what my phone or PC is doing, for sure.

On my home network I run something called a Pi-hole, which is a glorified DNS server for your home network where you can load blocklists and automatically block a lot of telemetry and data gathering apps, even blocks ads on all your devices at home, like when you playing games on your phone, no ads for example.

Here is a screenshot of my Pi-hole:






The data above is for the last 24 hours, as you can see 44% of all DNS requests have been blocked and if you look at the top blocked domains you can see it's all to do with telemetry and data gathering via Netflix, Phillips, Social media, Amazon, Windows, Google, etc... 

I then run DoH (DNS over HTTPS) and point my Pi-Hole to my DoH server, which then encrypts all my DNS requests that need to go out to the internet via Cloudflare.

There are lots of blocklists on the internet that you can load into Pi-hole, to block all the bad stuff out there inc porn if you have kids and don't want them to accidentally/intentionally watch that stuff, everyone should run a Pi-Hole.

Also, you can whitelist or blacklist any URL you want, and you can do that per device too! Like you don't want your kids to be on Facebook, log-in to Pi-Hole had it on the blacklist!

I have nothing to hide, but doesn't give my ISP the right to snoop on me either!


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## Wookii (20 Sep 2020)

It is scary when you look at the amount of information being gathered.

My wife and I have been really freaked out in the last couple of weeks. I’ve always had ads popping up for stuff I’ve recently searched for - rightly or wrongly it just becomes normal. You know the kind of stuff - you search for a particular type of product, and then every site you go on that has paid avertising is trying to sell you exactly what you just searched for.

But in the last two weeks my wife has started receiving ads on Facebook, relating to things I’ve searched for. Bearing in mind her Facebook account is in her maiden name, and I don’t use social media at all - so there’s no direct link. Literally we can track it happening - I can do a few searches on, say, ‘loft insulation’ and 6 hours later she’s getting ads for loft insulation.


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## Luketendo (20 Sep 2020)

Wookii said:


> It is scary when you look at the amount of information being gathered.
> 
> My wife and I have been really freaked out in the last couple of weeks. I’ve always had ads popping up for stuff I’ve recently searched for - rightly or wrongly it just becomes normal. You know the kind of stuff - you search for a particular type of product, and then every site you go on that has paid avertising is trying to sell you exactly what you just searched for.
> 
> But in the last two weeks my wife has started receiving ads on Facebook, relating to things I’ve searched for. Bearing in mind her Facebook account is in her maiden name, and I don’t use social media at all - so there’s no direct link. Literally we can track it happening - I can do a few searches on, say, ‘loft insulation’ and 6 hours later she’s getting ads for loft insulation.



I think they worked out she's your wife


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## LondonDragon (21 Sep 2020)

Wookii said:


> But in the last two weeks my wife has started receiving ads on Facebook, relating to things I’ve searched for. Bearing in mind her Facebook account is in her maiden name, and I don’t use social media at all - so there’s no direct link. Literally we can track it happening - I can do a few searches on, say, ‘loft insulation’ and 6 hours later she’s getting ads for loft insulation.


You both share the same public IP address, so they don't know if it's you or her, just comes from the same location


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## Tim Harrison (21 Sep 2020)

LondonDragon said:


> On my home network I run something called a Pi-hole, which is a glorified DNS server for your home network where you can load blocklists and automatically block a lot of telemetry and data gathering apps, even blocks ads on all your devices at home, like when you playing games on your phone, no ads for example.


I need Pi-hole on my system, problem is we all use macs


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## Wookii (21 Sep 2020)

LondonDragon said:


> You both share the same public IP address, so they don't know if it's you or her, just comes from the same location



They are sly bastards, but I'm just glad I wasn't looking up strip clubs or some such 😂


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## LondonDragon (21 Sep 2020)

Tim Harrison said:


> I need Pi-hole on my system, problem is we all use macs


What the problem with using Macs? I have macs in the house too, iPhones, iPads!!


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## Tim Harrison (21 Sep 2020)

You might be sorry you asked. You know I'm a Luddite when it comes to computers, so not sure now you've said that 
I was attempting to use Docker to run it, but either way one of the ports Pi-hole needs is already being used, and I've no idea how to work around it


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## LondonDragon (21 Sep 2020)

Tim Harrison said:


> You might be sorry you asked. You know I'm a Luddite when it comes to computers, so not sure now you've said that
> I was attempting to use Docker to run it, but either way one of the ports Pi-hole needs is already being used, and I've no idea how to work around it


I run mine on docker also  Pi-hole does need a fixed IP address which is not easy to do on some docker apps!
I would recommend just getting a Raspberry Pi (version 1 or 2 will do also and you can power those off the USB port on most routers), just make sure the router you have you can actually change the DNS server your clients get as you don't want to update them all manually


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## Tim Harrison (21 Sep 2020)

Thanks Paulo, I'll have to look in to that, it's all new to me.


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## LondonDragon (21 Sep 2020)

Tim Harrison said:


> Thanks Paulo, I'll have to look in to that, it's all new to me.


What have I started?? 
Where are you running Docker?


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## zozo (21 Sep 2020)




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## Tim Harrison (21 Sep 2020)

LondonDragon said:


> What have I started??
> Where are you running Docker?


Haha...told you. To be honest I don't have a clue what I'm doing 🤪 
I downloaded it onto my iMac. And was methodically working my way through this how to guide https://www.imore.com/how-run-pi-hole-your-mac
Got to the Port Scan bit and discovered that port 80 was already being used


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## LondonDragon (21 Sep 2020)

Tim Harrison said:


> I downloaded it onto my iMac. And was methodically working my way through this how to guide


I see you just running it locally, doing it that way means its not safe to point other devices on the network to it, because if you do and you reboot/turn off your MAC all the other devices on the network will no longer work, hence the suggestion of a Raspberry Pi


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## Tim Harrison (21 Sep 2020)

Definitely look in to a Raspberry Pi 👍


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## hypnogogia (21 Sep 2020)

Doesn't the latest versions of safari have a tracking blocker built in?


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## zozo (21 Sep 2020)

Derren Brown once showed a nice experiment some years back... It's on youtube, but forgot the title...

Anyway, he invited a team of Advertisement Designers obviously to design a certain advertisement theme poster.

When they all were done after a few hours and the poster was ready, Derren went to a board in the room covered with paper ripped that paper off and there already was a poster drawn almost exactly the same as the designers' design. 

They were absolutely baffled how he could predict so accurately what they would come up with.

Then he explained, that he simply fooled the advertisement designers with the very same psychological technique the designer themselves use to fool the public. During the cap ride along the way to the location, they were invited to. He injected/influenced their thoughts with several staged ideas using visual input. On about every street corner, he staged something and knew they would see it and thus injecting a thought or idea that would influence their design.  

He influenced advertisement designers with advertizing and predicted their behaviour...  💪


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## Zeus. (21 Sep 2020)

zozo said:


> Derren Brown once showed a nice experiment some years back... It's on youtube, but forgot the title...



There was a recent show of his in the UK that cover it again 

He is the master of Human behaviour, but he also picks the right subjects too. Love his shows. Two favorites are the Zombie one and the woman thats sees herself dead - Wicked


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## LondonDragon (21 Sep 2020)

hypnogogia said:


> Doesn't the latest versions of safari have a tracking blocker built in?


Doesn't prevent your ISP from tracking anything you do with your connection. Just prevents some sites from tracking what you do and share the information with other sites, also doesn't protect against apps.


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## hypnogogia (21 Sep 2020)

Zeus. said:


> He is the master of Human behaviour


He’s a very clever guy.


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## Tim Harrison (21 Sep 2020)

Zeus. said:


> He is the master of Human behaviour,





hypnogogia said:


> He’s a very clever guy.


Or is he really from the wizarding world of Harry Potter and making his fortune bamboozling and confounding muggles.
Last I heard he was wanted for questioning by the Ministry of Magic...


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## Zeus. (21 Sep 2020)

Once use self hypnosis for studying at Uni for ordering the mind like Derren does - worked well but need lots of practice. This was in days before Derren hit the scene


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## hypnogogia (21 Sep 2020)

Tim Harrison said:


> Or is he really from the wizarding world of Harry Potter and making his fortune bamboozling and confounding muggles.
> Last I heard he was wanted for questioning by the Ministry of Magic...


He’s just making you think that!


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## Zeus. (21 Sep 2020)

hypnogogia said:


> He’s just making you think that!



Well he does say charlatan and showmanship are his special powers in the opening credits - I think  or did he plant it there


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