from Hacker News

Europe’s hidden security crisis

by c16 on 11/16/23, 3:53 PM with 16 comments

• by araes on 11/16/23, 8:52 PM

  Anybody know of a way to look up the data available on yourself over these Real-Time Bidding (RTB) broadcasts? (Similar to page 11 of the report) [1]

  It would be fascinating/creepy to see what category ad networks have lumped me into or assigned to me based on my viewing habits.

  "We believe you're a dairy farmer who works in the defense industry."

  [1] https://www.iccl.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Europes-hidde...

• by seydor on 11/16/23, 5:21 PM

  There are easier ways. Powerful spyware targetting politicians is now available for sale. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57910355

  There are already a number of scandals in europe

• by SenAnder on 11/16/23, 8:02 PM

  Repeat after me:

  "I have nothing to hide. I know for a fact that I am not now, nor will I ever be in the future, in a position that a political domestic, foreign, or corporate competitor adversary would wish to influence, or any opinions a present or future government or employer would wish to suppress, because I am an Ordinary Person.

  I do not have, nor will I ever have, influence or access to union negotiations or elections, a vote on the local council to authorize development or zoning, a role in any political party, valuable technological know-how, an open-source project useful for supply-chain attacks, a role in legal proceedings someone may wish to influence or sabotage, access to critical infrastructure like railways, hydroelectric plants, electric supply, water supply, or telecom equipment, or any important military or strategic knowledge, nor do I develop any software that those in power dislike, such as encrypted messaging, file-sharing, ad-blocking, or surveillance-evading like TOR.

  Nor do I know any such people, so I cannot be compelled to influence them.

  I do not do, say, or watch anything my spouse, parents, children, friends, teachers, employer, police, or government would object to. I am an Ordinary Person, and have nothing to hide. I do not worry how my society will change when those who are not ordinary are attacked."

• by guiriduro on 11/16/23, 4:47 PM

  Sounds ideal for child kidnappers, extorters, contract killers etc. Also sounds like the kind of thing that should be covered by an updated GDPR, something EU citizens should be able to easily opt out of en masse, not done on a per-site basis. Close down the Google and MS ad data and tracking factories.

• by tptacek on 11/16/23, 4:23 PM

  The proper title for this piece is "Europe's hidden security crisis". Ironically, the title it has now ("Could be bigger than Cambridge Analytica") is probably less likely to draw in readers, not more.

• by cmrdporcupine on 11/16/23, 5:41 PM

  When I worked in RTB (about 10 years ago), the profile information sent as part of the bid request was really quite low granularity and very anonymized. There wasn't a lot there, just fairly broad demographics.

  With cookie matching and third party data services, you could in theory extend this. But obfuscation of tracking cookies and so on was enforced by the bigger parties like Google AdX, etc. so that it wasn't usually all that feasible.

  Has this changed significantly?

  The various cookie matching and data markets out there are more disturbing to me than RTB itself?