Imagine being Mark Zuckerberg, and having exclusive access to the
world's biggest goldmine: Private, and often secret, information about
every single individual on earth.
Even about those individuals
not using Facebook at all, since FB tracks everyone across each of the
thousands of websites you visit, whether you're logged into FB or not,
whether you have a
FB account or not, and capturing much of that data still when your
browser is set on its most strict privacy settings, even when you use
private tabs, even when all cookies and data clears when your browser
closes. Using add-ons claiming to block trackers isn't foolproof either.
Somewhere data always leak.
Your device — cellphone, laptop, tablet, smart fridge, smart television, anything with internet connectivity —
is broadcasting some highly unique identifiers in order for your device
to be able to connect to the internet. Your IP address, and more
importantly, your MAC (hardware address; each device in the world has a
unique number) and several other bits of data. Every bit of data gets
recorded, including the size of your screen (which is why you should
never maximize your Tor browser screen), and all those little bits of
data adds up to form a very comprehensive forensic profile about you
over a period of time.
Online data collection is not all you
should be worried about. FB buys data from credit bureaus and data
aggregation companies about your offline life too. They reveal you had
bought under your real name a laptop, with MAC no. xxxx.
And so the dots connect, with your fake name on FB not hiding your real
identity at all. This allows Mark Zuckerberg to see you missed a
payment on your home loan, which indicates a weak point that can be
exploited for far more nefarious reasons than just serving more
personalized ads to you.
