Verizon Vomits Your Identity All Over the Interwebs
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Apparently if you browse the internet over Verizon Wireless's network, they assign and broadcast a unique ID for you in your HTTP headers.
Thanks Verizon!
Link to test: http://uidh.crud.net
See @ChaosTheEternal's post http://what.thedailywtf.com/t/verizon-vomits-your-identity-all-over-the-interwebs/4305/6?u=rad131304 or @FrostCat's post http://what.thedailywtf.com/t/verizon-vomits-your-identity-all-over-the-interwebs/4305/15?u=rad131304 for articles
I was sent it over the twitters, the source was: https://twitter.com/j4cob/status/525042630124527616 (from the always helpful @blakeyrat)
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Ok, I don't have a Verizon phone, and the link is just a single line of techno-babble. There's nothing about it in Google News, so... do you have a link or something I can read?
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did not receive X-UIDH header.
Such a meaningful article. I feel so enlightened.
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Here ya go, captain helpless
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Why is this a patent application?
What the fuck are we talking about in this thread? Sure, guys, go ahead and make fun of me if you want, but I don't think its out-of-line to ask that a discussion thread have something to actually... discuss in it.
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Here's a completely unrelated article that the link in the OP links to if it detects the header that Verizon sends:
Oct 10 2012: Why you should check your Verizon Wireless privacy settings right now
Here's the actual article that is relevant to the OP link:
May 21, 2014: Verizon Looks to Target Its Mobile Subscribers With Ads
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Why is this a patent application?
What's it like not to be able to integrate disparate pieces of information?
item 1: user 1 mentions Verizon is "vomiting your identity all over the web"
item 2: user 2 mentions a link that just says whether or not you have a header.
guess 1: perhaps the header is what Verizon's using to track you.
item 3: User 3 mentions a patent application that discusses said header
guess 2: this is somehow related.
guess 3: Perhaps the header mentioned in item 2 is related to item 1. Perhaps link 3 explains what the header isFurther steps left as an exercise for someone who's not Blakeyrat.
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I'm with @blakeyrat on this. OP said that Verizon is doing something and provided a bogus link. You provided a link to a patent. That just proves Verizon has considered doing what OP says they are doing. Nothing there about what they really are doing.
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What's it like not to be able to integrate disparate pieces of information?
I can. You didn't provide any evidence to back-up the claim in the OP.
You realize 90% of patent applications never turn into patents, and of the 10% left, 95% of those never get acted-on in any way, right?
A patent application just means some idiot, somewhere, at some point in history had an idea he wanted to protect. That's all it means. It's not evidence that Verizon is doing anything at all.
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It's the link to see if you're broadcasting, sorry. The twitter post I got it from wasn't really much more informative.
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And you aren't even linking to the tweet? What's the username on it, like @VerizonOfficialCommunication or @SomeIdiotInBasement?
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I have to go check my gchat - I don't use the twitters actively ....
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Twitter handle: @j4cob
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Next time, provide the context for the link. Don't just vomit it out.
And, for B*****m's sake, link to where you got the information! Other people like to fact check, and a good place to start is looking where you got your information.
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Nothing there about what they really are doing.
It's Verizon, for God's sake. You should assume they're doing something nefarious.
@ChaosTheEternal posted a link. Here's another, for those who can't use search engines: http://adage.com/article/digital/verizon-target-mobile-subscribers-ads/293356/
Putting it all together, it appears Verizon is tracking you even if you try to opt out.
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Why is this a patent application?
They applied for the patent because of a pair of insane court decisions known as State Street and In re Alappat that caused the US patent office to 'throw in the towel' and allow patents on math, software, business methods, and all sorts of other trash that Section 101 should have tossed out on its ear. Thankfully, the barn door is now closed for the most part by Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int'l; this doesn't stop the 'patent all the softwares!' brainworms from continuing to infect patent lawyers, though.
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Just link to the tweet if that is the source of the informations!
Do you know how much 100% unadulterated bullshit flies around on the internet? Please, engage your brain and maybe do at least 33 milliseconds of verification of information before passing it on. Especially if you're trying to get people to start PANICKING!
Fine. I'll do your fucking job for you.
Looking up that Twitter handle brings up this tweet:
Which, HEY LOOK, links to an ACTUAL ARTICLE from a REPUTABLE SOURCE OF INFORMATION!
Shock! Amazement! It took so many HOURS of labor to do that 33 milliseconds of verification, I can see why you wanted to save you time at the expense of everybody else's. (Although I'm not sure why Google News doesn't index AdAge, apparently? There's a minor WTF.)
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Hell, that link would be better for that site to give than the one it does, because it's actually relevant for what it's checking for and showing (if you're on Verizon) and that article is recent.
So, I went ahead and updated my first post to have that link in as well.
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Possibly because I verified before posting? Nah, nobody would ever do that ....
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Shock! Amazement!
The shock and amazement are that you would actually look something up rather than rant about someone not spoon-feeding you.
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Possibly because I verified before posting?
And I would know that... how?
There seems to be a lot of telepathy in use on this forum today. I hate to break this to you, radIncrediblyLargeNumber, but I do not have telepathic powers, so sadly I only see the words on the screen.
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I already apologized for it, and updated the OP to include relevant information.
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The shock and amazement are that you would actually look something up rather than rant about someone not spoon-feeding you.
I'm more likely to give credence to a post that links to source, as opposed to one that doesn't. Since the OP had a crap link, I initially ignored it as worthless and not even worth my time. If it's not worth the OP's time to post a link to source material, then it's not worth my time to track down confirmation.
Based on his posts, I'm guessing @blakeyrat feels the same way.
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Shock! Amazement! It took so many HOURS of labor to do that 33 milliseconds of verification, I can see why you wanted to save you time at the expense of everybody else's.
I think we have to admit, it worked as a trolling technique.
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Well fuck? I can't edit my posts apparently. Thanks Discourse.....
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, I initially ignored it as worthless and not even worth my time.
Unlike someone else, who decided to rant about it? "I don't care enough to look up more information about this on my own, but I'm glad to screech into the ether about this think I don't care about."
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Unlike someone else, who decided to rant about it? "I don't care enough to look up more information about this on my own, but I'm glad to screech into the ether about this think I don't care about."
Really?
Ok, I don't have a Verizon phone, and the link is just a single line of techno-babble. There's nothing about it in Google News, so... do you have a link or something I can read?
That doesn't seem like a screech or a rant. It was a "Your link sucks, and I can't quickly find anything in my preferred news feed. Do you have a better link?"
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but I'm glad to screech into the ether about this think I don't care about."
Those 5%er badges don't award themselves.
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Unlike someone else, who decided to rant about it? "I don't care enough to look up more information about this on my own, but I'm glad to screech into the ether about this think I don't care about."
The instant I had enough information to look it up, I did.
I have no idea what you're bitching about FrostCat. Based on your posts in the movie theater thread, I'm guessing you just had someone piss in your cornflakes this morning, because sheesh. But tone it down a notch, ok?
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The instant I had enough information to look it up, I did.
Post 3? "Verizon UIDH" is all I googled.
But tone it down a notch, ok?
Says the guy who swears because he (reasonably, as it turned out) didn't understand my joke. You ever think about getting some mood stabilizers?
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The instant I had enough information to look it up, I did.
I have no idea what you're bitching about FrostCat. Based on your posts in the movie theater thread, I'm guessing you just had someone piss in your cornflakes this morning, because sheesh. But tone it down a notch, ok?
Apparently this seems to be a normal thing for FrostCat these days. I seem to recall mentioning this yesterday.
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Apparently this seems to be a normal thing for FrostCat these days.
Really? Hm. Perhaps you're right. I'm going to have to start ignoring him, because his gormless persona gets right up my nose, I guess.
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Really? Hm. Perhaps you're right. I'm going to have to start ignoring him, because his gormless persona gets right up my nose, I guess.
No, you've been HUMO[spoiler]U[/spoiler]R_NOT_FOUND in general of late, ±blakeyrat.
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Well I don't know what the word "gormless" means, if that's what you mean. I guess it is true that I lack gorms.
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Well I don't know what the word "gormless" means, if that's what you mean. I guess it is true that I lack gorms.
Hey, don't accuse me of that one, I didn't say it
It's primarily a UKism meaning unintelligent/senseless and specifically without the ability to fix that situation. IOW, stupid and never going to get any smarter.
This does, I think, not apply to you, though it may apply to the persona you project.
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Did this get moved to Sidebar because I'm TRWTF? or because someone wanted to promote it? Somehow I suspect the former ....
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Well... you should be able to see that in the first post's edit history?
(You have your history set to off so I can't see it, but you should be able to see amongst the 3 edits as to what happened.)
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because someone wanted to promote it
I think this was most likely. But it was @tarunik what done it, so we may never know.
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No, the issues with your OP were a mild WTF relative to Verizon, which is TRWTF here.
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Someone's post violated a few forum proprieties; I think we should have a flamewar about it. Who's with me?
What's really sad is that this is almost two years old, and as far as I can tell has been going on at least as long. I dug up request headers for my phone from my server from back in 2012 and the damned identifier is there. Thanks, Verizon.
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I think we should have a flamewar about it. Who's with me?
The real question: will it be funny?
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The real question: will it be funny?
Only one way to find out. Here, I'll get us started:
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More reasons to enable HTTPS and enforce it's use. I recently switched over some servers to it exclusively(i.e. http is sent to https). CPU cost is 1% extra on a reverse proxy server which never uses more than 2% CPU serving 300 requests/second.
I had to make the switch because a german ISP and a small US ISP were injecting one site with that broke the javascript payload needed for the site to run. So the optimal solution is just to prevent their ability to ruin user experience.
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Thankfully, the barn door is now closed for the most part by Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int'l;
The linked article does not seem to support this statement:
According to The Washington Post, "while the court struck down what was universally said to be a bad patent, it didn't do much to say what kinds of software should be patentable. In other words, the court decided the most basic conflict in the case, but more or less declined to offer guidance for other, future cases."[25]
The Coalition for Patent Fairness, which advocates for patent reform legislation, said "neither the ruling—nor any single act by the court or the executive branch—can do what is needed to make the business model of being a patent troll unprofitable and unattractive."[25]
Professor Duffy remarked, "[T]he Supreme Court has been remarkably resistant to providing clear guidance in this area, and this case continues that trend."[30]
“not a particularly useful” decision about patenting software.[31]
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The Supremes have indeed been rather...wibbly? about giving a hard and fast rule about software patents. On the other hand, it and Bilski do mark a shift in attitude that signifies that the next software patent the Supreme Court sees will likely get a much colder shoulder.
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To (probably temporarily) re-rail this topic: the title is misleading. The ID that is included in the headers is an anonymous ID that doesn't directly link to your identity. It's just an advertising tactic, similar to what Google already does.
So much for @rad131304's fear-mongering.
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To (probably temporarily) re-rail this topic: the title is misleading. The ID that is included in the headers is an anonymous ID that doesn't directly link to your identity. It's just an advertising tactic, similar to what Google already does.
So much for @rad131304's fear-mongering.
Except it's far more effective at identifying you than cookies or browser fingerprinting, and is attached to an asset that's directly or closely associated to your real identity (your phone number). So how is that not significantly worse than most normal tracking cookies?
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To (probably temporarily) re-rail this topic: the title is misleading. The ID that is included in the headers is an anonymous ID that doesn't directly link to your identity. It's just an advertising tactic, similar to what Google already does.
So much for @rad131304's fear-mongering.
Though you are correct. It's not your identity, it's a unique identifier closely connected to your identity.
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And it's one that you can't so easily deal with.