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Verizon Launches Rewards Program -- If You Agree to Be Tracked
Verizon Wireless today announced that the company is now offering their customer rewards program (previously only tested in select markets) nationwide. Verizon's new "Smart Rewards" program (see the FAQ) lets Verizon Wireless customers earn points for paying their bills, upgrading phones, and other routine activities. In turn, users can use those points for gift cards or select Verizon goods and services. The catch: to participate you have to sign up for Verizon Selects, a program that monitors your online behavior for advertisement and monetization purposes.
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aaronwt
Premium Member
join:2004-11-07
Woodbridge, VA

aaronwt

Premium Member

What is the big deal??

If I am going to be shown some advertisements, I would rather they be something I was interested in. I have zero problems if they track my online browsing habits.

fiosultimate
join:2014-06-09
San Antonio, TX

fiosultimate

Member

Re: What is the big deal??

Cue the aluminum foil hat paranoid group, after one lone voice of reason and logic sounds off
gaforces (banned)
United We Stand, Divided We Fall
join:2002-04-07
Santa Cruz, CA

gaforces (banned)

Member

Re: What is the big deal??

Selling a piece of your soul for some silver. It seems to be the theme for a while with all these online company's. You got to choose your poison, or you can take them all ...

Your pc would be kind of slow /:

Nightfall
My Goal Is To Deny Yours
MVM
join:2001-08-03
Grand Rapids, MI

Nightfall to aaronwt

MVM

to aaronwt
said by aaronwt:

If I am going to be shown some advertisements, I would rather they be something I was interested in. I have zero problems if they track my online browsing habits.

Yea, I agree as well. Its not like that isn't around already when you browse the web normally. Unless you are browsing all the time in incognito mode in chrome or something.

ArrayList
DevOps
Premium Member
join:2005-03-19
Mullica Hill, NJ

ArrayList

Premium Member

Re: What is the big deal??

Verizon is the ISP in this equation, they can still track everything you do.
en103
join:2011-05-02

en103

Member

Re: What is the big deal??

Exactly. They may be 'tracking you', but now you have basically given consent to have your information sold.

Typically, everyone is tracked by the following:

1. Geotag - landline is done easily. Wireless just tracks your session through GPS/triangulation.
2. DNS lookups - all the logging is harvested and sold.
3. Apps - specifically more so on Apple/Android/WinPho. Not only does the OS have the ability to track, but the apps capture everything needed... and sometimes more (contacts/emails/locations/)
4. Website/remote site. Apps pretty much give all of this information directly - with your credentials, but on old school browsers, there's less information typically, but more pieces. Tracking cookies, id's, logging info, location. If its not encrypted, your ISP will be capturing this too. Clickstream is valuable.

SysOp
join:2001-04-18
Atlanta, GA

SysOp to Nightfall

Member

to Nightfall
said by Nightfall:

said by aaronwt:

If I am going to be shown some advertisements, I would rather they be something I was interested in. I have zero problems if they track my online browsing habits.

...Unless you are browsing all the time in incognito mode in chrome or something.

Incognito mode is a browser setting for privacy from other users of that computer and does not hide anything you transmit or recieve via your ISP.

Incognito mode is not the same as using a proxy.

To hide from your ISP change your DNS, and use Kproxy.com or google translate; make sure to https

Nightfall
My Goal Is To Deny Yours
MVM
join:2001-08-03
Grand Rapids, MI

Nightfall

MVM

Re: What is the big deal??

said by SysOp:

said by Nightfall:

said by aaronwt:

If I am going to be shown some advertisements, I would rather they be something I was interested in. I have zero problems if they track my online browsing habits.

...Unless you are browsing all the time in incognito mode in chrome or something.

Incognito mode is a browser setting for privacy from other users of that computer and does not hide anything you transmit or recieve via your ISP.

Incognito mode is not the same as using a proxy.

To hide from your ISP change your DNS, and use Kproxy.com or google translate; make sure to https

You are correct that incognito mode doesn't hide you from your ISP. I made an incorrect statement. Thank you for your correction.

Changing your DNS will not hide you from your ISP. The ISP will still know where you go and what you do.

The only way to hide what you do from the ISP is to use a VPN.
Mele20
Premium Member
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI

3 recommendations

Mele20 to aaronwt

Premium Member

to aaronwt
Why in the world would you watch ANY ads? That's stupid when you can easily block all ads, trackers, etc. I wouldn't have a computer if I had to watch ads when I browsed. I have not seen an ad since I first discovered Ad-Subtract which was in beta back then (1999).

I pay A LOT for a powerful computer every 5 years and I pay my ISP plenty of money every month. No way in hell will I watch ads also!

TamaraB
Question The Current Paradigm
Premium Member
join:2000-11-08
Da Bronx
·Verizon FiOS
Ubiquiti NSM5
Synology RT2600ac
Apple AirPort Extreme (2013)

TamaraB

Premium Member

Re: What is the big deal??

said by Mele20:

Why in the world would you watch ANY ads?

Exactly! I don't see any ads anywhere. Judicious use of firewall block-lists, browser plugins, and email spam blocks make adverts a thing of the past.

I run my own BIND so DNS tracking is impossible, and always run through a VPN back to my home network when mobile, so no snooping via DPI is possible. I also run my own SMTP server for all my email, so blocking all the email adverts is a snap. I treat all connections to the Internet as hostile, and all ISPs as dumb pipes.

My Internet experience is practically unchanged from before the commercialiazion of what was once a clean and sane network. Now, you have to either wade through or block the crap to get to the information you want. I choose to block it all. It's all mind-numbing lying propaganda called advertising, I will have none of it.

Eagles1221
join:2009-04-29
Vincentown, NJ

Eagles1221

Member

Re: What is the big deal??


I run my own BIND so DNS tracking is impossible

Oh? so you have some secret wat to get port 53 where the ISP can't see it?

TamaraB
Question The Current Paradigm
Premium Member
join:2000-11-08
Da Bronx

TamaraB

Premium Member

Re: What is the big deal??

ISPs track and sometimes intercept bad DNS queries to/from their own DNS servers. The ones they assign to their customers via dhcp. By not using your ISP's DNS server, you are not subject to such snooping.

Nightfall
My Goal Is To Deny Yours
MVM
join:2001-08-03
Grand Rapids, MI

Nightfall

MVM

Re: What is the big deal??

said by TamaraB:

ISPs track and sometimes intercept bad DNS queries to/from their own DNS servers. The ones they assign to their customers via dhcp. By not using your ISP's DNS server, you are not subject to such snooping.

I will say that you are correct, but the ISPs have something even more valuable than DNS records. They have logs of every IP that you visit. They can do reverse lookups on those IPs and get a complete history just from that.

So people saying that they use different DNS servers and saying they are browsing invisibly from their ISP are not accurate.

TamaraB
Question The Current Paradigm
Premium Member
join:2000-11-08
Da Bronx
·Verizon FiOS
Ubiquiti NSM5
Synology RT2600ac
Apple AirPort Extreme (2013)

TamaraB

Premium Member

Re: What is the big deal??

said by Nightfall:

ISPs have something even more valuable than DNS records. They have logs of every IP that you visit. They can do reverse lookups on those IPs and get a complete history just from that.

The operative word here is they "can". ISPs have no interest in tracking every ip you visit, they are interested in data relevant to security, billing, and selling profile data to advertisers. That is what is "valuable".

They will turn over all your information to NSA if you are a target, but there is no economic incentive for an ISP to keep the vast amounts of data required to get "a complete history of every IP you (and every other customer) visit".

The more you treat your ISP as a dumb hostile pipe, and provide as many network services as you can for yourself, the less opportunity your ISP has to abrogate your privacy. Do your own DNS, your own email, your own NTP .... etc etc.... and your ISP's logs will contain far less data to sell to third parties. We are talking privacy here, not security.

Nightfall
My Goal Is To Deny Yours
MVM
join:2001-08-03
Grand Rapids, MI

Nightfall

MVM

Re: What is the big deal??

said by TamaraB:

said by Nightfall:

ISPs have something even more valuable than DNS records. They have logs of every IP that you visit. They can do reverse lookups on those IPs and get a complete history just from that.

The operative word here is they "can". ISPs have no interest in tracking every ip you visit, they are interested in data relevant to security, billing, and selling profile data to advertisers. That is what is "valuable".

They will turn over all your information to NSA if you are a target, but there is no economic incentive for an ISP to keep the vast amounts of data required to get "a complete history of every IP you (and every other customer) visit".

The more you treat your ISP as a dumb hostile pipe, and provide as many network services as you can for yourself, the less opportunity your ISP has to abrogate your privacy. Do your own DNS, your own email, your own NTP .... etc etc.... and your ISP's logs will contain far less data to sell to third parties. We are talking privacy here, not security.

Agreed, but that really is a false sense of security. As someone who has worked for an ISP before, I can tell you that they keep detailed logs of everywhere you go, and can search those logs. Back then, the database they put all those logs into could be pretty easily evaluated. I can only imagine how much easier that is today.

Don't get me wrong, I do agree with what you are saying. Just that its much easier to pull useful information today from the logs than you are letting onto. The more hoops you go through, in terms of outsourcing your DNS and mail for instance, does make it a bit tougher on them. Still, they can and do pull information out that are useful to various organizations. They did it 15 years ago and they are still doing it today.

TamaraB
Question The Current Paradigm
Premium Member
join:2000-11-08
Da Bronx
·Verizon FiOS
Ubiquiti NSM5
Synology RT2600ac
Apple AirPort Extreme (2013)

TamaraB

Premium Member

Re: What is the big deal??

said by Nightfall:

.... They did it 15 years ago and they are still doing it today.

Well, perhaps. Things have changed tremendously in the last 15 years. I run firewalls in both directions, and today, it is not uncommon to see 20+ browser connection attempts to non-related sites (mostly ad and tracking servers -- bigger privacy killers than the ISP) for every site I visit. The amount of connections we all make today is orders of magnitude greater than they were 15 years ago, and contain far more personal information. Keeping as much of that data behind your front door and away from advertisers (the true anti-privacy regime) is one way to stay relatively private.

How much storage space did your former employer allocate for keeping all this data? How long did they keep it? Now square or cube that number. How much CAN an ISP hold on to and for how long? How much of that data has economic value?

More than 15 years ago I owned and ran a small ISP. Those were the days of shell accounts, text browsers, text-only email (remember MAIL, ELM, and PINE?), Gopher, Veronica, Archie, and dialup connections. Even back then, making decisions about how much log data to retain was an issue. We kept as much as needed to be able to go back and investigate security issues, never more than a few months.

All I am pointing out is that today's data-hungry Internet account holders make far more connections and transfer far more data and types of data than an account did a couple of decades ago. The storage requirements to retain all that data is immense. So immense, that the NSA is building an acre-square data center to house it all, and ISPs do not want any part of that warehousing unless they are paid.

Simply going on the Internet today is an invitation to have much of your personal information divulged to corporations you never gave permission to. I do not see much threat from ISPs, nor the government. I see the biggest threat to privacy from advertisers, and from their co-conspirators the "FREE" email and social media systems which feed them their daily data, and keep their users narcotized to the threat. This is essentially unavoidable. You can mitigate a fair amount of it (not all by any means) by taking some of the measures I outlined.

Nightfall
My Goal Is To Deny Yours
MVM
join:2001-08-03
Grand Rapids, MI

Nightfall

MVM

Re: What is the big deal??

said by TamaraB:

How much storage space did your former employer allocate for keeping all this data? How long did they keep it? Now square or cube that number. How much CAN an ISP hold on to and for how long? How much of that data has economic value?

I really don't remember how much data they had to retain the records. What I can tell you is that we could go back 5-6 months to see what people were doing on their connections. Those records were mined and sold as well.

As for your final analysis, I do agree. ISPs are not a threat, but still they have the capability to do something that some people believe they don't have. Just changing the DNS doesn't protect you. The only way to really have separation from your ISP is to use a VPN and then hope the VPN doesn't sell your records.

TamaraB
Question The Current Paradigm
Premium Member
join:2000-11-08
Da Bronx
·Verizon FiOS
Ubiquiti NSM5
Synology RT2600ac
Apple AirPort Extreme (2013)

1 recommendation

TamaraB

Premium Member

Re: What is the big deal??

said by Nightfall:

Just changing the DNS doesn't protect you. The only way to really have separation from your ISP is to use a VPN and then hope the VPN doesn't sell your records.

Agreed! This is not very practical for my setup. I use a high-speed (100 Mb+ all ports open) off-shore VPN for my main work station when I need it to be totally private. But running my entire network through that VPN is impractical, and interferes with some geo-centric aware sites like Netflix.

Also correct is the fact that running through a VPN makes you vulnerable to the VPN provider. There is no perfect solution. We are swimming in a sewer, and as such it is unavoidable to pick up some stink. All we can hope for is to emerge less stench filled

NOCMan
MadMacHatter
Premium Member
join:2004-09-30
Colorado Springs, CO

NOCMan to aaronwt

Premium Member

to aaronwt
Do you have an issue selling that data to 3rd parties?

Frink
Professor
Premium Member
join:2000-07-13
Scotch Plains, NJ

1 recommendation

Frink

Premium Member

Terrible Rewards

Really don't care if VZ knows what toilet paper I use, but their rewards offered are worthless.
bcltoys
join:2008-07-21

bcltoys

Member

News flash.

They already know.
existenz
join:2014-02-12

existenz

Member

Re: News flash.

Yeah, if they specifically state they dont monitor or record history otherwise then there might be a difference. But they do, all of them do.
Hellrazor
Bah Humbug
join:2002-02-02
Abyss, PA

Hellrazor

Member

hmm

Does the NSA give you rewards points too?

Nightfall
My Goal Is To Deny Yours
MVM
join:2001-08-03
Grand Rapids, MI

Nightfall

MVM

Re: hmm

said by Hellrazor:

Does the NSA give you rewards points too?

I have been getting rewards from them for a few years now. Just yesterday they told me that since I was not a terrorist, I wasn't going to get that one way paid trip to the pound me in the ass prison.

fiosultimate
join:2014-06-09
San Antonio, TX

fiosultimate

Member

Re: hmm

Darn I thought I was the only one that didnt get the special invite

ArrayList
DevOps
Premium Member
join:2005-03-19
Mullica Hill, NJ

ArrayList to Nightfall

Premium Member

to Nightfall
I hear that place has some great c*ckmeat sandwiches

fiosultimate
join:2014-06-09
San Antonio, TX

fiosultimate

Member

Re: hmm

Its actually byob, so u have to pick a buddy to tag along

CosmicDebri
Still looking for intelligent life
join:2001-09-01
Lake City, FL

CosmicDebri

Member

Doesn't matter

It doesn't matter, Verizon will track you anyway, you just won't get the crappy 'rewards' unless yo ask nicely, and then they can use that data to support their claims that customers are asking for this service and have semi not made up numbers to show.
AmericanMan
Premium Member
join:2013-12-28
united state

AmericanMan

Premium Member

Surprised it's not opt-out...

Wouldn't a program like this normally be opt-out not opt-in? I'm surprised...

Camelot One
MVM
join:2001-11-21
Bloomington, IN

Camelot One

MVM

Re: Surprised it's not opt-out...

said by AmericanMan:

Wouldn't a program like this normally be opt-out not opt-in? I'm surprised...

The tracking is (can't) opt-out, the getting something in return is what they have now made opt-in.

TamaraB
Question The Current Paradigm
Premium Member
join:2000-11-08
Da Bronx
·Verizon FiOS
Ubiquiti NSM5
Synology RT2600ac
Apple AirPort Extreme (2013)

TamaraB

Premium Member

Re: Surprised it's not opt-out...

said by Camelot One:

The tracking is (can't) opt-out .....

Of course you can. Connecting your device via a VPN essentially makes your connection invisible (encrypted) to whichever provider you are connected to. Every mobile device I have used recently has the ability to use a VPN.

There are many VPN providers out there, some free, some for pay, but IMHO the best VPN is one you set up yourself. I have a server on my home network which provides VPN. So, when mobile, I am always "at home" using my home IP and my home firewall. No tracking, no snooping, and no ads, just a clean connection.

What technology taketh away, technology can restore.

•••

Noah Vail
Oh God please no.
Premium Member
join:2004-12-10
SouthAmerica

1 recommendation

Noah Vail

Premium Member

It's above board. Now lets make it honorable.

Verizon has learned from tracking-program disasters and is making good choices here.

Such as:
Vz advertised the program instead of hiding it.
It's Opt-In
Users are compensated for the data they generate.

That's exactly what Verizon should be do.

Well, mostly. What's left?

Vz needs to be fully transparent about:
What is being tracked,
How it's being tracked,
Who is getting the data and
The responsible limits Vz is imposing on it's use.

This program becomes honorable(ish) when all that information
is just as available to the participants
as are the reward details.
tmc8080
join:2004-04-24
Brooklyn, NY

tmc8080

Member

tale of two monopolists

att at least is going to offer gigabit symmetrical internet for $70..
Verizon? $10 a gigabyte of data... and plenty of additional fees first..
Very generous.. I bet Verizon beat ATT to market on this one. Maybe after 1000 gallons of gas purchased at exxon mobil they can toss you a free month of wireless service...
chances14
join:2010-03-03
Michigan

chances14

Member

Still only avaliable in select markets

according to their FAQ
quote:
Where is Verizon Smart Rewards available?

Verizon Smart Rewards is available in the following areas at this time:

Arkansas
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Washington
Northern Idaho
Northern Mississippi
Western Tennessee
I live in michigan and tried to sign up for it but it said it wasn't available at this time. But that didn't stop them from enrolling me in verizon selects anyways.

WHT
join:2010-03-26
Rosston, TX

WHT

Member

Catch or Condition

said by Karl Bode:

The catch: to participate you have to sign up for Verizon Selects, a program that monitors your online behavior for advertisement and monetization purposes.

Catch carries a negative connotation - and perhaps it could be argued that way - but condition is a better fit for an agreed exchange of values.

While having web browsing habits tracked has sounds creepy, I really don't care if I'm tracked. No...it's not that I have "nothing to hide, nothing to fear", I just don't give a flying rat's ass.

Gotta run - I got messages from my Grindr and Jack'd apps. Ha!
broadbandmav
join:2014-01-08
New Rochelle, NY

broadbandmav

Member

Rewards

Is there a reward for less throttling of Youtube/Netflix?

NJxxxJon
2 0 1 7 Mmm Here We go man!
Premium Member
join:2005-10-22

NJxxxJon

Premium Member

Gift Card

I was sent a 10 dollar gift card for dunkin donuts.
Nothing crazy exciting.
iknow_t
join:2012-05-03

iknow_t

Member

A reason for not being tracked

some of you think it's no big deal, but this is an example of why some would not like the idea of someone keeping tabs on what they do. this is one example. »news.msn.com/us/snowden- ··· photos-1